Akari Art Lantern Festival, Wild Boars and Other Stuff!

Hello from Japan!
So it's been a super busy couple of weeks settling into my new residency here in Japan! Been up to all sorts from parties to paper making workshops and the main bit of action has been working towards the deadline for the upcoming annual Akari Art Lantern Festival in Mino City. I've been working on my piece since I arrived and my lantern is a unicorn that also doubles up as some type of headgear! There's the photos above! The exhibition opens tomorrow and I'm sooo excited!
My piece is titled 'Cornelius the Unicorn of Dreams'....not quite sure how that translates in Japanese and it's made mainly from Mino Washi alongside other stuff including rhinestones, wool, bamboo and metal!It's kind of ridiculous and I'm trying to think of how I can transport this beast back to England when I return!
Papermaking was really awesome as we got to hang out at the Mino Washi Museum for a few days learning the skillzzz...really fun...this is how it rolled:

Now that my piece for the lantern exhibition is wrapped up I'm starting working on my new project which involves making a series of garments from textiles created out of paper...so it's been latex, knitting, weaving and sampling galore this week!!
Ok...so here are a few choice photos of what's been going down!

I've taken about a million photos so far...it's a really amazing town! I'm getting to grips with the nature thing...although tonight I had a close encounter with a wild boar which was the worst experience of my whole life as it was like 2 metres away and growled at me....thought I was going to die!
Also I have started a photo diary which basically documents my entire project here as artist in residence...you can CLICK HERE to ch ch check it out!
Roll on the lantern exhibition!!!!
Love and tropical animals,
Emma
xxx