From top:
Photo 1,3,9,11 – Japanese Apricot, also known as Ume, in various stages of development.
5,6,7 – Bunchflower Daffodil, Narcissus Tazetta in Latin. Dries pretty (6 and 7).
Both flowers are in full bloom as of now, impeccably designed by The Artist I follow very closely.
2,4,6,8,10 – Are my stuff I’m working on called “Spider Lily Red – Flare 2”. Well where’s the red? That’s coming up next.
References: Spider Lily Red – Flare 1 (completed), the drawing traced in the photos above (also completed) and the progress of the project (has been documented since 2012).
Hope this post finds you well – thank you for stopping by.
Time flies, but you are the pilot.
– KLM Airlines paper napkin.
The pilot, during a break after a long flight through fine and foul, low fuels, engine troubles, and turbulences with oxygen masks dangling – there also had been a few instances of emergency landings (details withheld) – is photographed on her recent 55th birthday, striking a “mountain peak pose” standing amidst papers for a project named “Spider Lily Red“, with a bouquet of Bunchflower Daffodils, sandwiched by pictures of Japanese Apricot, the first two to start off the seasons of scented blossoms.
She is captured donning a dyed jacket, one of her earlier creations, and a smile that turned up impromptu, as she pondered upon the monumental tasks, the project and the flight, both work in progress, much like the pilot.
Thank you for your visit, and here’s to your monumental flight!!
The project: Spider Lily Red.
In progress is the second of the two piece series called “Flare”.
Images are from this past September, captured moments during the precious three weeks I get to spend every autumn with my favorite lilies, my muse, taking in as much, their familier red to last me for a year.
The photos are in sleepy smoky monochrome, because I am saving up the stored red so as to pour it all into the second piece I will be painting in the coming months.
The piece in progress: Spider Lily Red. A petal of the said lily (top), the muse, certainly posing like one, from late September this year, and my interpretation of it painted on silk, the reverse side of a dress in formation, pictured on the last day of October.
Stitches are done by hand, my homage to the God of Creativity whose benevolence and artistry I could never outdo.
Photographed this afternoon: the work in progress on a sewing body (in blur, just because), with most likely this fall’s last batch of my favorite lilies.
Above: post steam set (the high-heat, steam-not-water procedure is outsourced to craftsmen in Tokyo who mostly work with kimono clients), red dye now bright and alive. Approx.120 things I secretly feared would go wrong, one of which being overdoing the dye, meaning way too many dye particles sitting upon fabric grain, from which a major trouble certainly results, a mistake I once made in 2003, did not happen. Dyed surface now stable, time for me to relax.
Below: a macro shot of a spider lily petal, the muse for the above piece I’ve been working on, photographed as I discovered its magic back in Fall 2014.
Firstly, thank you!! to those of you who signed up for my newsletter, also for your kind notes and generous words. Please know you have my appreciation.
Above: Dream Lily (Nine), one of the very first photos I took of spider lily petals – a visual memo I made back in late 2012, of ideas for the dress series to emerge.
Below: fast forward several years. Spider Lily Red – Flare 1 (the series and its first piece), acid dye on silk, process, detail, photographed on 15th of July, a day after I stopped painting on the piece – there was nothing more to add.
Looking back to where it began before stepping into the remaining 2 percent, crossing my fingers.
ALERT:
This video contains flickering / flashing lights.
(Sunlight beaming through leaves / blurred traffic lights blinking in distance.)
Today’s discovery: fishing boat is an experimental composer! Play the full range if possible.
Tascam-ed this evening as I sent it off to the moon-lit Pacific.
Task at hand: Spider Lily Red – Flare (One). Visual snippets are from late March to mid April, recorded easy breezy as the cherry blossoms came and went.
“Hope you get to see the cherries fall – have you?
There’s this one day all the trees decide to let go of the petals, it’s not the rain, or storm…but when this one day comes, often a very sunny day, they release their petals and fill the gray and busy Tokyo with swirling mass of pink confetti.”
– from an unsent letter, three springs ago.
Photos: Spider Lily Red, in progress, pictured just yesterday.
The text is a repost from April 2014. Although the original post was deleted (it was not “dense” enough to stay – with each post I try to deliver something meaningful, personally and hopefully also somewhat universally.) I liked the text and every year I thought of it as the cherries fell. Because they fall, how they fall each year, as if the petals are held by micro hands that release the grip at the command inaudible to human ears, orchestrated in perfect timing optimal for the falling petals to dance midair.
I am also accumulating videos, of the blossoms, me painting, and other various scenes from spring I wish to put together at one point. For now though, I am focusing my effort on finishing the painting because.
Using dye is a delicate business. One must protect the budding piece from any moisture (e.g. sneezing, drooling..) and flying dye particles that become only visible once heat-set. It is best done in one sitting, in this case in one long sitting.
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