Japan: Design Festa Fall 2013, part one

What do you get when you combine some of Asia's most creative artistic minds together twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight? You get a wildly inventive, incredibly diverse array of outstanding talents and creations mingling together, sharing their crafts and selling their wares as part of the ongoing Design Festa Series! As mentioned above, it's a twice-annual festival, occurring in the spring and again in the fall, allowing artisans from across the land (along with nearby countries) to come and share their passion with each other. Meet and greet many of the creative minds themselves, live and in the flesh! Most of who and what I encountered during my visit to the Fall Design Festa of 2013 was thoroughly awe-inspiring, for the precision and sheer imagination or dedication that went into it, while sometimes it was more confounding or awkward, like school girls with fabulously voluminous hair getting railed by a faceless man who appears to be wearing a device intended to, I think, uhh, collect her fluids? 

Huh. But hey, just because it might not necessarily be my cup of tea doesn't mean it isn't a well-crafted piece of art that will titillate someone else! 

But anyway, here are some sweet elephants, in case you're feeling a little disturbed by the blatant hentai above. Remember, though, that these pieces were all publicly displayed for all to see inside of Tokyo Big Sight, so the artist wasn't trying to hide their creation from curious eyes. In fact, completely the opposite! This event is all about getting your work seen and sharing it with others. One of the coolest things about Design Festa is that it's not limited to one particular type of artistry- if you're into cosplay, there were many people milling about in costumes, from furry to space alien, steampunk pirates to mohawk and studded leather sporting punks. All are welcome, and all art is respected. It's a wild experience, and pretty psychedelic when you stumble down some of the more performance arts-oriented groups laden corridors, but do your best to keep your wits. I know it can be hard with the Japanese rope bondage demonstration in one corner, and the friendly lolitas in the other, but there's a lot to see here!

Given just how much there actually is to see here, I've broken this post into several different posts, and it's still pretty photo heavy. I didn't want to exclude any of it, though, because it's all so fabulous!

I hope you enjoy~

Art: Downtown Location Scouting

Unfortunately for the two of us, this year got off on a bit of a rough start. Both Antho and I have fallen sick with different ailments affecting different bodily functions or areas at different times throughout the first few weeks of January, meaning one of us has generally been under the weather for the majority of this year so far... whether that means projectile vomiting from the stomach flu or wheezing and gasping for air with a chest cold, it's been an arduous chunk of time. Even so, we've still managed to drag ourselves out of bed and get out on the town and squeeze in some scouting for locations that we could potentially use as a background to photograph our tie-dye because I'm a relentless perfectionist. It can be rather tricky doing product photography like this as you want to highlight the item itself that's up for bid while also creating an interesting and visually striking image, one that stands out from the competition and communicates the vision and personality of your brand. It's been a long, curvaceous and informative road since we started our Etsy shop back in late 2015 but even with all that we've learned and improved over  time there's always ample of room for growth and improvement left yet. On this trip we spent our time downtown looking for locations with decent lighting and interesting features that photographs well. These were some of the winners this round through. Vegas is quite fortunate in that the last few years has seen a wide-scale embracing of murals and public art throughout downtown and the arts corridor along with some surprising spots in the city, leading to some incredible usages of architectural space to create beautiful designs. There's no shortage of stunning murals to choose from, along with all the intensively designed exteriors (and interiors) of the casinos abundant throughout the city. On this particular outing we also happened upon a demolition in progress, so those photos will be included as well because I don't know about you but I personally find the construction and deconstruction of buildings fascinating, especially the megalithic casinos that perpetuate and profligate throughout Las Vegas like an incurable form of herpes that brings in buttloads of money.