Tag Archives: transformation

Ceramics – Coffee Cups

The most recent class I took with John Fink was in 2009 at Nassau Community College. They’ve got a great studio set up there, and are very supportive of artists like myself that take the course to work on their own projects rather than to earn credits. In that class, Professor Fink showed us how to make coffee cups.  And when I told him I sometimes sit with my coffee or tea while I’m working and get annoyed that it gets cold, he suggested making lids—a very positive evolution in the coffee drinking experience in my house. These are 5 of the ones I made.

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Derrick Little — Shield Your Heart — Body Paintings for Deva

"Candle" by Derrick Little

If you are a facepainter and you never got a chance to meet Deva, you have really missed something special. Deva Prem was one of the first people to befriend me at the FABAIC convention when I felt like a stranger in a strange land, introducing herself to me as “Glitterbug” from New York (her facepainting name), and making me feel like I belonged. I can’t imagine a more supportive and enthusiastic  person about this art that we do. Our community lost a loving, shining star with the passing of Deva, one year ago this month. Her very good friend Derrick Little often organized efforts to help her deal with the financial burden of her treatments for breast cancer.

"Angel" by Derrick Little

Derrick is a remarkable artist and one of the most successful bodypainters working in New York, and in homage to his friend he has created a series of bodypaintings titled “Shield Your Heart”—and I can not imagine a more fitting tribute to beautiful Deva than this beautiful art created by her friend. His series of 12  paintings is available for purchase as postcards for just $20, with 50% of all sales going to support You Can Thrive. Please go to: http://www.shieldyourheart.org

from Derrick’s site:

“This project is as “grassroots” as it gets. I am not an organization, a non-profit, nor a corporation. I am an artist who has created and self-funded the art presented here and now I offer it as a gift to raise awareness and money for YOU CAN THRIVE, an organization that helps individuals with breast cancer to access holistic care.

My name is Derrick Little. I am a visual artist and body painter. I started this “Shield Your Heart” postcard project with photographer Liz Liguori in October 2010 when my dear friend, Deva Prem, was in treatments for her breast cancer. This project became a method for me to cope with Deva’s death from Breast Cancer on March 22, 2011. For this campaign, I created a body of work that celebrates both the inherent sexuality of the breast/chest and the fact that the breast/chest serves as a physical “shield” over every person’s heart. I’ve painted 12 traditional symbols of strength on 6 male chests and 6 women’s breasts as metaphoric “shields”.  As we approach the one-year anniversary of Deva’s death, I proudly present this body of art in the form of 12 POSTCARDS, available for PURCHASE via DONATION. (With proceeds from every set sold directly benefiting You Can Thrive). I dedicate this art to Deva Prem and every person who has ever been affected by any form of cancer.”

"Knot" by Derrick Little

Derrick has made a remarkable career as a bodypainter in New York, not an easy thing to do. Check out his work: www.BodyArtbyDerrick.com

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Storytelling in Japanese Art — Onmyoji and Raiko: Super Heroes Team-Up vs. More Japanese Demons

The Drunken Demon

by Christopher Agostino

see also: The Eye of the Demon — a StoryFaces Performance to learn about the stage presentation I do based on the legends of the samurai and the demons that they fight

I ran into a couple of old friends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday in the exhibit Storytelling in Japanese Art. In an “emaki” (handscroll) illustrating the story of “The Drunken Demon” I found the hero samurai Raiko (who I know from a folktale I tell of his battle with the Goblin Spider) and Abe no Seimei (my favorite Onmyoji, or yin/yang magician)—both in the same story like a Spiderman/Dr. Strange crossover in an issue of Marvel Team-Up.

Marvel Team-Up — Twice as Many Pages! Twice as Many Thrills!

Emaki are like the original comic books or animated movies, telling a story through text and sequential illustrations. A scroll might be 30′ long, and to read it you would look at about two feet at a time, unrolling it with your left hand while simultaneously rolling it up again with your right. “The Drunken Demon” version in the exhibit was told over three scrolls from the Edo period by Kaiho Yuchiku (1654-1728). A boyish demon becomes terrible when drunk, stealing all the beautiful women. When he captures the daughter of an aristocrat, Abe no Seimei uses his powers to find where the girl is held, and the Emperor orders Raiko and his warrior companions to rescue the girl—which they do with the help of three gods disguised as men, a tree that grows across a chasm to become a bridge, some poisoned saki and a golden helmet. In the climactic illustrations, after a wild feast featuring human sashimi, the sleeping demon is depicted as filling an entire room (described in the text as 10′ tall, but illustrated as if 30′ tall) before Raiko cuts his head off, blood spraying out in a fine mist just like in the modern samurai movies like “The Warrior’s Way” (a fun one I watched last night). Continue reading →