Exhibition Celebrating the Publication of “The Story of the Kaki Tree”
Guest Artist Workshop No.1
“DREAMS COME TRUE! ~Let’s Grow Kaki Tree With Our Power ~”
By Misa Akiyama
Guest artist Misa Akiyama is a member of the Kaki Tree Project Executive Committee and has been working as a printmaking artist. She works with a traditional Japanese woodblock printing technique with water-based inks and creates abstract works with themes such as the passage of time and the history of man. She has also engaged in stage design since 2003 and creates large-scale works, as well. Her workshop started with an explanation of the kaki tree as she showed the just-released “The Story of the Kaki Tree” to children.
Today she said that they would together decorate the knitted kaki tree installed in the exhibition venue. Children who had heard the explanation about the kaki tree, each mixed plenty of paints with water in a bowl, and painted on a large sheet of paper and colored it. They seemed to be hesitated as the instructor told them that they could use up a paint tube at once. However, they became gradually more daring to use up their favorite colors. Although they were not familiar with painting on the big paper at first, they quickly filled the paper with their pictures and drawings, and some children even started using large paint brushes, as well. After they had wrapped the paper around the knitted kaki tree, they colored and painted on the leaf-shape cut out paper and newspaper kaki fruit that Ms. Akiyama prepared for. Children were gradually engrossed by the process, and kept painting while not being aware of getting covered with paints all over their hands, legs, and clothes. Then, they hung those kaki leaves and fruit from the ceiling with string. An hour and a half later, from the start of the workshop, the knitted kaki tree and now looked cheery and joyful.
They took group photos in front of the tree and closed the workshop.
