Day two of the silkworm challenge. 

These bamboo trays (Ebira or Kago) are used to raise silkworms on. 

There is not a single respectable old farmhouse in Japan that doesn’t have a stack of these things under the rafters or in the corner of a barn. 

Japan was closed off to the rest of the world for hundreds of years. (Except for some Dutch who were allowed to trade on a small island off the coast of Kyushu.)

When Japan opened to the rest of the world they desperately wanted to avoid the fate of other Asian and African countries that were colonized and raped. They needed foreign currency and knowledge to build their country quickly before American and European interests could establish a system to exploit and control them. 

Silk was the only thing that could bring in large amounts of foreign currency. (This was before the development of synthetic fibers. ) Every house that could raise silkworms in the country did so from the late 1800s up to the Second World War. The industry continued after the war but has almost died out since the late 1980s. The technology the Japanese developed is used in other countries now. Flatter spaces with cheaper labor. China, India and Brazil produce most of the worlds silk right now. 

Bamboo is plentiful throughout most of Japan and used for construction and tools. 

I still see these trays peeking out of barns and attics. Artists and farmers use the ubiquitous trays creatively to make fences and for decorative purposes.

Here another translated page from the book I am working on.

Washing Silk Farming Tools in the River.

‘As the season changes and the water becomes warmer preparation begins. Under the rafters where the silk farming equipment has been stored over the winter, it is now taken out and tossed into the river.

Bamboo brooms in the river go, ‘swish swish’ as they splash away the grime. A war to sterilize before the rearing season starts makes everyone busy. The village is suddenly alive once more. Depending on the strength of the sun the green leaves come out. It’s time for the kids to start mucking around in the river as well.’

The eggs did not hatch today. I took the bamboo trays down to the river and gave them a swishing with a bamboo broom. 

Years ago I wanted something graphic and connected to my life on my forearm. A bamboo silk farming tray filled the criteria. 

A few people commented on the green silk I dyed the other day. I dyed some more today.

I hand spun the silk from floss from my cocoons a few years ago. Two dips in indigo and rinsed and beaten at the river. I then mordanted it with alum and over-dyed it a vicious yellow from boiled gardenia pods. Rinsed well again. I will ply it with a darker green to get a slightly marled warp thread.

Silkworm challenge.

Silkworm eggs....Yeah...exciting stuff.

Instead of the ten day, ten album challenge to see what ten albums have shaped my taste in music I will take the silkworm challenge.

Eggs to thread and perhaps to textile.

Plenty of comments.

I have these Utamaro woodblock prints on the wall on the third floor near the far guest rooms. No one ever sees them. They are a series on silk processes. (Yes, they are originals.) 

No, the silk farming beauties did not wear such gorgeous work kimono.

In this picture you can see the beauties with two silk moths with their legs tied to threads so they can’t fly away. This is where the eggs come from.
One moth lays 500 eggs. 800 grams of silk to make a kimono without a lining. Basically 5 moths worth of silk. A full kimono with lining and sash and coat would require 10 000 silkworms. 20 moths worth of eggs. 

Let’s start here. 

First the highest quality cocoons are chosen. Then the best chrysalis are chosen and the males and females are separated. 

Once the moths emerge the long process of introductions is started. A complex logarithm of ancient Chinese astrological significance and individual current political tendencies are taken into consideration as well as countless hours spent with the individual moths flicking left and right through the Silkter, (the silk moth equivalent of TInder/Grindr.) 

I didn’t breed for eggs last year. I bought these 1000 eggs online. 

Finding tiny face masks for moths and taking responsibility for their Covid-19 protection was too much responsibility. The male moths were swiping way out of their league and the females were way way too picky. I have better things to do with my time than deal with that vanity. 

These pictures are from a few years ago. 

The eggs are due to hatch tomorrow.

The wooden machine below is a warping wheel. 

The black box in the picture is important. The eggs are placed inside and the lid opened and closed several times a day to condense time so the eggs will be tricked into hatching on a certain day.

Utamaru's signature. Absolute calligraphic perfection. 

1000 silkworm eggs.

Males on left. Females on right. Magnifying glass used to determine sex. Dish of shed silkworm skins.

Males are smaller.

I put cones on the females so they will lay eggs in a circle. Easy to count. 

I’ve been living and making my living in this 650 year old mountain hamlet and 150 year old silk farming house for over 25 years now. I didn’t think much about it and basically enjoyed the time and seasons go by. 

The house, the village and I have aged and changed. The ancient ghosts on the paths and near the streams are much the same. It just took me many years to simply acknowledge them by diverting my eyes when we meet so not to offend. 

I suppose I am the type of person who is relatively fine with uncertainty. (Unlike others who gulp for oxygen if the washing machine eats a sock or two.) 

Showing up in Japan on my 25th birthday with a backpack and a single five-word-sentence from a conversation with my bestie Ingrid Mclainewhen I told her I was going to try to set up a life in Japan. 

Decades ago the backpack was given away but the one syllable laugh, a double nostril expulsion of air propelling my head back with a slight eye roll.

“Yeah…something will work out.”

The sentence is still at hand and just as sustaining as it has been all this time. 

I never did figure out which one of us actually said it. Probably Ingrid. 

Remembering vividly the first time I was inside a Japanese farmhouse. It was truth. 

When we see or hear or read a truth we nod our heads and say…yeah…that is the truth. 

Years later I got me own old farmhouse and looking back someone might have confused the Canadian for Megan Sussex on the moving day in to the dump. 

A self-satisfied smirking Cheshire Cat…. might have even had a green shirt on… different shade of course. 

I digress.

Walter Gropius the founder of Bauhaus wrote an introduction to a book on Japanese domestic architecture in the 1950s :

In revealing the meaningful cultural aims and the high craftsmanship of the Japanese domestic architecture as it evolved through the centuries and in laying bare the compelling motives that directed its development …. 

The Japanese example of the dedication of a whole nation to the task of giving form and substance to recognized spiritual values comes here as an eye opener to all those who doubted that such a unity of purpose could ever exist. 

The design conception had started from the very bones of the building and not merely at its skin as a cosmetic play. Spiritual and practical requirements of living had been coordinated into an artistic approach that represents one of the most valuable contributions to a universal philosophy of architecture. 

I have another old beaten up picture book I found on a garbage can in the rain many years ago. It is a local history book. Watanabe Kahei san from a neighboring hamlet spent fifteen years on two hundred paintings depicting life in these mountains from his youth the early 1920s to 1935. Another local man, Kawaoka Takeharu wrote the descriptions under each picture in the book. 

The original set of pictures for the book started with thirty paintings of the sericulture and weaving culture that appeared in this area where life was so rough that, ‘Five houses share the rare flat land where there should have only been one.’ 

I usually leaf through the disintegrating picture book with my newly arrived workshop guests on their first day here. 

The images of life are worth much more than words. 

I translated the last few lines of the forward without an ounce of elegance.

Nothing has left behind a richer imagery than the unpretentious pictures of life here.
This book, ‘Life in the Mountain Village’ is an outstanding work representing the lives in that period of time expressed through paintings. Now we should honestly go back and deal with these things. I think we can find the basic roots and sources of our lives in the world depicted in these paintings. Even if this evaluation of traditional culture happens, it probably won’t lead to better times…..will it?

I have started to translate the entire book. As I go along I will think about how to use the translation to get across something I found that was important to me. Like Walter Gropius’ insight to Japanese architecture I found a seamless connection between the material and spiritual aspirations of the people. He saw it in architecture and I see it in the life and textiles made in these dark, hidden valleys.

This old house was filled with not only silk farming equipment but silk reeling equipment and loom parts. They were a broken tangle of sooty chaos under the rafters and in hidden corners of this old house and out buildings. Unused for fifty years. It took me years to fix them or replace them and replicate the processes from breeding silk moths to weaving kimono. 

It took me as many years to look at these old timers around me, twenty-five years of working with them and drinking tea with them to get an idea of what their lives had been like. With trepidation I have not introduced myself but simply worked cutting grass around the graveyards behind the houses and keeping the paths clear of overgrowth and getting to know the gods and ghosts that sit around in their old impoverished work kimono. 

My eggs hatch in a few days. The fresh mulberry leaf in the early days of the rainy season await to be picked and fed to the honorable silkworms.

I was down at the river this morning washing the spun silk I have made the past few years and get it ready to be woven. The colors are an attempt to replicate these dark and earthy mountain forests. Lots of indigo and tree barks. Tea harvest is finished for another year. Very little rain this spring so it was more quality that quantity this time. Thank you to the helpers. I finished weaving this madder dyed spun silk a few days ago. It had been on the loom for ages. It was a slow slog weave. And what is a rambling post without a cute cat picture? Whiteboots is eyeing the goldfish in the lily pots while he takes a drink at the front door. The second indigo vat is not in use so plants have moved in.