Chichu Art Museum

Naoshima island (off Okayama Prefecture, Japan) manages to maintain its quaint Japanese rural town feel, but contrasts it so well with the modern art that’s scattered all over the island.

Featuring artworks and architecture by Claude Monet, Walter De Maria, James Turrel and Tadao Ando, Chichu Art Museum is one such modern scattering. I must admit, I’m a little embarrassed of my post museum visit reaction. After viewing paintings by Claude Monet, I had similar feelings to that of having just met a celebrity. I realized I’ve never seen famous works of art up close and personal before. And now I’m hooked! The pure size of the paintings was kind of mesmerizing.

The museum is best described by Soichiro Fukutake, the director of Chichu Art Museum and President of Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation. In the Chichu handbook I purchased, he states:

As suggested by its name, chichu (underground), this museum is built below a slightly elevated hill that was once developed as a saltpan facing the Seto Inland Sea. Without destroying the beautiful natural scenery of the Seto Inland and seeking to create a site for dialogues of the mind, this museum is an expression of my belief that “art must exist amid nature.”

Claude Monet is an artist who expressed himself while continually confronting nature as he created artworks. Walter De Maria and James Turrel are influenced in some way by Monet’s attitude towards nature and having metaphorically continued to express visions of the universe using the earth as a canvas. Likewise, Tadao Ando, an architect who questions the relationship between the environment and architecture, activates the nature of the Seto Inland Sea. It is my intension that the artworks by these four people provide visitors with an opportunity to dialogue with nature and one’s mind.

We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the museum, so I’ll just share a few pictures from the Chichu Handbook. The photographers are Naoya Hatakeyama, Takeo Shimizu and Tetsuya Yamamoto. 

Claude Monet

Walter De Maria

James Turrel

Tadao Ando

Portfolio

I’m slowly but surely putting together a portfolio of personal work. This is where it began: 2008

Exciting, stressful, terrifying. My first ever range. It focused on mixing pre-nineteenth century shapes with colours and attitudes similar to what I’d been seeing in a lot of street style blogs. The shaping ultimately resulted in quite an androgynous look. I wanted to focus on working with a variety of textures (including chiffon, pleather, silk satin and knits) and various fabric distressing techniques like staining and bleaching. I was really happy with the way the range physically moved along the runway (skirt hoops swaying and chiffon flowing) and its result was as dramatic as I’d hoped it would be.

Mika Ninagawa

Today I sat down to a coffee table book of Mika Ninagawa’s photography. Needless to say I’m blogging about it now because I haven’t been able to get it off my mind!! She’s a 39 year old (that looks 29 – what’s new – Japanese and their good genes!!) photographer famous for her use of vivid colours and incongruous forms. For now, I’ve got a few sneak peeks for you right here, but for more ogling make sure to check out her website. 

Okayama Castle

Okayama-jo (nicknamed “Crow Castle” for its black exterior) has been on my list of “travel to” destinations for a while. I’ve taken a somewhat contradictory touristy/untouristy approach to castles in Japan. Yes, I’m the freak that’s setting the self timer and running in front of the camera to capture the proof, but I’m also the person that refuses to pay entrance for the castle because A) I find the inside of castles extremely boring and B) I’m perfectly content with a grabbing a picture of the impressive exterior (with me in front of course). As superficial as that sounds, travel really is about seeing what you want and not wasting time on the rest…right?

Fashion's got a low self esteem

It’s been pushed to the back seat for over a year now, but every now and then it pops its head through to the front to remind me it is still there, and it needs attention. I joined the art club at one of the high school’s I teach at, in hopes of giving it a confidence booster! It seems none of these paintings or drawings would exist if I hadn’t joined. I’ve realised how important deadlines were to my production of something resembling a fashion portfolio. I’m not studying anymore, so really the only motivator I have is myself, or a kick up the cahoonay (I just pictured myself at fashion bootcamp and it wasn’t pretty). 

When it was all brand new

A recent springclean led me to this little list of gems: some notes I scribbled down just over a year ago during my first weekend in Tokyo:

Taxi doors open themselves

Doormen always bow

Marty buys a R42 icetea by mistake

Drinks with the Auzzies and the Irish

A three story McDonalds.

Lights make it feel like day

Charades in a department store

Walking until my feet are blistered

Feeling safe and free

Packed streets past midnight

Salarymen playing last touch

Japanese people screaming on the streets

Shibuya women – my smartest clothes don’t compare

Breakfasts worth R500

Octopus balls vendor

Laugh until I cry about the boys going on about a beautiful manhole cover

Finding coke in a vending machine and it tastes the same as home

City buildings as far as you can see

Flickering red lights from the hotel window

What do Victoria Beckham, Lady Gaga and Blake Lively have in common?

No, this is not a bad joke, just a really great project that gives fashion a brownie point against its usual fickle self. Each of these celebrities, among others, have designed a T-shirt print for UNIQLO and its SaveJapan! T-shirt range:

“The SaveJapan website was established immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake to support the affected parts of the country by providing information on area-specific relief efforts. UNIQLO is working with Condѐ Nast Japan – a supporter of the SaveJapan! website and the publisher of Vogue Japan and GQ Japan – to create T-shirts featuring messages of encouragement from artists around the world. UNIQLO plans to donate approximately 100 million yen through the sale of SaveJapan! T-shirts to the Japanese Red Cross Society, to back recovery efforts in northeastern Japan.”  

It was Lady Gaga’s design that called out to me from across the UNIQLO store – but with my limited Japanese Kanji all I can make out on the T-shirt is “love,” “Gaga” and “small monster.” For the record I also liked Victoria Beckham’s clean design (cringe) but they never had it in stores here.  If you decide to purchase one after reading this post/ or already have one, I’d love to feature a picture of you in your SaveJapan! T-shirt on the blog. Email pictures to trixieandflo@gmail.com and support in style people! To see the rest of the designs visit Vogue Japan xoxo.