Recap: a dye test for Dyed Dragon Series, January 2006.
And a souvenir shell from a trip to Shizuoka Prefecture earlier this month.
Dragon Drawing, a dye test, 2006.
Tag Archives: nature as an inspiration
Monochrome Diary, June 2016
Everything’s got a little black within it.
A discovery on Swallows: a compact aerodynamic frame was accompanied by the expression of an eagle.
Crazy, sexy, cool. Naming just a few, start from top: Oxalis (Imo Katabami), Spiderwort (Murasaki Tsuyukusa), Meadow Sage / Salvia Guaranitica
Cast of characters, clockwise from top left: Yarrow, Cherry Sage, Can’t Recall, Salvia Guaranitica (flower only), a cuppa java, my best friend Sofi asleep in the phone, Pentax WG3 in micro-macro mode.
Thank you, to the month of June, for all the scents, shades and shapes,
and Thank you! for your visit.
Lily and her friends – June Studio Report
While teaching myself how to use fabric dye, I worked in a office translating mostly medical professionals’ scribbles. I’d carve out five minutes here, ten minutes there, to somehow get my art thing going, until eventually I became the only worker on self-appointed flextime.
On Mondays during lunch I’d walk past several cafes with too many tiny tables, on a cluttered Tokyo street down to a florist, and for a couple hundred yen choose just one flower to place on my desk, a beige-gray rectangle. As an ongoing art education I’d pause between each paragraph for a few moments and closely observe the blossom of the week.
Flower shop flowers always made me a little sad: straight stemmed, sterile, tagged. I eventually parted ways with the scribbles, but what I’ve seen in each flower stayed with me, it’s the remembering of the field somewhere outside their greenhouse, accumulated stories woven into their roots. Years later, they found their way into an enlarged flower petal about to be painted on a dress, on silk with the fabric dye, now my medium of choice.
Despite the art interferences, I fulfilled my responsibilities at the scribble’s. Enough so that few years later the same people invited me back, flextime and all, which was very nice of them, but I had already made other plans, to give my all to the art thing.
The choice smart or otherwise? One thing I know, it was the only one, and I blame it on those flowers with stems too straight, and all the moments I shared with them.
Belles in the bouquets, all picked in the wild, from top, Japanese name in brackets for accuracy sake:
– Bell Flower (Hotaru Bukuro) / Honeysuckle (Suikazura) / Hyacinth Orchid (Siran)
– Hydrangea / Spiderwort (Murasaki Tsuyukusa)
– Dame’s Violet (Hana Daikon) / Yarrow (Nokogiri Sou) / Oxalis (Imo Katabami – the pink in focus. They were “asleep” at the time of photographing, which was immediately after getting picked from under a shrub.) / Cherry Sage (Yakuyou Sarubia – leaves only) / Fennel (leaves)
– Polygonum (Hime Tsurusoba) / Coral Flower (Haze Ran) / Herb Robert (Hime Fuuro)
– Adenophora Gaudi Violet (Sobana) / Gooseneck Loosestrife (Tora no o) / Prunella Vulgaris (Utsubogusa) / Gymnaster Savatieri (Miyako Wasure) / Spiderwort
In blurry background is the various stages of the dress series “Spider Lily Red” in the making in chronological/ascending order, with photo copies of 2 large pencil drawings of a spider lily petal pinned on the wall.
Also refer to my previous posts for the actual size of the petal, and the daring demeanor of each petal and my earlier attempts at grasping some of it upon fibre.
May and I – a studio view.
Nature as an Inspiration – March 7, 2016
Recap. Wing Dress (2007-2011).
Nature as an Inspiration – February 09, 2016
The actual petal is about 3cm long. Straight-edged at start, it then progressively blossoms into a free style wavy form and tangles with other ones until they become a crazy mass of flaming red. Photographed in early Autumn 2014 as a research for a series of dyed dresses named Spider Lily Red.
Artist at Work – September 28, 2015
Lily. I want to be you.
Nature as an Inspiration – September 09, 2015
Before the Summer comes…
Spring wrap up.
me: You kidding.
flower: No, really. This is the look I’m after.
From Top:
Clunky patchy job extending the drawing, of a spider lily petal. For my “Spider Lily Red” series.
Clematis, one of the many crazy-blooming in the yard right about now.
Drying petals and stamens of Clematis, in macro.
“Dada Tote” that I’ve been working on.
Many ways to blossom. I would have never known how this tiny thing looks had I not macro-ed it this afternoon.
Hear/I am.
About a month ago the year turned. While it was turning I rushed to a close by temple for the once-a-year opportunity to hit a big bronze bell they got there with a rather large log positioned to swing horizontally.
The bell is there year-round but I waited a whole year, for I feel too polite to just walk up there any old time and hit it as I like, the booming resonance it produces.
I had an opportunity to talk with the head monk afterwards, a carefree random chat the first thing in the year. He shared with me what’s been taught to him;
to find “Hotoke” – by whom no words be voiced – listen to the water, the wind…
ALERT:
This video contains flickering lights.
(Sunlight reflections on Sea surface.)
The footage’s of the sea lit with the first sunlight of the year, coupled with the booming bass from the aforementioned bell.
That is what brings everything together really, the boom of the bell, so do make sure to boost the lower frequency.
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