Tag Archives: textile art

Stir.

“Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?”

abstract artwork with a lily and a shell.

how
the river knows

It was meant for me.

A lily bouquet with a tea cup and tanned toes.
A lily bouquet in an artist studio.
Close view of a spider lily petal on a sea shell.
Abstract line drawing of a spider lily petal.

Monkey wrenches flying across a rocky slope substitute made of stained concrete while all I’m saying is:

let’s get out of the zoo.

A wild spider lily blossom lit by sunset.
Spider lily blossoms, tanned toes and a sea shell.

“Who say everything’s been said.”

Text at the top in “”:
Ray Bradbury “Fahrenheit 451”
Haiku in decorative italic:
Series “messing with other people’s poems”. Deconstructed this time, Nick Drake “River Man”.
Text at the bottom in “”:
Nick Drake “Things behind the sun”

Drawing / painting are by me, the cup, the spoon, the rug, hat, vase and the gadget are store-bought, all the magnificent rest (including my toes) by The Ultimate Artist.
Yes my toes are magnificent, so are yours. Own it.
The second from top photo taken with a vintage iPhone 3GS, no edits.
The rest of the pictures are minimally edited to match the look of the above-mentioned.

The artwork in photos are all part of a two-piece series called “Spider Lily Red – Flare” I have been working on since autumn of 2012.
Took time to develop the style, as I aimed at doing something I haven’t seen anyone do before, that is authentically my own. 9 years on I no longer know what I am doing, I hear that is actually a very good sign that you/r art is getting somewhere.

References:
Making of the series in one post: “Process is the destination” (2019)
The whole process for “Spider Lily Red” since 2012 in descending order.
Spider Lily Red – Flare 1, completed 2017, with “artist statement”.

Last Edited:
October 03, 2021 – corrected minor grammatical errors.

Monochrome Diary, June 2018.


A leaf on sand at dawn.
Natural objects in studio.

A honeysuckle flower.
A close up of Agapanthus Lily.

A hand painted dress.
Art works in studio.

A coffee cup with found objects on waterfront.
Art studio view.

“No amount of time will erase the memory of a great dog.” – Internet Meme

Images: Late May to early June, 2018. 4th from top is of an agapanthus bud. 5 and 6 are details from Wing Dress (Velocity) and Spider Lily Red (Flare 1), respectively.

Mimic.

A weeping peach bud detail.
A hand painted flower dress detail.
A camelia blossom detail.

A hand painted flower dress detail.
A dried ginkgo leaf detail.
A praying mantis waist detail.

A cherry blossom detail.
A hand painted flower dress detail.
A praying mantis detail.

A hand painted flower dress detail.
A sumire violet blossom detail.
A hand painted flower dress.

All recent images, photographed as winter turned spring, from top:

Photo 1 – Weeping Peach (Shidare Momo), a bud, blooming in still chilly early April.(… hence the fur cap?)
3 – Camellia, they drop the whole flower, as if letting petals go one by one like most everyone else is too cumbersome.
5 – Gingko leaf, curly dried. I think of details like this one, astronomical many of them, that I don’t get to have a look at, as every leaf dries with different curls, lit by ever-changing light.
6 and 9 – Praying Mantis, also dried, caught my eye while parking my car lightly resting on asphalt as a fine sculpture, because, it simply is.
7 – Cherry Blossom (Somei Yoshino), a sepal. At a park I discovered this year with three impressive cherry trees that attracts so many birds (they all chirp non stop) during 2 weeks of blooming, yet very small number of humans. Many days I solo-nicked*, spent time brings me smile recalling.
11 – Violet, also abundant at the same park as picture 7.

2, 4, 8, 10, 12 – Close details of Spider Lily Red – Flare 1. Drawn with nearly a hair of a brush, filling in bumpy edges to form smooth flowing lines. That’s how I attempt to bring the painting closer to the True Artistry evident in above images, knowing full well I will never surpass, which, defeat as such I mean, somehow makes my heart warm in all the right ways.

*Solo-nic is a made-up word I just came up with, so as to mess with other people’s language. But really, it’s the act of spontaneous lone picnicking I recommend to anyone with ears open, just so long as the land you’re about to occupy is safe and legally permissive.

Thank you for your visit!

Spider Lily Red – Flare 1

Dress with a dyed lily petal on the beach.

Spider Lily Red – Flare 1 (2017) – Acid dye on silk.

A hand painted dress on the beach.
A hand painted dress on the beach.

Flare, as in, enliven.

A hand painted dress on the beach.

You would not find Spider Lilies at florists. They flower in fields in early fall as every other flowering plant withers, giving their distinctive red the perfect stage with no competing colors.

Since fall 2012 I have observed the lilies closely, especially through capturing their petals in macro photographs, as the ideas for this series crystallized.
The petals, about an inch long at most, while remaining nearly motionless – there are some, as they progressively curl – they manage to emanate the inspirative fluidity just as dynamic as that of the Ocean.

This is the first of the two-piece series with one half of a petal painted, on a slip, a type of garment designed to be worn closest to the skin not always intended to be seen by others, to enfold but also to express inwardly, to speak into oneself, in this case the language of the red lilies of the field, and of the universal, inspirative Fluidity.

Making of the series has been documented on this website.

A hand painted dress on the beach.

A flower petal dye drawing detail.
A flower petal dye drawing detail.
A flower petal dye drawing detail.

A flower petal dye drawing.

A dress with a lily petal drawing on night beach.

Above: Nightfall (2017, in association with the Ocean)

FAQ: What took you so long?

The year in review.

Port view from a car window.
Hydrangea from a car window.
Ocean front sunset.
A curved mirror self portrait.

August 10, 2017. A day before Mountains Day, a national holiday only a few years old, I hopped on my little scarred Honda and headed out roughly towards west. Compelled by the briefness of summer, I wanted to absorb the scorching of the season as much as humanly possible.

A Spider Lily Blossom at dawn.
A Spider Lily Petal detail.

Soon after somehow I took the turn I did not plan. General direction is right I said, my motto for a game I call “intentionally getting lost”. Just so long as I won’t miss out on the precious August sun for too long.
Well the path rode into the forest and quickly narrowed, to a single lane just wide enough for my compact. Winding as a large serpent would, on and on through the thick of woods that blocked even the brightest of the light. “Always a screw up, destined to miss.” An inner dialogue took the passenger’s seat like an inseparable old friend and worse yet at each hairpin, I grew deeper in agreement with her.

A lily bouquet by a car window.
A coffee cup by the ocean.

Then quite suddenly the serpent spat me out, into the bursting of the summer where I found a community probably the smallest I’ve ever seen. Tacked away in a valley between mountains are just a handful of housing structures, only some inhabited, lives held together with artful display of faded woods and rusted tins. Face to face with the unfolding quiet gem, with midday asphalt beneath my feet, I found myself alone in a place where leaves can be heard, streams carry life, the sun warms your shoulders and butterflies are free.

Art work in progress.
A coffee cup at a port.

Creative Process, November 01, 2017.

A spider lily petal close up.

My kind of prayers.

Artist's hand and an art work.

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.

Creative Process, Late July, 2017.

A flower petal dye drawing.
A red spider lily petal detail.

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.

Things seldom make sense for the first 98 percent of the process.

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.

A spider lily petal over sea shore.
An abstract flower painting.

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.

Video Journal, May 07, 2017.

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.