ABOUT MIDORI
Midori Artist Bio
Midori ( 美登里 ) is a queer, Japanese American artist. She creates work that gives shape and texture to emotion, desire, repulsion, collective memory, and subconscious revisions of experience. Her performances are physical and durational, often inviting the audience to join in and become co-conspirators in the labor of art.
Reclamation of material and collaboration are core values that inform almost everything she creates, and the multiplicity of perspective and disorientation are ongoing themes in her work.
Born and raised in Japan with Japanese and German American heritage, Midori grew up loving Japanese folk art and traditional survival technologies, even as she struggled against the pressures of racism and sexism. Now a San Franciscan of thirty years, her body, like her art, bridges multiple cultures.
After serving in the military, she began her art career performing in queer nightclubs, collaborating with other ‘weirdo’ transgressive and experimental artists, saying “Sure, I’ll do it!” to even the oddest of opportunities. She describes herself as “born an abomination, traveling between worlds seeking other monsters – we are so many monsters.”
Midori’s work has been shown at San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Leslie Lohman Museum, SoMArts, Das Arts Amsterdam, Gorilla Gallery Oaxaca, Root Division, among others.
CV
Solo Exhibitions
2022 “Men In Rope” The Arbor Gallery. San Francisco
2022 “Tectonic” Arcana. San Francisco.
2020 “In The Pines” Collective Action Studio. San Francisco.
2013 “Evoco Project” Center for Sex & Culture. San Francisco.
2011 “Masculine” Pure Pleasure. Santa Cruz, CA
2009 “Plastics” Femina Potens Gallery. San Francio
Selected Group Exhibitions & Social Practice Projects
2022 “Kimono2 What We Wear(Reliquae)” Showcase artist, APAture 2022, Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco, CA
2022 “Kimono2 What We Wear” sculpture for We Are LGBT Nikkei, National Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco, CA
2022 “InVocation” Interactive sculpture for the exhibition On Our Backs: Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work at The Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca, New York.
2021 “If the hive is not the sweetness” collaboration sculpture for Dia De Los Muertos exhibition SoMArts San Francisco
2021 “I Love I am Sorry” NFT Every Woman Biennial, Super Chief Gallery New York
2021 “OverJoyed” performance with Jason Wyman for Emergence 2021, Emerging Arts Professionals, San Francisco
2021 “interFace” Audience interactive video performance for Sacred Wounds – Future Conjure online Asian-diasporic performance event. Virtual
2021 “Monster” for Build a New World Oracle Deck Project curated by Mindy Tsonas Choi
2021 “BIPOC Women’s Performance Project” – collaborative performer. San Francisco
2020 “InVocation” Interactive sculpture for juried exhibition Introductions 2020 at Root Division, San Francisco.
2020 “Out Damn Spot” Virtual six-hour durational performance for Pink Full Moon: Opera Povera by Sean Griffin
2020 “InVocation” Interactive sculpture for Sex Worker Pop Up, in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Status of Women, for the Open Society Foundation. New York.
2020 Pandemic Zines. Online series produced and distributed freely.
2019 “InVocation” Interactive sculpture for the exhibition On Our Backs: Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work at The Leslie-Lohman Museum. New York.
2019 “Who Is My Neighbor” Interactive performance for 40 Performances for the Hole, SOMArts. San Francisco.
2019 “No New Idols” Collective opera by VestAndPage, La Pocha Nostra, & Francesca Carol Rolla. Riga, Latvia.
2019 Queer + Trans Icons, for San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco.
2019 “If You Listen Carefully” Interactive sculpture for Divine Feminist at Art Front Galleries, Newark, NJ.
2018 “Passage” Immersive environmental sculpture commissioned by Museum of Sex for The Incomplete Araki exhibition. New York.
2018 “Object 0.0” for Cast of Characters at the Bureau of General Services. New York.
2017 “Kimono 2: What We Wear” performance at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Seattle.
2017 “Yamamba” Performance for Vanilla Gallery. Tokyo, Japan.
2016 “Evoco Project” Installation, performance & painting for What Is, Was, Epperson Gallery. Crockett, CA.
2016 “Dining Room” Installation and experience for MFA Never, at Root Division. San Francisco.
2016 “Hello, Beautiful!” Installation and interactive work at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Seattle.
2016 “Surrealist Fortuneteller” Interactive performance at the Battery Club. San Francisco,
2015 “Seduction” Commissioned to choreograph the opening night party as an immersive performance for
The Floating World exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. San Francisco.
2015 “Anubis” Installation for Dog & Pony Show at Antebellum Gallery. Los Angeles.
Lectures, Talks, Teaching, Residencies
2020 “Connecting Threads” for Practice Practice Practice: On Repetition & Social Form at California College of the Arts
2018 “Yellow Face & Blow Up Dolls. Sex, Grief & Art”: Artist talk at University of California, Santa Cruz
2018-2021 Creative in Residence, San Francisco Battery Club
2017 “Queer Qraft Qamp“: Family art event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
2017 “Embrace Change & Creation… The Artist as Embodied Canvas” for TEDx SoMa, San Francisco
2015 “The Trickster at the Crossroads: The Artist as Instigator and Agent of Intersectionality” at VN Jaeger & Schwarzwald Gallery. Vienna, Austria.
PATREON COACHING
Learn to Launch and Cultivate a Successful Patreon for Income & Creative Joy.
Patreon is a membership and subscription-based platform where the creators connect directly with their fans and followers who want to support their art and creative efforts. Patreon is an excellent tool for a consistent revenue stream and audience engagement, yet many artists find the process of launching and growing it to be intimidating.
Midori works with each artist and creator individually to develop Patreon success plans that center on their unique strength, outlining achievable step-by-step action and sustainable strategies. She shares tips, hacks, how to recognize and avoid common pitfalls, and how to use Patreon to bring you income, to create community and fuel your creativity.
Midori helps artists find their groove, joy, and success best suited to their uniqueness. She will cheer on your hard work and celebrate your achievements
Meet with Midori about:
- Is Patreon right for you? Should you bother or not?
- How to grow a viable income stream through Patreon for independent artists and small organizations
- Strategizing, launching, maintaining and staying motivated with Patreon as a fundraising tool
- Live tour of the administrative back-end of an artist’s Patreon account.
- How to identify, and understand your goals.
- How much work to expect
- How to make Patreon work for you as a motivation and accountability tool
Midori launched her Patreon in January 2017, stumbling, exploring and learning how to make it a happy part of her art career. Since then, she’s worked with artists on successful fundraising through Patreon, based on her own experiences and experimentations over the years. She is an independent artist, not an employee of Patreon – because of this, she can share a perspective that you won’t get from their site.
Midori is a business coach/consultant through Intersection for the Arts, teaching frequently for them. She is also a frequent Patreon workshop facilitator at Center for Cultural Innovation.
PATREON SUPPORT
I’m a creative, an artist, a sexuality educator and an author.
Ok, so that’s how this page used to start… and it was followed by a rather stiff and formal intro of my work. But since you’re here, the chances are really high that you already know some aspect of me.
Maybe you know me as the woman who’s been teaching BDSM, rope, and D/s classes forever. Maybe you know me for staring ForteFemme. Perhaps you’ve read an essay or a story by me. Maybe you know me as a crazy cat lady, tea lover, or travel junkie. I am all that… and most of all I am an artist. Some of you are familiar with my art. Many of you aren’t. I’ve been creating my whole life… even when I wasn’t comfortable calling myself Artist.
In today’s world art is necessary – more than ever… it’s part of the alchemy of change that is desperately needed.
Your support through Patreon allows me a bit of ease and room to make art, collaborate and add my blood, sweat and tears to the great tidal force of change.
I’ve posted my TEDx talk that tells you a bit about my journey as an artist.
- Patreon
- DESIGN BEHIND DESIRE: The Sensuous Textures of Wanting
- Eyes Wide Open / Violet Blue: A night of pure erotic decadence at The Art of Restraint
- Considering Torture, and the Rise of Harsh Bondage / Violet Blue: Erotic art prankster Midori’s show “Taken” puts Amnesty International in the dungeon