Suminagashi in the Park

Come Join Us For A Unique and FREE Experience Combining Poetry & Suminagashi!
Miriam Sagan & Isabel Winson-Sagan, the creative team Maternal Mitochondria, will be building an art and poetry geocache pathway in Santa Fe’s Railyard Park this summer.
And we want you to help create it.

A FREE WORKSHOP:

When: August 11
Where: Community Room in The Railyard
Time: 1-4
To register: write msagan1035@aol.com with your phone number & email. We will have directions etc.
Limited to 15-20 participants
Priority will be given to kids under 18, and anyone accompanying them.

The workshop will teach each participant to create suminagashi, Japanese inspired marbling, on paper. We will work with low impact materials—water trays and ink.
We will also create poetry based on “weathergrams”—short poems about the environment and our inner selves.

Once the workshop is over, Miriam and Isabel will curate the show. We will combine suminagashi and text, and install it in hidden but findable locations in the Railyard Park. The pathway will be geocached, and locatable by GPS. We will also have maps. The work will be presented anonymously—and the paper and text may have two different authors. All participants will be listed and thanked as part of the pathway, and on our website: https://maternalmitochondria.com/

There will be an informal opening in mid-September. We’ll tell you when it is up, and you can walk it and share it with your friends. It’s a magical way to respond to a special spot in our city of Santa Fe.
We look forward to working with you!

Suminagashi print, with blue and yellow and green ink

Santa Fe Japan Festival

Ever wondered what suminagashi actually is, or how to make one for yourself? Maternal Mitochondria (Isabel W.S. and Miriam Sagan) will be doing a hands-on demonstration this Saturday at the Japan Festival from 11am-3pm! Come and say hi, draw some sumi, all while eating delicious takoyaki. The festival is at the Convention Center and admission is $5 for adults, free for children under 12. The festival itself runs from 9:30am-5pm. See you there!

 

sumi
black and orange sumi print

Sumi-A-Day

https://sumi-a-day.tumblr.com/

The Sumi-A-Day Tumblr is an ongoing art project by artist collective Maternal Mitochondria. Every day, a new piece of suminagashi! Suminagashi is a Japanese printing technique that creates unique monotype prints using ink and water. Maternal Mitochondria uses both traditional and modern materials and techniques. Suminagashi is related to Western marbling and Ebru techniques, but brings it’s own artistic merits to the table. Click on the link above or on the Tumblr icon in the social media menu to see some beautiful, one of a kind pieces of art.

 

Pink and yellow suminagashi print.

Sumi in Japan

I love doing sumi here. In the states, most people have no idea what suminagashi is, and if they do it’s usually along the lines of “Oh sure, my kid did that one day in kindergarten.” While I love that suminagashi is such an easy and accessible art form, it’s a little like telling a painter that your kid enjoys finger painting… 🙄 Here, everyone actually knows what it is! And they’re at least polite enough to comment on the difficulty involved 😂

 

IMG_20180119_154337_978