Kjell Hahn

kiln all ready to go. still a lot of work to do but its a relief to have the pots in there. probably will be around 20 people helping out during the firing so it should go pretty smoothly.
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a few weeks back.. maybe its been a month now, chiaki took part in a city-wide jazz festival in Yokohama. fuyuko and mome sewed together a giant canvas for the stage backdrop at Kanai Hall. all the onishi kids went down to enjoy the music and help Chiaki do a live painting performance /collaboration with the band. I tried to get the actual music from the show from a friend but have been waiting so long I just used some other jazz music for the soundtrack…
the applause of the audience before chiaki came on stage actually made me a little nervous. its gotta be hard to concentrate on a painting with 1000+ eyeballs on your back the whole time.
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so, this is the first video i’ve taken with the canon 7D…. hopefully ill get better over time.

Ive gotten a few emails asking for the oni ten images asap.
I have not forgotten this fact.
just take any exhibition you have participated in, then multiply the work by 30 and you might understand why the images arent up and organized in a timely manner.
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in the meantime. here is one of the oniten drawing installations I did for the show… i must have had this idea in my head for a couple years now. I have wanted to make tunnels, boxes, environmental drawings that envelop the viewer. very nice to see one actually made.

oni drawing installation by kjell hahn

its been another long day. didnt have a break from the exhibition until nearly 10pm so im not going to write anything more than another THANK YOU to everyone. we’ll definitely be doing this again. much better turn out than Tom Thumb’s first exhibition.
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thanks again to Aoik and Tani’s band from Nagoya. Wish you kids could have stayed longer.
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im going to sleep, here is another of yoshida sensei’s videos from the Oni Ten show:

sunday is the last day of oni ten. Aoki’s band from Nagoya will be here 『yanomami&nap』 as well as some kids from the nearby Hokku mountain community.
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here is another skit from the “Yoshida Otokichi no sekai” or “The world of Yoshida Otokichi” series. one of the first scenes they shot.. i saw this for the first time about a year ago and have been asking for the video ever since.

people steadily streamed into the gallery from 2 to 9 last night. neighbors, artists from tokyo and random people from around gunma came and brought this place to life. tom thumb has found a second home in Japan.
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after 3 months of work i cant believe the studio is finally up and running, with all of its parts where they are supposed to be.
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thank you everyone who submitted.. ill write more soon.

Kjell Hahn
“spend some time with an oni”
paper, ink, light installation

neba, a potter friend of mine, came over the other day and showed us some raku bowls he had just made that afternoon…
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on august 1st and 2nd he’ll be back in onishi to fire a giant oni sculpture for the ONi TEN exhibition. we might also start building a mikoshi or portable shrine for the opening party.
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dates set for the show in may. running from the 24th to the 30th.
have a lot of frames to make. the new studio will have a fully functional wood shop, which will be 1000 times easier than trying to square everything up outside.

recently i have been making sketches after work. all this cycling through the mtns. just has me too tired to do anything else.

“spring city sketch”
pastel and graphite on paper
2009

been cycling through mtns, going to skool for the yen. i can almost pretend they are paying me to ride the bike.
I have been told by a number of people that this is a bad idea.

also, i walked into a room with my bosses opening a gift box of 100 or so neckties pouring out all over the place. something seemed dirty about the scene and i kind of hoped they would give me one or two as a taste. no luck.

i am moving a lot of my art stuff to a new studio across the street. probably will be disturbing my 90 year old neighbors with the table saw etc.

“personage 23″
acrylic, graphite on paper
2009

i know the site is all messed up still. There are a few points on the home page I cant figure out myself and need mr. kuehnle to tell me what i did wrong. so it will take a few more days till i get it all straightened out.

in the meantime I have been doing substitute work this week at a school about 25 km (15 miles) across a small mountain range in the town of Chichibu. I thought I’d post an image of the course since I’ve been doing it on my bicycle and have really enjoyed the trips. leaving at 6:30 in the morning the mountains have very little traffic. you almost couldnt ask for a more ideal cycling situation. now, im not a bike nazi or anything but i cant help but feel somewhat hostile towards even the occasional motor vehicle. city cycling just sucks, so I was excited knowing this job would take me out further into the country and give me an excuse to ride more. i cant think of any other way i’d like to start the day, and some obnoxious pile of steel and plastic couldnt be more out of place. i know 99% of car occupants think i must me miserable or out of my mind when they pass me going uphill but i think if people would just try it, they’d get addicted to it as well. people’s bodies adapt to whatever situation you put it in, and after a little regular riding you can go up just about any hill and it actually feels good.

i guess the thing that bothers me most about the car is that people just use it as a default for everything when you really dont need one most of the time. not only is it more expensive to drive, it often takes more time.

anyway, getting to the mountain commute, i dont know the best way to post a map- the japanese maps on google arent very good. so i took a screen shot from google earth which looks a little better even if none of the roads are labeled.
if you are interested, click here for the google maps link

onishi to chichibu cycling road

the other day was setsbun, a holiday marking the lunar beginning of spring. shrines and temples all over the country celebrate the holiday by throwing beans and saying “oni was soto, fuku wa uchi” an expression meaning, “keep out the demons and bring in happiness.” pretty standard japanese stuff, but living in onishi the holiday takes on a slightly different meaning. the official town legend goes something like demons from a nearby mountain threw a bunch of multi-colored stones here, giving the town the name onishi, or demon-stone.
with devils all over the town it wouldnt do very well to tell them to leave, so on setsubun the people here proclaim “fuku wa uchi, oni mo uchi” inviting happiness and demons into everyone’s life. kind of cute.
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so here are some pictures of some stones for sale from one of the many quarries in the area. from the price you might guess why people here want to keep the demons around.  3000 dollars for a rock aint bad. $25,000 is better.