Wednesday 9 September 2015

Forest Grump.

August came in like a lion. Two weeks of record-breaking heat and the bluest skies. Up at the crack of dawn. Tomatoes and fresh greens....endless summer happiness.

Now we have had a month of rain and cloudy skies. Today another typhoon pummelled us. Grrrrrrrr...grumpy as hell. A glimpse of blue sky before sunset. The autumn insects have takes oven from the soaking cicadas.

The president of Seiwa (The natural dye supplier and textile college in Tokyo we all know and love dearly.) came over for lunch a few weeks back in the sweltering muggy grey heat. They have a small gallery in the entrance of the shop before you take the elevator up to the school. He asked me for something to display in the gallery that was dyed with the indigo his company produces. Reluctantly, I lent him a few of the paper/linen stencil dye scarves as he went out the door.

The staff sent me a picture of the exhibition and my scarves when the exhibition was over. They had displayed them inside out.

The designs on the back are very cool. But they are obviously the back.

Helpless helpless helpless.....like the mouldy summer just greyed and gone.





There were a few bright spots. I grumpily guarded my free time in the gloomy humidity this summer. Annemarie is an acquaintance of an old student. She brought some Dutch sunshine into the house for a while. An email just arrived from her and it seems she wants to make Japan home for a while now. Thinking about this as I went for my late afternoon walk/jog and surveyed the damage of this morning's typhoon. 

There is still a magic in Japan that will convince people to give up their comfortable lives and move here. This contrasted with the tragic flood of humanity out of Syria had my head spinning as I picked up wind fall branches on the road and threw them off to the side in the rich-green-misty-wet mountain cream-coloured sunset of a depopulating mountain village here in Japan. 








12 comments:

  1. Strange that Seiwa would get it wrong. Makes you wonder whether they were thinking at all. Spring is finally beginning to make short bursts with the next few days being the warmest we have had in 4 months. Time to get back to the gym and back into the stitching. Am so glad the garden is providing for you before the cold sets in . Think of you often.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Always enjoy seeing your work,life and tales..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Judi,
    Spring....I would love to do it allover again without going through winter. Hugs,
    bryan

    ReplyDelete
  4. know what?they are still gorgeous.
    next tie i go to japan i would like to go to seiwa and get dyes there instead of tanaka nao.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They have better indigo. The backs are not bad... I admit...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bryan!!! You are having a grumpy old man day. Don't let them get you down, but at this time of year (northern hemisphere Judi) it's difficult to be positive. Been seeing the terrible floods on our news here, I trust you and yours are all safe.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Lis,
    Grumpy old man....exactly. We didn't catch the brunt of that storm but things are pretty messy. Clean up crew of friends helping me out around the yard yesterday and today.
    Hope all is better on your side of the ball. bryan

    ReplyDelete
  8. we are back in a summer heat wave. Victoria dodged the bullet when Vancouver almost got blown off the map a couple weeks ago - but Vancouverites are a hardy lot, even if they're grumpy occasionally. How's the weaving going?

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Jean
      Weaving and spinning daily in small doses. We got some summer back today. I harvested a load of indigo leaf and cut weeds in the mulberry field. Blue skies and the grump just melted away.

      Delete
  10. i hear the bittersweet of winding down into falll, an exhaustion i understand. school starts and i want to make art and walk and be my kind of busy, but alas.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bryan, the work is like the summer skies. Not quite right, but still amazing!

    ReplyDelete