statement hats.

Elephants are attacking people

When I went to teach yoga Tuesday I walked into a world of wonderful, creative, whimsy.

Bees! Please come back!

The space that I teach community classes twice a week doubles as a gallery and the artist Miki Katagiri was in the process of installing her amazing, lovely, innovative, and wacky hats.

We are doing everything upside down

Miki's hats combine excellent millinery skills, humor, and political and world issue awareness. Most of her hats though in design very playful and joyful are usually connected to a serious thought and opinion about life, greater awareness & consciousness, or the cultural issues of today.

Heart Attack!!

Miki's art statement is also playful, poignant and poetic:

To me art is more than a sculpture, it's your life, it's how you live, it's noticing the atmosphere in which you exist.
At all times you should be aware of what you see, what you hear, and what you feel!
Even though you can't see or hear certain changes, you can still feel them in your cells.
The universe is all around you and you should notice what is going on.

Green Horns

You could be an ant.
You could be a bird.
You could be any creature.
Be the wind.
Be the earth.

If you let yourself be the earth, you would see she is crying from what human beings have done to her.
We should appreciate what she has given us and return heart-fullness.

Feed mother’s milk with flowers

With my art I want to connect people together and unite ourselves again with the earth.

We must wake up and change.
We can change the world if we want.
Use the universal language.

Life is art

Fox wants to be a bird in the next life

Unfortunately, I do not have many occasions to wear a wacky and wonderful hat, though I envision that Carrie from Sex in the City could pull them off with ease. But a part of me desperately wants a little bit of Miki's world.

I love snail mail

The show opens tonight at RabbitHole Studios, 33 Washington St, Dumbo, Brooklyn.

See more of Miki's work here.