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The Song
 
 
2006-08
The Song (“Naki Goe”) 12' by 4.5' by 4'
Mixed media including Japanese urushi
 
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 DETAILS OF STICK: The areas around face and on the long stick above are made with Japanese urushi and gold dust (kanshitsu or dry lacquer.) The stick can be unscrewed into little pieces for packing or dancing; the entirety folds up into a box. The leaves and golden parts, and blimps, are made with multiple layers of kanshitsu and urushi clay. There are many layers that have been sanded through to get the striations.
 Sha Sha Higby: Recently I have been making pieces I do not wear in performance; they are like presences or atmospheres for installation, which is what originally set me off to do the performances to begin with. I used to make sculptures, but I wanted their presence to move or for a time come alive. I love the idea of beautiful props. They enhance the performance and help make the moment special. But the problem with performances is that there is so much detail that cannot be seen. Now you can take a peek and take your time. This piece is an atmosphere that one may sense but not see. Also parts of this costume have dark sections on the mask and shapes made from urushi, a sap, of Rhus verniciflua, a member of the sumac family, which includes poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. It grows as a tree in Asia, and is still used primarily in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Burma. It is a very painstaking process to remove the sap from the trees, drop by drop. One can buy it already extracted from the trees. You can actually break off the leaves of poison oak in the springtime and a white sap will emerge that later turns dark brown or black. It contains the same substance as urushi. As a child I found lots in Steep Ravine where we used to go on weekends and I often came home with serious cases of poison oak. Anyway in my later years to provoke my immune system, I ended up working with the same family of substances. Since it is alive it is like having a respectable companion with your work,. Most artists react to it spiritually, feeling it as a link to the other world. It does not just dry as shellac does in the West, but rush cures and hardens, forming a lustrous, impregnable surface. It hardens the best in damp, warm, humid atmospheres. A shell, or core, is formed over a mold made with alternating layers of lacquer, clay, and layers of hemp cloth. Sometimes washi paper or leather is also used. The shell, or core, is given multiple coats of lacquer mixed with pulverized clay, stone, pumice, and diatomaceous earth, then finished with black lacquer, or red lacquer, and polished in successive layers with charcoal. Or it is coated in successive layers in a plaster mold and submersed in water to release. My technique is simpler-- each piece involves 15 layers of lacquer and hemp components, although it should involve up to 50.
 Contemporary artists in Asia use urushi in many ways as a binder, painting medium and hardener. It is soft and natural and never becomes brittle as plastics do. It is a mysterious medium of rich depth. In its raw uncured state, it can cause extreme reactions to the skin, to which practitioners of the art form develop immunity after working with it for sometime. It is also a healing sap in China, taken orally. The tree and its family of shrubs grow in areas of land that have been disturbed. It is a healing plant and restores the ecosystem to its original state. This is all a part of its profound lure and paradoxical bond to its artists. It is extremely durable and impervious to water and heat. Sculpture Schedule Biography Interview Performances Workshops Press Room Mailing List 　 Shop Membership 日本語 Cottage../Urushi.html../Urushi.html../Urushi.htmlExhibition.html../Schedule.html../Biography/Biography.htmlhttp://www.shashahigby.com/shashabio.htm../Interview.html../Sha%20Sha%20Higby.html../Workshops.html../Press%20Releases.htmlhttp://www.shashahigby.com/mailinglist.htm../Photos.html../Friends.html../6CBCCDBC-40AF-4E77-BBE4-858BC84AB9D5.html../Bolinas_Cottage_Photos.htmlshapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6shapeimage_3_link_7shapeimage_3_link_8shapeimage_3_link_9shapeimage_3_link_10shapeimage_3_link_11shapeimage_3_link_12shapeimage_3_link_13shapeimage_3_link_14shapeimage_3_link_15
from an exhibition at the Bolinas Museum