artists you should know about part IV: Terue Yamauchi

Terue Yamauchi creates her conceptually-based projects a variety of media, exploring (among other things) themes of landscape, scale, human interconnection and human-made spaces. Most recently she’s turned her attention toward the relationships between humans and nature, and we’re all the luckier for it.

For her latest projects, Libido (1) and Libido (2) Yamauchi investigated the lives of local slugs to make her work. Her studio hours revolve around the night schedules of her small, slimy collaborators, whom she invites via motion-sensors and beer to create silvery drawings of goo on large sheets of black paper and performances in structures she’s created. These drawings and actions are also translated other media, including an intimate video installation and a large-scale work on suspended plastic sheeting, with a composition based on overlapping tracings of the slugs’ designs.

You can see a range of Yamauchi’s work on her website HERE.

last minute getaway

Sure, there's a ton of packing to do and last-minute errands to run before heading back to the states, but when a friend's father offered to drive Andy and I for a one-day getaway to their vacation home in Hakone, we jumped at the chance.

Aside from the Japanese signage and the distinctive shape of Mount Fuji looming in the distance, Hakone looks a lot like the Swiss countryside or some other bucolic mountainous place. There’s a big windmill installed in the hillside and a gorgeous lake dotted with little swan boats. One big difference is that the landscape of this region was created by volcanos, some still active. We visited Hakone's famous Owakudani (Hell Valley), where we were treated to throngs of tourists covering their noses as we all peered through clouds of sulphurous smoke, waiting in line to buy hot eggs flash-boiled in cloudy volcanic pools. The eggshells change to a startling rich black from the minerals in the water. Supposedly eating one of these eggs will extend your life an extra seven years. They’re sold in packs of five for 500 yen, which is quite a deal for up to 35 years of extra life expectancy if you manage to eat them all yourself.

Also available there were two new flavors of softcream, which we were happy to purchase: sweet volcanic egg (delicious!) and wasabi, which had a surprising amount of kick. Another bonus of the volcanic scenery: steamy geothermically-heated onsen. Ahhhhhh.

underwater

Given my interest in the local sea/river life here, it seemed appropriate to take a trip to the Tokyo Sea Life Park this weekend, where the underwater ecosystems of the region are explored in-depth. Wow. What a worthwhile trip. It's a really well-designed aquarium, beginning with modest displays of some really unusual creatures and building up to a really great multi-level wave-tank pool display of local tidal pool and undersea life, and a HUGE, curved tank of monstrous, silvery tuna (the type everyone eats here as sushi) with ampitheater seating packed to the gills -pardon the pun- with interested onlookers. We arrived just in time for fish-feeding, which was pretty spectacular.

It was also a fantastic place for people-watching - indeed, sometimes they were all you could watch, 'cause it got pretty crowded. The displays were beautiful and often swayed with kelp and the waves, touch-pools filled with sea urchins, rays, nurse-sharks and starfish, and an above-tank viewing area where you can see how it all works.

I saw plenty of creatures I've never encountered before, including air-breathing, rock-hopping blennys, newborn jellyfish, and the spiky sea-cucumber below - many of which made Japanese monster-design seem so much less bizarre and more connected to nature. In terms of the everyday informing creative endeavors that might seem strange and otherworldly in another context, it was eye-opening. The gift shop was filled with surprises of its own, including a lot of really great paper models to fold into paper lobsters and fish. I bought several of these and I'm already thinking of ways to use the patterns for my own paper things.