all you want to know about mimi kato » Life

Cleveland Ohio, our new home

admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:32:08 +0000

Good bye Huntsville Alabama. Hello Cleveland Ohio, our new home! New chapter begins!

MacDowell Colony 7/13 – 9/7: Part 3

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:00:54 +0000

OK. The last thing I want to mention about MacDowell colony is the core of the residency. It is about fellow artists. Through this residency, I met incredible visual artists, writers, composers, a choreographer, film makers, an opera singer, and architects. And it is these people who made the residency incredibly rich and valuable to me.
I had so many incredible exchanges and conversations with fellow residents. We discussed ideas of works, talked about our passions to create and exchanged experiences of our lives. My work and my thinking process have actually changed during this residency. Best of all, I could sit in many presentations/performances of fellow residents and these performances are incredible. Some performance literally left me shedding tears as physical response. Getting know these people and having them as life long friends are the best thing happened to me this summer. I want to go back to MacDowell colony again in the future, period.

My entry to a NFE tombstone

MacDowell Colony 7/13 – 9/7 : Part 2

admin — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 05:20:42 +0000

Studios/cabins at the colony are incredible as I mentioned in the previous post, but also the food at the colony worth a new blog entry. It starts from the breakfast even though I only made it for few times. If you come to the Colony Hall by 8:30, you can request hot breakfast. All the egg entry came from the chickens which stationed at the colony during the months of summer. Lot of vegetables and herbs came from the beautiful garden outside.

chickens contributed eggs

When you are working in the studio, lunch could be a very exciting thing. Between 11:30 – 12:30, lunch is delivered at our door step by Blake. Blake has been working for MacDowell for more than 25 years, taking care of artists’ needs, lunch delivery and anything that needs to be done. He knows every stories and history of MacDowell / Peterborough and always the conversations with Blake are longed by many artists. He always brings joys to you (not only because of lunch but because of him as Blake). I heard so much about lunch basket even before I arrived, and every time I opened it, it was a pure joy.

My NEF basket

OPEN!

Surprise!

Ahhh Zuchini pizza

Dinner is served at 6:30 at Colony Hall. The colonists start showing up around 6:00 and sit outside to share the work they did that day or anything. Since we are spending most of the day by ourselves, we are so ready to talk and hang out with others, sharing experiences, life and works. Because we eat together every night, even though residency is such a short time, we got to know each other pretty well. When the dinner bell rings, dinner is served. It is served as family style and feel really like home. And, of course, food is just amazing.

Colony hall right before dinner

dining hall

>>Continue to part 3

Updates of my drifting life

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:12:02 +0000

It is hard to keep track of how many times I moved for past 3 years. San Antonio > St. Louis > Japan > Roswell, New Mexico > St. Louis > Japan > Albion, Michigan > St. Louis > San Antonio. I finally settled down in San Antonio about a month ago. I got luck with studios for all these times, but now I am working in one bedroom apartment.

Still trying to finish “One Morning” from One Day Series. For this series, I will make one more “One Evening” to finish this series. When it is done, it will be three triptych (9 panels) work. The viewer will see the shift of the time in each triptych starting from morning, afternoon and evening with activities and life of people in ordinary town in Japan. I got a residency this summer at MacDowell Colony where I am planning to complete shooting all figures in this work. Hopefully whole project will complete this fall.

Hometown

admin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:58:34 +0000

I finally came back to my hometown, Nara, to visit my family after spending a year and half in Roswell. Coming back to Japan is always more shocking to me than going back to America. I already know what to expect since I lived here for twenty some years. However, time spent in America always screws up my sense. Especially coming back from Roswell (the huge desert land with nothing to block the sight), Japan seemed a miniature fairy land to me. Everything is tiny and all the building stand ridiculously close to each other. It seems like there is no rules in town about building code and everyone seems to do whatever they want to do to their buildings. They have their own aesthetics to decorate their house, which conflict with one with the neighbors. Everything looks very cluttered and lacks harmony as whole. I used to hate it, but now I am actually enjoying looking at it and liking it.

Bye Bye Roswell

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:09:18 +0000

Roswell, New Mexico…. I was there for about 15 months since Feburary 2008. It was an incredible time at Roswell Artist in Residency Program. My friend Renee told me that I was the only Japanese woman she knew who truly loved desert…. I really did feel like I was from that climate. Especially working with Hubbits project, I got to know the area and nature around Roswell so much. I knew every single dirt road in Roswell area. I knew where I can go to find particular plants and minerals… I knew where I could find dead cows….seriously. I felt like I owned the whole land… I do and will miss the landscape.

Here is the view from my back porch.

Thank you for everyone I met during my residency. It was such a great time and I will miss you all!! I have no idea where this experience leads me to, but I am looking forward to what I will make in the future. Roswell, please take care of Hubbits… they are still out there living secretly.

Finally empty studio

Furgie the cat

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:39:47 +0000

Furgie ( I am not sure how to spell her name) is a cat owned by the director of the residency, Steven. She roams around the compound to make sure if everything is in place, checks everyone’s window and always talks to us. Yes, she talks a lot in loud voice…. She also like to hang on window screen to check inside of house…

She is more like a dog than a cat and always follow steven for walk. She is so cute…. but it was a big mistake that I fed her…. She never leave me alone since then…

Furgie the cat

Another bitterlake sunset

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:23:23 +0000

So this time, we went back with all the equipments we needed to observe birds, such as egg sandwitch, egg nog, and binocular. It was probably the best sunset of the year. Amazingly beautiful.

Bitter Lake Sunset

The air looked pink and more birds than last time. The bird we wanted to see was the sand hill craine. They are the one frying in V-shape. Very big beautiful gray bird.

sand hill craine

After observing the birds by drinking egg nog, we decided to drive the path around the park. And see what we found.

Porcupine!!

He sure did look pointy.

halloween

admin — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:57:44 +0000

So here is our pumpkin lantern.

Hubbit-o-lantern

The Hubbits are coming.

Birds are back

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:30:23 +0000

I have been hearing loud noises coming from the sky recently. Today I went out to find out and it was at least 40 birds flying in perfect V-shape heading toward the Bitter lake. Yes, the birds are back! I came to Roswell at the end of January which was too late to see these migratory birds and I have been looking forward to seeing them. I heard that the birds come into the lake close to sunset, so Jimmy and I went to Bitter Lake wildlife refuge to see them flying in.

sunset and birds

We watched for a while and the bird traffic seemed to last forever. It was amazing to see birds flying in a V-shape. I have never seen these birds fly and I was impressed to see them take turns to be in different positions in the same V. Also when groups meet, some birds depart the original group and join the new one. Why is that? Because each group flies at a different speed or member birds are cooler in some groups? Or do they ever think? I wanted to stay and watch them but the sun went down and it started to get cold so we left. Next time I am coming back with hot coco and a blanket.