“…She’s photographing us…”
their whispers echo, the riverside murmur
Red Spider Lilies.
Autumn in rural Japan, colors are subdued
except for patches of bright blood red,
Spider Lily Red.
Got me an ancient silk in the Spider Lily Red
once worn upon the skin, an innermost thread.
Flashing red under a coat of subtlety
with dye that bleeds just like the blood.
Originally posted on Cowbird.com on October 2, 2012. Photos are from Autumn 2013.
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Photographed in September 1997, at Larchmont Village, Los Angeles, CA.
Uploaded to Flickr on September 27, 2012. It was in an album titled “I remember everything that made her special”.
My best friend here, a goddess in fur sitting under bougainvillea. What you don’t see is a servant holding a camera, on the cloudy end of the leash that tied two of us together.
We lived in a 1920’s studio apartment, somewhere between Larchmont and Korea Town, walking distance from places like the Wiltern Theater. It costed a little over 500 USD per mo. utilities included. A friend told me recently, that a place like that now charges at least triple the amount.
I moved to the City of Angeles in late 1980’s. There were a lot of rooms to be alive in for someone like me – a young creative with a penchant for adventurous and experimental. I lived by a motto “I didn’t cross the Big Pond to sit in front of a TV set.”
I’m not saying I found a paradise. It was “spacious” tho, for me to wiggle and breathe. Before social media, before smartphones, I thank my God to this day that there was no instagram back then to have my follies documented.
Don’t get me wrong; I love technology. If I didn’t I would have not spent my precious hours learning to run my own website. But. Here’s what I think. More advanced the technology is, greater the need to implement, and USE it/them with empathic, compassionate, good-natured, warm-blooded kindness, which may require each individual – the user end of equation – a consistent willingness to self-reflect.
Or else we’d end up building an invisible cage where Creativity may struggle to flower. And without Creativity life may just be….o, never mind.
The photo was taken shortly before moving away. When I first landed there I had known not even a soul; in little less than a decade I carved out a life I so not wanted to leave. It was an experiment, a challenge, a blank canvas upon which I stumbled, struggled to let myself go.
What’s photographed here is the perfect moment I had to seize, at the conclusive time of contemplation on my long stay in the city I chose, my imperfect life unfolding with impeccable precision leading up to that point.
Examining her smile now as a not-so-young creative with much less self-doubt, it makes me wonder if she had known, an angel in her fur coat, that one day I will come to know that I had done the job just fine.
Published on April 07, 2022.
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“You can’t take California out of the girl.”
– A Modern Proverb
Last time I was in California, I took a long lone ride across the southern half of the state. Came alive in the open land where no one knows what I am. Beneath the desert sun the earth and the ether met at right where I stood.
Photos from my too few/far between visits, from top:
P1 – The first time in San Francisco, Christmas 2011, practicing my “light calligraphy” technique near Union Square. Posted the monochrome version on my then Tumblr around 2017.
P2 – The car was not moving but my camera was; the early incarnation of the above-mentioned “Light Calligraphy” thing. Northridge California, September 2006. Posted the diptych version of this photo titled “Miss LA” on my website, Flickr, and MySpace shortly after I returned.
P3 – Don’t try this at home: holding a camera on a freeway riding back from Half Moon Bay, into SF city, also 2011. Never posted this one anywhere simply because I don’t think it’s that good, but “the feel” is there; California night, going places.
A quote in decorative letters from a conversation I had earlier in the day, as the other party, noticing the change in my tone as I spoke fondly of Calif. good-natured jokingly said, “Is that it, the ‘you can take a girl out of California but you can’t take California out of the girl’ thing?” And I laughed with her remembering that girl I once was, the girl who fought a long, lonesome battle against Creativity Itself.
Written and published here on May 23, 2022.
Also from the last trip: a photo journal post on vsco: “California 2011”
What’s this Light Calligraphy thingy? Explain!! : Light Calligraphy
Name: Sofi
Time served as a dog: 15.5yrs
Characteristics: Smart, Sexy, Funny.
Communication Style: Paranormal
Tag Line: Too Cool to Bark.
Testimonial:
Most significant among many things she had taught me during her lifetime would be this: the “supernatural” is in fact the natural, is not to be feared. Nor could be avoided. Not with her anyways. Through invading my head reading my thoughts and intentions – which explains the occasional clouding of her mood – and responding to me in actions even I, the un-evolved, could understand. I was merely transparent, my psychological boundaries were continuously crossed, and most surprisingly, I felt safe, supported even, in this strange style of relating.
Although she was generally a good sport, impressive given the circumstance of being tied to the likes of me, I have reasons to believe she was feeling rather confined in a tidy canine package, haunted by never ceasing hunger for edibles, especially those that goes into my mouth. So when finally the time to leave arrived, it must have come as a long-awaited relief, though, thanks to her, I am no longer sure what the death really means. In any case, upon her departure, she left the door to the world of supernaturals wide open. Hey, shut the door behind you, dog! “Thought you could use a little ventilation~~”. The disciple now hears inaudible giggles of the former dog master stretching out in the Limitless Ether.
– Yuko, dining in peace nowadays.
Originally posted on my previous “photo Journal” diary, edited on October 7, 2013.
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From top:
1. Somewhere above Pacific, chasing the sunrise.
2. SF, near Ocean Beach.
3 and 4. “Mavericks”, Half Moon Bay.
5. China Town, SF.
6. Midland somewhere between SF and LA along Interstate 5.
7. Museum of Natural History, LA.
8. Agua Dulce.
9. San Simeon.
Photographed during my visit to California in late 2011 – early 2012,
Originally posted on my previous “Photo Journal” diary.
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In Noto Peninsula, almost all houses are roofed with matching black tiles. Being a starry-eyed tourist, I thought the community did it for the sake of aesthetics. Turned out it was for the particular type of moisture-resistant coating, resulting in the rows of semi-mat black chicness.
The kind of black that glistens softly in light drizzle.
Special thanks to the crow.
Photographed earlier this month.
Photographed circa 1998, with a film SLR camera, at a neighborhood shrine in Kawasaki, Japan. These carvings became one of the main inspirations for my dyed dragon series.
ALERT:
This video contains flickering / flashy lights and could-be dizzying movements.
(Strong sunlight reflections at the shore, and may be felt as disorientating camera work.)
In summer 2009 I started recording the creative process on videos – mainly of me working on my dyed pieces,
as a vlog version of my then blog “art is a process” (2007-2012) which documented the making of two Wing Dresses.
Above is titled “Wing Dress in the Making, October 22, 2011”, my most favorite, also one of the last videos of my finishing up the second Wing Dress “Velocity”, synched with a fantastic music I discovered through blogging.
The “synching” thing was what I somehow naturally arrived at. I had a lot of fun experimenting stuff that way.
Special Thanks to Ms. Betsy Grant for her piano piece – the short piece feels to me has the kind of preciseness I always adored,
to the point, on what it takes to become ready for love.
Last Edited: November 18, 2019.
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