Mog Fry

3 March 2020

Artist In Residence Kameoka (かめおか) Japan

Mog Fry

3 March 2020

“Kameoka City is surrounded by mountains and has a rich natural environment with rural scenery despite good access from Kyoto and Osaka. Beautiful green in the spring, autumn leaves in the fall, and the winter is surrounded by fog in Tamba. The Kameoka Fog Art Festival is fascinated by Kameoka as “Tokanaka” where you can meet such beautiful scenery of the four seasons, and together with many active artists, fosters the appeal of people and the local community.” Kameoka Kiri Art Cultivation

no-mu ’Micro Happening’ 2020

I was invited by artist Eikoh Tanaka to be part of the Artists in Residence Project “Micro Happening” at Artists’ Retreat no-mu, Kameoka, Japan.

I spent 6 weeks from January 17th to February 27th experiencing the rich landscape of Kameoka. Falling in love with the mountains and fog, the rivers and pine trees, the rice and vegetable fields, the sound of the Sagano train line, the pickled daikon and turnips, soba noodles, tempura and onigiri, temples and shrines, shoji sliding doors, Japanese green tea, slippers and tatami, the peace and quiet and the wonderful community of Kameoka.

My senses continued to be awakened as I immersed myself in this new and fascinating culture documenting my explorations through field recordings, photography, film and print. Overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Kameoka I gained a rich insight to this remarkable place, making connections with so many welcoming, open hearted people which inspired this new piece of work ‘22 Views of Kameoka’. A reflection and celebration of place and people of Kameoka.

22 Views of Kameoka

Materials: Mini-prints made from rubber stamps printed on recycled card from consumables during my stay in Kameoka, washi from Arashiyama, and kraft card from Kyoto city. Exhibited at Yugùe, Kyoto.

22 Views of Kameoka - cafe Yùgue

Thank you

Eikoh Tanaka, Kana Okanoya, Kouta Kameoka, Anna Namikawa, Elena Aframova, Julie Chovin, Alexandre Gailla, Akemi Shijyuku, Tomoko Tsukamoto, Yukari Yoshikawa, Yui Shimizu, Kotoe Shindo, Moegi Deguchi, Aki Makita, Sachiko Mochizuki, Cårrïe Ng, the chefs Hirotake Nagano and Yusaku Nishikawa, Hikaru Toyoda, Sachiko Toyoda, Julius Loewe, Kaori Yamane, Samuel Zeid, Felix Krienke, Alex Kerr, Hiroya Kawakami, Equili Brista musicians: Mitsugi Deguchi, Yasawa san, Yano san, Ohba Mitsuru, Azusa Okamoto, Keiichi Yoshikawa and Watanabe san.

Omoya house, Social Cuisine Sunday Gatherings at Omoya, Kiri (Fog) Festival, Kameoka Galleria events, festivals and Japanese lessons, Cafe Mimi, Coffee stand blackie, H District, Kamejin film, Saigen Temple, Kinku Temple, Kameoka Temples and Shrines, Hozugawa River, Kameoka Mountains, Sea of Clouds Terrace, Mayawaki bookshop, Rice and Vegetable fields, Oi River, Sagano train line, Namikawa station, White Base Laundromat, Omoya bicycles, Keizankaku Onsen...

Special thanks to Eiichi Shimasaki for putting me in touch with no-mu residency and also for organising the exhibition and gig at cafe Yùgue. Thank you to Dai Chan, at Cafe Yùgue, Kyoto for creating such a heart warming space and looking after everyone on the night. And Horoshiko for putting me up for the night and introducing me to the beautiful misty mountains of Ohara!

Cafe Yùgue

See Kameoka Reflections - film

Mog Fry

19 March 2018

The Fish Tale Exchange

Mog Fry

19 March 2018

Linocut Workshop with Vic Harrison

Vic came to the workshop with a bag full of beautiful sketches she made at the Eden project and Bristol Zoo last year. After perusing and discussing the sketches, Vic chose her fish sketch with soft curves and minimal texture so she could focus on carving a simple shape.

Carving fish

After testing out mark making on different lino Vic prefers carving her fish on this battleship grey linoleum. The 'easy to carve’ Softcut is not as forgiving and although it’s soft and smooth like cutting through butter there's more potential … — After testing out mark making on different lino Vic prefers carving her fish on this battleship grey linoleum. The 'easy to carve’ Softcut is not as forgiving and although it’s soft and smooth like cutting through butter there's more potential for the tool to slip. Vic becomes comfortable with holding the tools and takes her time carving the lino until a fish appears in relief.

Printing fish

Vic uses a combination of a wooden spoon and a disc baren to print her fish in plum black letterpress ink.

Inky black fish on blue yellow and orange

Thanks Vic for your incredible energy. You dived right in and discovered a wonderful shoal of fish on your journey! : ))

About Vic

Vic Harrison is well known for her creative community art projects around Bristol. With her recent project BUOYBLE she organised a team of crocheters to create a giant woolly bauble for the dockside. They covered the buoy in 1400 crochets hexagons.

You may have heard of the story about The Bristol Crocodile spotted in the River Avon a few years ago. Last year a life size woolly version was created by Vic as part of her Briswool project (a giant woolly version of Bristol.) She was also selected as one of the Shaun in the City artists. Vic covered her Shaun The Sheep sculpture in thousands of bits of freestyle crochet.

Vic is currently running CROCHET and THREAD courses at Crafting the City ( A Community Interest Company delivering a range of community arts projects and a course programme of arts and craft workshops). Alongside these, she is also running The Seagull Project.

A Beautiful Flock Of Woolly Seagulls

"This project will create a huge flock of gulls to reside around the dockside in a variety of venues. They will be herring gulls, black headed gulls and lesser black backed gulls. I am currently designing several models and will then go on to create patterns. The gulls will be able to be decorated by their makers and names will be chosen by those who fund them. Makers will receive a special stripy bird pattern designed by me as a thank you for helping.” Vic Harrison - Crafting The City

You can also follow Vic’s projects on Facebook and Instagram

Mog Fry

8 March 2018

A Stomping Great Stamp

Mog Fry

8 March 2018

Rubber stamp prints by Dave, Liz and Jacquetta

Do you remember the first mark That You made?

Mine was drawing on my bedroom wall when I was five. My mum was very generous and drew a square on the wall and said I could draw on the wall as long as it was inside that square. I was happy as long as I could keep on drawing.

Maybe yours was printing with potatoes. You sliced it in half, carved out a shape with a knife, dipped it in paint and printed it all over sheets of newsprint and maybe tried out a new pattern on the kitchen floor. Maybe you were four. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty.

When I went to art college I just wanted to draw and paint. I wasn’t interested in printing. My first memory of printing was with potatoes. I was in my early thirties and then I tried printing with rubbers and then lino and then letterpress and woodblock printing and I fell completely in love with whole process of printmaking.

We’ve all been making marks since the day we were born and if you can’t remember, it’s never too late to plant new memories.

Here are some rubber stamp prints made by Liz, Dave and Jacquetta who came to a recent rubber-stamp workshop at Salt cafe, Bristol. They really enjoyed having the time and space to have a stomping good stamp and no-one was under the age of thirty!