It's Official. I Have An Etsy Shop, And It's Open For Business!It's Called MYMYZAYZAY, It's All Vintage

It's official. I have an Etsy shop, and it's open for business! It's called MYMYZAYZAY, it's all vintage clothing, and I'd love it if you took a look.

Film photos from July taken while traveling around Nagasaki and Kumamoto prefectures in Kyushu.  ７月に長崎県と熊本県で行き回っている間にフィルムで撮られた写真。

"That's a crazy idea. But you could make that happen if you were ready to hustle. You can do that, right?"

I don't know if I want to. Every year since graduation, I feel my ambitions are becoming smaller. I tell myself I'm just becoming more realistic with age, but I can't help but miss the naïve idealism that my friends and I shared straight out of school. I've seen friends give up plans to join the US foreign service, break into the film industry, and become a performing musician for jobs in business, sales, and teaching. I used to think about starting a temporary public art org. focusing on non-urban areas, but since then I've scaled back my ideas. My school friends who dove into the art world became overwhelmed and overburdened. Young, public art non-profits I looked up to fell apart after five years.  Today I think more about what life I want than what job. Time to travel, see friends, make art, relax, that's what's important to me. "How can I lead a balanced life?" I ask myself. I know these are good thoughts, but when I read over public art grad programs and click out of them to return to my teaching program application, I can't help but feel like I've let my ambitions go a bit. Sure, I want to be an art teacher so I can have school breaks to fill with public art projects. But at the same time, I think about sacrificing everything to do something bold, and I feel a sense of longing for that impassioned life. I wonder if I'm "making the smart choice" too soon.

I’m currently working on part of to my I Identify With project, this time asking participants what groups they feel they don’t identify with that they’ve been lumped into by others. My intent is to create a positive counterpoint to these external categorizations; I feel that showing the negative side of things will help highlight the positive. 

For more information visit the project site.

As I get older, I feel my art dreams are getting more realistic, but I worry that they're actually just getting smaller. How big is too big? How small is too small?

A public service-type project I was thinking about distributing while in Japan. I ended up doing a presentation at my school on LGBT issues instead. Being gay was definitely one of the hardest things for me about living in Japan.

"You're not alone. There really are a lot of people who are gay, and they are all worrying and going through hard times like you, but there's nothing to be ashamed of -- I don't want you to become depressed." An edited excerpt from a video interview with a gay Japanese teacher, age 30.

1/16 Japanese people are sexual minorities.

The video, in English and subtitled Japanese, can be found here.