all you want to know about mimi kato

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!

Good Citizen Show

admin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:30:07 +0000

Thank you all who came to see the show at Good Citizen Gallery in St. Louis MO! And thank you all for purchasing bunny buttons to support Japan. All the money from button sale has been donated to individuals who were affected by 3/11 Earthquake and Tunami through Japan Red Cross. Thank you for your support!

Here are some photos from the show taken by Andrew, the owner of Good Citizen Gallery. Thank you, Andrew and Amanda, for the opportunity and support!

Bunny Buttons

Four Seasosn

One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary town

Nowhere near here

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:39:12 +0000

I went to Houston last weekend to attend the opening of “Nowhere near here” exhibition at Fotofest. Thank you Michelle and Toby to include me in the show, and thank you Jennifer, Annie, Bevin and all the staff at Fotofest and HCP to accommodate me. The show looked great. Since I have never seen this work printed and installed, I was a bit worried before arriving to the venue. I ordered the print job at Hare and Hound Press at San Antonio and I just have to say that they did much better job than I could do myself. Thank you Gary at Hare and Hound Press!

Many people came to the opening and I had incredible conversations with other artists and the visitors. I also got to hang out with David and Krista who I was with at Roswell residency and Mari Omori who is my dear Japanese artist friend. I miss Texas art scene a lot. Houston always give me art fix.

Nowhere near here: New lens based work from Texas

admin — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 03:58:12 +0000

My most recent work I did at the MacDowell Colony in last summer will be exhibited first time at Fotofest in Houston. The show opens March 10th and will run through April 24th. This show is curated by Toby Kamps and Michelle White from the Menil Collection. Here is the list of all the artists in the show.

Chris Akin
Adam Boley
Logan Caldbeck
Santiago Forero
Mimi Kato
Ivete Lucas and Otis Ike
Wura-Natasha Ogunji
Nancy Newberry
Mike Osborne
Walker Pickering
David Politzer
Kelly Sears
Clarissa Tossin

One of the artist, David Politzer, was also at Roswell Artist in Residency Program with me in 2008. The opening is on March 10th, from 6 – 9pm. If you are free on Thursday night in Houston on March 10th, please stop by. I will be there.

New work uploaded!

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:04:50 +0000

Please see the new work uploaded on this site. Go to work, click on “One ordinary day of an ordinary town”. These images are from a work I worked during my MacDowell residency.

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

MacDowell Colony 7/13 – 9/7 : Part 1

admin — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:05:21 +0000

I don’t know where to start. I just have to say that what I experienced this summer was something magical. Something that I will never forget for my life time.

I was in the woods for eight weeks at MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. MacDowell colony is truly a jewel of the world. This is an artist colony that founded in 1907 by Marian and Edward MacDowell. During the period of the residency, we are guaranteed the time of creative freedom with absolute quietness and no disturbance. No one can visit your studio without your invitation. You are surrounded by the incredible green light and sound created by the woods. I have never known that there are so many sounds in the woods. And same time, I have never known what the absolute silence was.

MacDowell colony provides individual artist (visual artist, writer, composer, interdisciplinary artist, and architect) with a cabin that fulfill the need of the project. I was in NEF studio which is one of their few live-in studio. NEF is a photographer’s studio which provides almost all the needs in this medium including a large shooting space and darkroom.

NEF studio

NEF Studio : view from main windows

NEF Studio : view of the shooting space from the sleeping loft, darkroom locates at the other side of the door

I have been working on the series of images that are actually continuous series of “One Afternoon”. The working title “One day series” is a nine panel piece that critically depicts the activity and life style of people throughout the day. “One Afternoon” will be the center three panels and morning panels will be on its left and evening panels will be on its right. When it is done, it will be 78″ x 32′. The largest piece of mine. I worked on morning panels in Michigan, and I wanted to finish shooting the figures of all nine panels at MacDowell. And NEF did provide me time and a space for it. I still do need to work on this project, but I basically could finish almost all the basic shooting at NEF studio. Hopefully the piece will be completed in this year. Keep checking for images of the brand new work to come on this site.

Continue to Part 2 >>

David Shelton Gallery Show

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:53:21 +0000

The show will come down on this Saturday. If you get a chance, please go see it. I grantee that you will enjoy it. Here is some pictures from opening and installation view.

Opening

One Afternoon

David Shelton exhibition opening

Four seasons

Review on San Antonio Cuurent: Good and Well

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:35:46 +0000

Great review of the show by Ben Judson at San Antonio Current is out this week.

http://www.sacurrent.com/arts/story.asp?id=71227

Thank you, Ben, for detail observation of the show!