This early summer, we are having sunsets in vivid magenta, frequently enough to surprise, amuse, worry – an earthquake premonition? – many of us over here.
Drawings in the photos – extended, drawn, traced – are for “Spider Lily Red”, the newest series of dyed garments.
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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May a rainbow follow your stride…
October 08, 2014. On the day of the special full moon, I finished making five dye sample swatches. Each drawn on a different fabric, all silk, holds dye particles in its own way.
The one below is on ivory-colored silk chiffon georgette, so far my most favorite, quite unexpectedly so, as I thought it’d be too fluid even for the faintest touch with a brush-point.
Twenty days in September spent beside red spider lilies had left me with a gift that seems to be growing on its own. Just as the project itself has a life of its own. Last year I drew the lilies off photographs, dragging my feet at times as I study their complex shapes on a series of pencil drawings. Weary, I’d put my pencil down, on, off and so forth. When I return to it though, I found myself, once and again, in ideas and skills, at a place further ahead from where I left off.
Fairies, has got to be. The red lilies and their hired hands. They followed me home and started building an engine, a gift to the repeat visitor and her adoring eyes.
The lilies were here only for a short time; the rural landscape feels even more muted since. But those fairies they never quit, day after day, working on the motor that is fueled by my remembering the special tone of red. The spider lily red.
The blue photo above was taken on the night of total lunar eclipse, shortly after the moon rose above the horizon, just a few hours before the show time. I omitted the moon in the photo but trust me it was there, sprinkling glitters on the darkened surface of the Big Fluidity.
The swatches are about to be sent off to specialists in Tokyo for steam-setting very soon. They are made as the first step for “Spider Lily Red”, the latest addition to my dyed threads series. You can view the progress of the project as well as the Lilies – the muse, sans fairies, in these posts.
Thank you for your visit.
Last Edited: November 30, 2020
Lately, much of my evenings I spend visiting fireflies.
Early summer rice fields, the plants are already at their full-height. They host a small family of the delicate insects come alive each evening as Twilight falls.
In the pitch dark their fluorescent yellow lights draw weightless lines visible only to my mind’s eye.
Flashing on, off, on, off….I stand amidst the invisible web of Organic Elegance and say to myself:
I get it, it’s that Pulse again!!
Just then in distance a Wave breaks one more time, with its most wholesome assertion Sea replies:
it’s our Heartbeat honey, yours and mine.
The Night then trembles, suspended in time.
Photos are of various beach finds and a dye test swatch for my “Spider Lily Red” series.
The last photo is of a new pencil drawing, incomplete, of a petal of the said lily, for the said series, trying something different from how I usually painted with dyes.
Additional note on April 10, 2019:
This post was originally titled as “Bounds melt. Time stands still.”.
For the reason I do not disclose (i.e. not that interesting to you) I removed this post from this site for a while.
I revived this under a new title and with revised text on April 09-10, 2019. The reason being:
The red lily petal dyed on a silk (the photo in the middle) was the first dye test for this project “Spider Lily Red”. I painted in the same way as all the previous Dyed Threads series (example). And it didn’t quite work.
The bottom drawing is what I came up with as the alternative. The rest of photos are the main sources of inspirations. The drawing – of the same petal, had progressed into 2 part series (references: drawing 1, and drawing 2) – are both completed now. I thought it would be kinda neat to show you how it all started.
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Wing Dress – Velocity (2009-2011), acid dye on silk.
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Wing Dress (2007-2009), acid dye on silk.
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Indigo Dragon Top (2006), acid dye on silk.
This year summer arrived late. Right when it did, I headed west in my little Honda. Along the coast of the Great Channel of Far East (formally known as Japan Sea), until I hit the region called San-in, “in the shadow of mountains”.
I’ve taken city street, cutting through “Japan Alps” at midnight (not the smartest idea), so as to really hear cicadas sing, millions of trillions of them. Each and every mount tall and small buzzed like it is a space craft about to take off, sound that goes well with the blazing summer sun.
Beaches of San-in have minimum dose of concrete holding them in. Mounds of thriving woods in sharp angles and rocky little picturesque islands grow out of glassy teal sea. They perch at the edge of water, appearing wild, but also somewhat reserved. Polite yet unrestricted, the harmonious anarchy.
While treading water impressed, ocean decided to rush into my snout, sending an army of microorganisms as plenty as cicadas in summer hills, on a mission to unlock my senses from inside out. Thanks to them the buzzing intensified, and for a few moments I felt I could almost ‘get’ what their song is all about.
From top:
1 and 2 – Tango Peninsula, Kyoto
3 – Yasugi Beach, Hyogo
4 – Aizu South, Fukushima
5 – Kasumi, Hyogo
All photographed earlier this month.
Heartfelt “Thank You!!” to all of you generous souls I encountered during my trip.
コンクリで護岸処理をしてある海岸線を通ると、セーラー服着用を義務づけられた６年間を思い出す。着たとたんに魂の電源が切れるというか、情熱に石棺処理を施されたような息苦しい感覚である。もちろん世の中には正反対の反応をなさる方もたくさんおられるようなのでこれはごく個人的な問題なのだけれども、不自由感を感じていないふりを自分にしないとやってゆけなかったから余計話はややっこしかったのだ。
新潟の海岸線はコンクリ使用量がとても多いようで、もったいない話だが制服トラウマの再燃に追い立てられる様にいつもあわてて通り過ぎてしまう。どこか影のある北陸を過ぎ若狭湾をこえたあたりで突然当方に変化が起きる。肺が勝手に深呼吸をしチョウチョの様にぱたぱたと羽ばたき始めるような胸いっぱいの開放感の発症である。
『山陰』という名前からはほど遠く明るくひらけた京都から兵庫、鳥取あたりのあの一帯には前述の護岸処理はあまり見当たらない。すくなくとも当方はもうそれどころではなくて、叫ぶような蝉たちの鳴き声にのって自らが飛び立っていってしまいそうで、一杯空気を吸い込んで軽くなった肺胞が風船の様に勝手に空を目指してしまいそうで、そんななかば宙に浮いた視界に入ってくるのは、石庭のような波紋を描く水面から生える、みっちりとはち切れそうな緑に覆われた小さな山々や日本画から抜け出たような岩の数々から、発車寸前の宇宙船のように響き渡る蝉の声が太陽光線といっしょになってすべてを震わせ前述の生き埋め感覚を木っ端みじんに粉砕する、そんな一大事な真夏の光景なのである。
上から、
写真１、２ 丹後半島 京都府
写真３ 安木浜 兵庫県
写真４ 南会津 福島県
写真５ 香住 兵庫県
写真はすべて今月はじめ頃に撮影。
旅行中こんな当方に親切にして下さった皆様に心から感謝いたします。
Summer dawn, what’s not to love. It’s here today, not to stay for long.
Up the hill, or down to the beach. Will drive empty streets. Watch the light sneak into the pre-dawn quiet.
I’m the sinister figure looking into your rice field, or up at the sky with my back facing the sun asleep right below the horizon.
What’s she doing out there, which planet is she from, she waiting for a ride back home, oh look, she’s talking, to her friends in the sky, or spirits of frogs ran over during the night…
In fact I’d be talking to myself, can I just not move for a moment or two, which ain’t audible to rural early risers, not until I laugh fairly loudly at my own sloth; I hate tripod.
All the images were shot in late June, 2013 – sometime around the solstice, by yours truly the staying upper, camera hand held.
近頃カエルの声がいくぶん大きくなったように感じる。個体がでかくなったのか、声帯だけぶっとくなったのかそれとも頭数が増えたのか。謎は深まるばかりだが、目にする単体は無邪気に小さくて愛くるしい。
なかには夜になると田んぼから飛び出し、夜露のアスプァルト上を弾性の嬉しそうなカーブを描いてはねるのもいて、こっちはたいした善人でもないが慌ててジグザグ走行に入り、このときばかりは過疎暮らしに感謝する。
夏の明け方は夜通し鳴きつづけたカエルたちの声もこころなしか疲れ気味でその数も少ない。車を止めて一歩踏み出すと、子供部屋のベッドリネンの柄のようにコミカルなポーズで真っ平らに轢かれたカエルたちが目に入る。彼らはまたカエルとして戻ってきて明日の夜あたりには大合唱に加わるのだろうか。無風で湿度の高い薄明かりに謎の粒子がみっしり詰まる夜明け前の一瞬である。
写真はすべて夏至あたりの早朝に怪しく撮影。
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