It was never in my plans to do a residency whilst living in Japan, although I have been thinking about residencies for a while now. They always seemed like a great way to see more niche areas of a country, and an ideal way to spend a chunk of time making artwork.
I had heard of Studio Kura before coming to Japan, and was really excited when they accepted my application to spend October on their residency program. I gritted my teeth through a few more months of teaching in Tokyo, and finally caught a flight down to the beautiful rice-studded countryside of Itoshima.
Because of The Virus and Japan therefore being closed to visitors, I was the only one on the residency in October, which was a little sad, but at least I had a huge old house all to myself, and an empty studio to spread my work out in.
This year I was mostly restricted to digital work on my Ipad in Tokyo, so when I got to Studio Kura I lined up my acrylic gouache paints, put my coloured pencils in a cup and set myself the goal of only using traditional mediums for the entire project. This felt quite painful at first - I rely heavily on being able to remove mistakes with a quite double tap - but as the weeks went on I definitely became more confident with painting and how I could achieve the look I needed.
The end of my stay culminated in an exhibition of the paintings that I had worked on during the month. I presented 8 pieces, all relatively small, that depicted scenes from traditional Japanese folk tales and myths. I gave a small speech and talked through the work with people who came to see it, and it was all very nice and friendly (which was good because exhibiting makes me nervous).
My final week was cut short by a cancelled flight back to the UK and having to fly up to Tokyo again, but I was glad I got such a lot out of 3 weeks. The owners of the residency are very lovely people so I felt extremely well-looked after the whole time. I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to spend some time in Japanese Totoro country to work on a quiet art project.
