The year in review.
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Tag Archives: sea
Grain Haiku
All images were photographed with iPhone 4s during the hottest days of summer 2015 at sundown. Grainy textures came, mostly from the lack of light, and a slight bit from editing with vscocam.
Magenta Sunsets – an update on Spider Lily Red
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.
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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Inspired Moments, 2014.
May a rainbow follow your stride…
A Gift from the Lilies
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
Biofluorescents.
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.
Process in Pictures: Wing Dress – Velocity (2009 – 2011)
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Wing Dress – Velocity (2009-2011), acid dye on silk.
Process in Pictures: Wing Dress (2007 – 2009)
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Wing Dress (2007-2009), acid dye on silk.
Process in Pictures: Indigo Dragon Top (2006)
Originally posted on Cargo Collective circa June 2011.
Piece: Indigo Dragon Top (2006), acid dye on silk.
