Getting started
If you’ve found our page, Welcome! In this post I’d like to tell you a little bit more about us as a studio, a mission statement sort of thing I suppose.
Temawa and I have been doing anime conventions as artist alley vendors for several years now and decided to start our website journey here in 2024. We are two queer artists who are in a life partnership and share a passion for anime, gaming, japanese fashion, punk subculture, progressive social change and the health of the planet and especially the oceans.
Our inspiration draws heavily from many rebellious subculture movements we have both observed and participated in. Our style and aesthetics are pretty diverse but I tend to think there is a thread of commonality between the different inspirations we draw from.
There has always been a tie between world events and artist responses to those events, from the Dadaism movement to the punk rock movement, culture and counterculture go hand in hand. This is something we can observe globally.
In japanese street fashion, we see the rebellious nature of EGL and Gyaru fashion to go against the social beauty standards as well as Jirai (landmine) and Menhera styles that draw attention to the mental health crisis, to Tenshi Kaiwai and Mizuiro Kaiwai drawing on the dual nature of technology to both bring people together and isolate them from one another. Fashion movements in Japan often have something very intentional to say about the world these styles were born into.
In a similar way, we can see this reflected in the United States with the resurgence of punk and cybercore fashions and subcultures. These subcultures are in a constant conversation with similar subcultures globally, and the swapping of meanings between american punk and cyber fashion and japanese harajuku and shinjuku styles has always resonated with me.
We are all universally struggling with a world that doesn’t give enough weight to the mental wellness of our society, that leans on technology to be the new social order when it has just as much power to destroy as it does to create, a world that values profit over environment and money over people. And in this struggle we often use tongue and cheek humor, fashion or escapism to connect.
Some of the best connections I have ever made have been through fandom. Characters of popular (or sometimes unpopular) media have been a gateway for me as a sexual minority, as well as an autistic individual, to meet other people and know that we share a certain experience. Cosplay, fashion, and items that showcase my love for those same media have acted as the key to that gateway more times than I can count.
All of those experiences show through in the art that Prism to Temawa has to show, so we decided to bring it all together in one place.
So what you can expect to find on this site is a mix of Anime, BL and queer characters, LGBT+ media, J-fashion including Menhara, Jirai Kei, Tenshi Kaiwai and other subcul fashion, ocean appreciation and eco-conscious themes, DIY and punk influences in the form of patches, accessories and zines, cyber aesthetics, mental illness awareness, and a bit of ironic humor in it all.
As we’re gearing up for our next local market, I’ll be trying to come on and talk about our experiences, share a little of what we have going on and keep this place updated as both a portfolio of works as well as shop for those who may have been interested in an item at one of our events but for any reason weren’t able to purchase it at the event.
Thank you all so much for reading and being on this journey with us!
~Prism
