I was commissioned to make this ephemera from a bar (?) game into a mixed media piece. Since the grandma in question had in fact visited Japan (many, many many) years ago, I was able to incorporate some of my Japanese ephemera into the piece, particularly the double ended 箸 はし o-hashi (chopstick), and of course the background wrapping paper of very stylized 熨斗 ( のし: noshi; colourful ribbons)^[1] and flying bird pattern.

Mixed media wall hanging, papers, wood, cotton, watercolour, ink; approx 9.5 x 11.25" (not including string/beads, not shown); sony A7c, lensbaby sweet 35, ev-0.3, ISO 100, 1/50s, AWB; unified transform, greyscale curve (lightened) crop, & scale to 4000 pixels applied, 21apr26

The grandma in question moved into a house still in farm country back in the mid 1950s—there's a very funny story of her getting licked by a cow through the window in her early married years—though the area is now suburbia, hence the little barn stamp. Other things went in because I was playing a bit with translucency (the flower cut from the green leafy vellum, or the tracing paper) or because they co-ordinated^[2] with the yellow focal point—the daffodil sketch, the ticket, the washi tape and so on: there's a fair amount of, ‘this is a good colour and more-or-less goes with the overall scheme, let's throw it in’ going on in these pieces.

I like the soft-focus version which to me emphasizes the malleability of memory and relationships, but here's another version taken with the 90mm macro:

as above, excepting sony 90mm macro, ev +0.7, ISO 400; rotate, crop & scale to 4000 pixels applied in gimp

I was pretty happy with this piece when I made it, and it's not bad, but it feels a tad unfocused—as if it needs some more noshi/ribbons to tie the composition more tightly together. Also, n.b., the hanging beads (which are honestly not that exciting) are not shown, because the client would like me to give the piece back and I'm too lazy to take it down the basement & set up the bead photography studio to document them properly:)

I will say, now at least is a more-or-less appropriate time to post the piece, as daffodils are just finishing up.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.