Brush the Sky

A calligraphic family narrative, written onto the skies of Seattle (2015) and San Jose, CA (2019).
Tamiko Thiel: Augmented reality & digital prints / Midori Kono Thiel: Japanese calligraphy & mylar hangings

On-site augmented reality (AR) artworks

2015 edition: site specific public art + Wing Luke Museum gallery installation, Seattle.
2019 edition: site specific public art in San Jose Japantown (see self-guided AR tour pdf)
Sponsor Japanese American Museum of San Jose w/support from California History Center De Anza College.

San Jose Japantown: 'Amerika Monogatari - An American Story' @ 5th & Jackson (logo: Pam Matsuoka)

San Jose Japantown: 'Kako Gendai Mirai - Past Present Future' @ Japanese American Museum San Jose

San Jose Japantown: 'Kizuna - Community Ties' @ Betsuin Buddhist Church

San Jose Japantown: 'Kizuna - Community Ties' @ Wesley United Methodist Churchh

'Kizuna ( 絆 ) Community Ties,' calligraphy on mylar by Midori Kono Thiel

Seattle Center: 'Odoroku - Astonishment' @ International Fountain & Fisher Pavilion

Seattle Center: 'Odoroku - Astonishment' with the Space Needle

'Odoroku ( 驚 ) Astonishment'

Pike Place Market: 'Mukashi mukashi - Long, long ago ...''

Pike Place Market Gum Wall: 'Mukashi mukashi - Long, long ago ...'

'Mukashi mukashi, Ojii-san to Obaa-san ga ... ( むかしむかし, おじ–さんとおば–さんが。。。 ) Long, long ago, an old man and an old woman ...'

Chinese Gate: 'Nai Gai - Inside/Outside'

'Nai Gai ( 内外 ) Inside/Outside'

Panama Hotel & Cafe: 'Hatsu Yume - First Dream'

'Hatsu Yume ( 初夢 ) First Dream'

Asian Art Museum: 'Senri no Bunka - Thousands of Miles of Culture'

'Senri no Bunka - Thousands of Miles of Culture' with Isamu Noguchi's 'Black Sun'

'Senri no Bunka ( 千里の文化 ) Thousands of Miles of Culture'

Japanese Garden in the Arboretum: 'Tengoku - Heaven'

'Tengoku ( 天国 ) Heaven'

Uwajimaya: Kuishimbo - Foodie'

'Kuishimbo ( 食いしん坊 ) Foodie'

Betsu-in Buddhist Church: 'Kizuna - Community Ties'

Statue of Shinran Shonin: 'Kizuna - Community Ties'

Blaine Memorial Methodist Church: 'Kizuna - Community Ties'

'Kizuna ( 絆 ) Community Ties,' calligraphy on mylar by Midori Kono Thiel

❮ ❯

For millennia East Asian artists have enhanced paintings with calligraphy, the abstract, graphic qualities of the brush strokes reverberating with the meanings of text and image.

Now a mother-daughter duo brings this ancient art into the 21st century:

In the orginal version, created for Seattle, transparent wall hangings by Midori Kono Thiel in the Wing Luke Museum emphasized the abstract nature of calligraphic art by deconstructing Japanese characters across multiple layers of mylar. Her daughter Tamiko Thiel enhanced both the gallery installation and sites of family history around Seattle with augmented reality (AR)* overlays. These virtual artworks further de- and re-construct Midori's boldly abstract, gestural calligraphy into visual poems, marking sites of this Japanese American family's four generations of involvement with Seattle. (Note: this version is currently not accessible.)

For the second edition, addressing Midori's and Tamiko's family roots in Silicon Valley going back to 1908, Midori's calligraphies were shown as a gallery installation in the Euphrat Museum of Art, De Anza College Cupertino, enhanced by Tamiko's augments and prints of AR sites in San Jose Japantown. The site specific public artworks are sponsored by Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) with support from the California History Center, De Anza College.

* Mobile augmented reality (AR) transforms the hitherto invisible layers of memory and culture associated with a site into artworks visible in the display of an "ARt-scope" - a mobile smartphone or tablet running an AR app. The artist places virtual computer graphic artworks at selected sites via their GPS coordinates. Viewers at that site see the virtual artworks as an overlay on the live camera view of their surroundings, as if the artworks were physically present at that site. The real and the virtual merge into a new experience of reality.