Tokyo Architecture

Tokyo's architecture has an interesting mix of old and new, contemporary and traditional. The sheer number of retail stores alone is astonishing, and there is no shortage of flashy, high end stores throughout the city.

Mikimoto by Toyo Ito

Cartier

De Beers

Prada by Herzog & DeMeuron

Dior

TSUKIJI

Tsukiji has got to be one of the most intense markets I have ever seen. I am not even sure how large it is, but there is fish as far as the eye can see. To experience the freshest sushi around, one must arrive at 5am and proceed to get into a line for one of the small sushi bars lining the perimeter of the market. Recommended to be the best, we arrived at Daiwa, a small 10 seater sushi bar that will serve you a fixed price breakfast for $35/person, sampling a tasty selection of their best fish. Somehow eating a full sushi meal at 6am and washing it down with a Sapporo didn't seem all that strange.

TOKYO

Friday we arrived in Tokyo. After a 9 hour flight, we find ourselves 16 hours ahead of San Francisco. Staying in Shibuya, we are located in the center of the action. Two blocks away from the hotel is Hachiko, world's largest pedestrian crossing, and Center Gai, a pedestrian street lined with everything imaginable, and more people than I've ever seen all in one place at the same time.

In progress...

Getting close to finishing the new series of ginkgo's....

Be An Artist

ICHTHYO

When I was in college studying Scientific Illustration, we visited and had the "basement tour" of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and I remember being completely fascinated with the rows upon rows of specimens. Jars of large reptiles in liquids, skeletons of every animal imaginable... I could spend hours in those rooms. These are the moments that inspired me to become an artist, and to make sure that I never left the art of science behind.

Chronicle books has put out the book Ichtyho, a collection of black and white X-rays of fish from the Smithsonian, which holds the world's largest collection of ichthyological specimens. The imagery is absolutely beautiful.

california wildfire

A new series of ginkgo paintings has been inspired by some of the amazing sunsets I've been seeing this summer. Unfortunately the reason behind these intense sunsets is that most of the state of California is on fire. The wildfires cause hazy skies, but pretty intense orange/yellow sunsets that can be actually quite beautiful.

Summer in New York

Ah, summertime in New York. There really isn't anything better.


Although Jeff Koon's balloon dog wasn't my favorite artistic statement, drinks in the sun on the Met rooftop made it worth the trip.

Waterfalls vs. The Gates

This past week in New York I explored The New York City Waterfalls installation by Olafur Eliasson. His series of freestanding waterfalls in the East River is the city's biggest public art project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates". I have to say this project wasn't nearly impressive as The Gates, which I was also lucky enough to witness the opening day of while visiting New York several years back. I guess I do not see enough of a real connection between the art and it's environment in this case.

This particular waterfall is the one under the Brooklyn Bridge (above) - there was one more to the right of it, and another closer to where I was standing (below)


There are 4 different waterfalls which are visible from multiple points around the city, and I took the entire day finding each waterfall for optimal viewing. I'd say the more interesting part of this was the adventure of finding them and interacting with the city, rather than the waterfalls themselves. Although I would have liked to see them when it was dark out... that may have been a bit more impressive.


The Gates had a much bigger impression on me, probably due to the scale of the installation and being able to experience them all at once. Equally impressive was the amount of material that went into the project: 5,390 tons of steel and 9,155 square meters of fabric, which was assembled in a 25,000 square foot Long Island facility, then shipped to Central Park. However, my favorite part of the project was actually the sketches they created, really beautiful.

Deep

I finally managed to make it to Bend, Oregon to see one of my art projects complete. These large scale photos were installed in the restaurant, Deep, downtown. This series reflects upon the logging industry that used to be prevalent in the area.


view from mezzanine up above, looking down on water feature -