Early in the morning George and I began to haual all the parts of my exhibition down the street towards Yamaguti Station(山口駅) as it began to rain. We had accepted the fact that we would be wet when a large white car pulled up driven by a middle aged woman who offered us a ride. I thought that the luggage would not fit but after much insistance we graciously accepted the ride and because of it made the next train to Nagoya in order to catch a bus to Kyoto.

After a long journey we finally made it to galerie weissraum. The canned food bar had a few patrons in it sipping on beers and eating SPAM with chopsticks. During installation it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. First the locking pin of the large fan had falled out in transit requiring the fan to be disassembled. After a mad dash to the hardware store in the rain I repaired the fan. The fuse connection of the battery charger for the inflatable suit “Big Red” also broke in transit. After some solder and a new fuse holder it too came back to life. Besides these hiccups the installation went smoothly and George and I had time to have a couple of beverages and wander ove to a ramen shop for dinner.

Of course the first day of the exhibition in Kyoto with an outdoor public performance scheduled brought rain. After all it is the beginning of the rainy season in Japan. But this morning a reporter from the Kyoto branch of chyunichi shinbun had an appointment to meet me for an interview and to see the performance.

Ashihara-san showed up on time and after a brief interview about the work I headed out to the Kaomo River to keep the performance on schedule despite the rate
June 7th

We stayed the night in Osaka Prefecture at Kawanaka’s home. Because of the early morning the next day and the long day George and I went to sleep very quickly.

Last night I finished sewing the inflatable sculpture titled “Stuffed Full” for my show at galleries weissraum in Kyoto. I used over 3000 meters of thread and fit nicely onto two carts for transport.
Today I went to the the Central Airport in Nagoya to pick up my good friend and artist, George Zupp. George is painter and internet provocateer who has bee making his living following no man but one man for some time now. He came off the plane dressed in a cowboy has and with little luggage. I believe that he brought only 3 shirts, 2 shorts and a pair of swimming trunks.

On the way home we stopped at a student art opening in a 7th floor café in downtown Sakae. The show reflected the fact that the students had not graduated yet, but Iapplaud any effort to try to figure out the visual art world aoutside the rigid and unthinking structure of the academy. Although the students still have a long way to go before becoming professionals, they are gainging valuable experience through this demostration of inititive.

I received an email from a curator at The Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (愛知県美術館) in Nagoya asking me if I would like to do a one day performance at the Museum. I agreed and today I went into the city to meet the curator Fumiko Nakamura (中村史子). She showed me around the Museum and showed me locations that were available for the performance. It might be on top of the roof or in the main lobby area. The performance will be on August 17th from 11:00 to 5:00.

The Lawn Bike now has a very sickly looking layer of brown sod on it. I also roughed in the fence posts to get an idea of the final appearance. Now I have to level out the grass and water it a lot. Where is my green thumb?

Currently I am cutting pattern pieces for the large inflatable installation that I will exhibit at the Laredo Center for the Arts this July. All the sewing is done in my apartment and takes up a lot of space.  I estimatedd that it takes about 23 minutes to sew one tube minus the time it takes to cut the pieces out and not counting the inevitable mistakes.  I will be sewing like a madman.  The piece will consist of 85 tubes at least 5 meters long with diameters of 55 centimeters. The tubes will be stacked five high and will allow viewers at the gallery to enter them. I will also show a smaller version of this piece for my show at galerie weissraum in Kyoto, Japan in June. George Zupp will be visiting at that time and will help me install the piece. I will also do performances along the Kamo River in Kyoto with the Big Red inflatable suit.