113. Why am I headed back to Japan?

An artsy update

Some cool news: I’m doing an artist’s residency in Japan next month! It’s exactly the type of thing that I never could have expected or planned for when I left my job last year, but exactly the type of outcome I’m grateful I can take because of it.

My residency proposal involved visual storytelling about local folklore and creatures (yōkai). Funnily enough, I recently rediscovered some old character designs I made in college for a story I wanted to do involving kappa, so it’s a topic that’s been percolating in my head for years now.

Which one’s your fav?

Medium-wise, I proposed making a zine or a series of short-form animations. However, this also feels like an opportunity to play around with augmented reality (AR) to integrate the art more closely into the local environment. I’ve mostly avoided coding since I left my job to force myself to explore other things, but this could be an interesting way to experiment with integrating the two.

Overall, I’m excited to head back to Japan, though I’m not sure what I’ll do once the residency over. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been thinking about cash flow recently, and this trip isn’t a direct answer to that piece of the puzzle. I’ll have to keep in mind I got to this opportunity because I left room for the unexpected. To craft an interesting life, uncertainty is something I’ll have to continue embracing.