Painting footage were recorded on October 18 mostly and on 20th.
Black and white, sea-less, soundless version was upped to IG on June 28, 2019.
The one you see here is the revised, relatively fancier version, edited on 29Mar22 ~ 03Apr22.
I use iMovie, always have. I am aware of fancier editing tools but I haven’t gotten around to study them. Reasons? One-woman show with time limitations and priorities.
Photo #3 from top:
Workin’ hard, buried in seashells – the piece in progress is named “Spider lily Red – Flare 2”. (Flare 1 is completed / what I am painting is this drawing.)
May 05, 2019, the day the last petals fell from the cherry tree outside my window, I opened a new bottle of red acid dye and dissolved a small portion in a tiny plastic container. It’s the beginning of a long painting process, starting with tracing of the previously-done drawing on the wrong side of silk stretch satin.
In the early part of the process, as seen in the photo below of a newly traced pattern, the piece would look quite unpromising. Being the only person who sees the potential in the work-in-progress, it is up to what faith I got left in me to bring the vision of what it can be onto the surface which, at least for an initial while, appears to be nothing but a far cry.
I’ve been driven to bring into existence the two-piece series I named “Spider Lily Red – Flare”. Will I still be going through this even if no one else in this world would dig it? (ouch!!) The answer is ever-emphatic yes.
I’d do it for the Beauty, the kind that is all-enveloping, synonymous with words like ‘Timeless’ and ‘Truth’, because It touched me again and again and again, in a way I do not know how else to say “Thank You” to.
From Top:
Quote / hashtag by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Haven’t read the book though – I found it on instagram.
Photo 1,5,7 – Spanish Bluebell, captured macro in various stages of progression.
3 – Violet, bold and vibrant.
4 – Hyacinth, dried petals and the part that held the seed.
2 and 6 – ‘Spider Lily Red – Flare”, in the aforementioned initial stages, with inspirative Spanish Bluebells.
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.
