tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17096289137900651042024-03-13T21:52:00.881+09:00Japanese Textile Workshops 日本のテキスタイル ワークショップLiving in a small mountain village just outside of Tokyo, I grow a crop of indigo every year and process the leaves into dye using traditional methods. I also breed silk moths, raise the silkworms and then reel/spin the silk from the cocoons. The silk is then dyed with natural dyes and finally woven on traditional Japanese looms.
I run several ten-day live-in workshops a year at the old farmhouse here in Japan focusing on the Japanese use of indigo.
Contact me for information.Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.comBlogger366125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-29207859785871211662024-01-18T23:27:00.000+09:002024-01-18T23:27:20.264+09:00<p> Hello friends and old-time followers. </p><p><br /></p><p>I ran out of Blogger steam. I closed down the business during the pandemic. The workshops are up and running again. 2024 is more or less booked up. I look back at how much I enjoyed writing here. I may start it again. I have kept up on Facebook. Japanese Textile Workshops.</p><p><br /></p><p>Just recently, I received a few emails asking if I was still running the workshops. So, I briefly appear here to let everyone know I am alive and well. </p><p><br /></p><p>Contact me at: japanesetextileworkshops@gmail.com</p><p><br /></p><p>Bryan</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw3OXTOqxgAIoFU3hlFfdMiOWx0vliLa_4YjdcfBrAvVcIzfWwESIrH2P7J6I42QT0qlIILgj7iJgHWQhAVdQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivGhigRkC8O2GlxeLbEUHdd-mbuPbMQ3yJMXolXpXDSmb3wTNuVcNFC26284cj-Y51CJSP9o6yLCnWVyPEMdHg5AfGLXFTHBAT1UTJpEMWd_wg_4xtOxSUt4CQEvVc-m8m9l20jpP1NgQsu82Y2sut8FWuKX7KOXpl8pOtU5R-CA3MpVeSSXd0J0Gqpghc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivGhigRkC8O2GlxeLbEUHdd-mbuPbMQ3yJMXolXpXDSmb3wTNuVcNFC26284cj-Y51CJSP9o6yLCnWVyPEMdHg5AfGLXFTHBAT1UTJpEMWd_wg_4xtOxSUt4CQEvVc-m8m9l20jpP1NgQsu82Y2sut8FWuKX7KOXpl8pOtU5R-CA3MpVeSSXd0J0Gqpghc" width="320" /></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-51322456437095359872020-06-03T20:48:00.000+09:002020-06-03T20:48:12.963+09:00<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
So much for my ten-day silkworm challenge. In a ten-day album challenge it would have been like running out of energy on day four on the Bob Dylan side of The Concert for Bangladesh.</div>
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“It was raining from the first and I was dying there of thirst so I came in here.<br />And your long time curse hurts but what is worse is this pain in here.<br />I can’t stay in here.<br />Ain’t it clear?<br />That I just don’t fit.<br />I believe it’s time for us to quit.<br />When we meet again, introduced as friends, please don’t let on that you knew me when, I was hungry and it was your world.”</div>
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The presence of great art uplifts us. Everyone is poisoned and stabbed dead on the stage in the last scene of Hamlet.</div>
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While we are breathing deeper with straighter backs. </div>
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The past few days have been so dismal. No wonder the silkworm eggs didn’t hatch.<br />I don’t blame them. </div>
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“If I were an alien passing by earth I would lock the spaceship door.”</div>
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I found myself praying while that stinking pile of orange shit held up the Bible. “One big bolt of lightening please.” And let the Bible gently fall to the ground miraculously open to the Sermon on the Mount.”</div>
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Anyway… the silkworm eggs are hatching. </div>
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Not all of them, so I will wait until tomorrow morning to start feeding them. </div>
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They are pepper-sized little furry babies looking for some thinly sliced gourmet mulberry leaf, chilled to just below room temperature with some Bach Cello Suite playing softly in the background. </div>
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They will take four breaks in their mulberry feast in the next 28 days. Their belts become too tight and they need to open it a few notches. (They actually shed their skins four times.) </div>
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A feather is needed to gently round up the babies so they don’t get buried beneath the sliced mulberry and suffocate or wander off to a place where they can’t find any mulberry leaf. </div>
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They may dislike the interference from a higher authority. </div>
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Some of them may hold resentment. Most of them just want to get on with the business of eating. I haven’t witnessed any antifa, silkworm identity issues, victim mentality amongst the silkworms on my trays.</div>
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Perhaps because I use a beautiful pheasant feather and not a brutal finger to keep them from hurting themselves. </div>
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The beauty in the woodblock print gently brushes the new born silkworms onto paper where they can be taken care of. Note the Japanese honeysuckle blooming in the background. The first silkworm eggs hatch when the honey suckle starts to bloom I noticed years ago. </div>
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I’ll stop the Animal Farm stuff now. I know where it leads.</div>
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A boiling pot of water.</div>
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Hee hee hee…(evil laughter.)</div>
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And I am the bourgeois puppet master...after some bourgeois silk to satisfy my melancholic appetite for long tedious processes at the expense of sentient creatures.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-67710520017283135342020-06-03T20:44:00.000+09:002020-06-03T20:44:19.554+09:00<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Day 3 of the silkworm challenge.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Three videos on this post. Watch them and change your life.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The silkworm eggs didn't hatch today...oh oh. This is getting tedious.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I asked Minako, the old woman who taught me about silk farming and weaving and dyeing many years ago. ‘Why is that silk thread rough and that silk thread smooth?’</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">She replied, ‘ One is reeled and one is spun.’</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; display: inline; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br />Meaning that one type of thread is made when you unravel the cocoon and the other is made when you make a fluffy floss and spin it.<br />Today I will write briefly about spinning silk.<br />Yeah…<br />The silkworms eat for 28 days and then the liquid in their guts is spat out forming a cocoon around them. The thread they spit out is held together with a sticky substance. This makes the cocoon firm. This glue melts in alkaline and washes away and leaves just the fibers.<br />Think of too much starch on a shirt and you wash it in the hot cycle and the shirt softens up.<br />The soft de-gummed silk is shiny and soft. The silk with the natural starch left in is more subtle and lustrous and stiff. This is silk literacy 101.<br />Minako needed an alkaline. She bundled together a handful of straw and lit it on fire. She took the cup of black ashes and put it in boiling water. She wrapped up 50 cocoons in a piece of cheesecloth and boiled it for an hour. The alkaline from the ashes melted the starch in the cocoons and they collapsed into flat wet fluff. (With gross silkworm gunk still in the collapsed middle of the mess.)<br />There are chrysalis inside the cocoon. It is the stage between the silkworm and the moth. These are picked out and the silk cocoons stretched out on a wooden frame into silk hankies.<br />The hankies are dried then stretched open and then spun.<br />Here is my spinning machine. It is not that noisy. The iPhone just picks up the sound too well. I am spinning the floss into thread. I will later use barks or leaves or roots etc to dye the silk thread.<br />In the old day the b-grade silk cocoons were spun into thread and the higher grade were reeled into finer silk thread. I actually prefer the rougher spun stuff. It has more warmth and character.<br />I could write a book on spinning silk alone.<br />I could write a book on removing the starch.<br />I could write a book on reeling silk.<br />I am not going to.<br />I should have been writing and documenting this stuff for the last 25 years. It is too late to start.<br />Damn.<br />I have boxes and boxes of silk thread and yarn upstairs. I will never use it all in this life unless I start now and weave some big stuff. Just look what I dug out yesterday. I made this thread over 15 years ago. I got around to degumming it today…. Jesus. Those greens were gorgeous yesterday. I may dye this silk and weave some green blankets.<br />Thank you Covid for making me face up to my evil ways.</span><br />
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Day two of the silkworm challenge. </div>
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These bamboo trays (Ebira or Kago) are used to raise silkworms on. </div>
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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. </div>
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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.)</div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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Bamboo is plentiful throughout most of Japan and used for construction and tools. </div>
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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.</div>
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Here another translated page from the book I am working on.</div>
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Washing Silk Farming Tools in the River.</div>
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‘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.</div>
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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.’</div>
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The eggs did not hatch today. I took the bamboo trays down to the river and gave them a swishing with a bamboo broom. </div>
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Years ago I wanted something graphic and connected to my life on my forearm. A bamboo silk farming tray filled the criteria. </div>
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A few people commented on the green silk I dyed the other day. I dyed some more today.</div>
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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.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-24082249457689623242020-05-28T19:01:00.004+09:002020-05-28T19:01:58.916+09:00Silkworm challenge. <div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Silkworm eggs....Yeah...exciting stuff.</div>
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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.</div>
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Eggs to thread and perhaps to textile.</div>
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Plenty of comments.</div>
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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.) </div>
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No, the silk farming beauties did not wear such gorgeous work kimono.</div>
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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.<br />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. </div>
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Let’s start here. </div>
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First the highest quality cocoons are chosen. Then the best chrysalis are chosen and the males and females are separated. </div>
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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.) </div>
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I didn’t breed for eggs last year. I bought these 1000 eggs online. </div>
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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. </div>
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These pictures are from a few years ago. </div>
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The eggs are due to hatch tomorrow.</div>
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The wooden machine below is a warping wheel. </div>
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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.</div>
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Utamaru's signature. Absolute calligraphic perfection. </div>
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1000 silkworm eggs.</div>
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Males on left. Females on right. Magnifying glass used to determine sex. Dish of shed silkworm skins.</div>
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Males are smaller.</div>
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I put cones on the females so they will lay eggs in a circle. Easy to count. </div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-51274237039120673992020-05-26T21:30:00.000+09:002020-05-26T21:30:16.256+09:00<div style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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.) </div>
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Showing up in Japan on my 25th birthday with a backpack and a single five-word-sentence from a conversation with my bestie <a class="profileLink" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=634940950&extragetparams=%7B%22__tn__%22%3A%22%2CdK-R-R%22%2C%22eid%22%3A%22ARCLfdR9pDas1QVtpo69ogEP6VAWBN07DM4eOK-PWMA-RPwh0-gw-ydgY60RvBmdMGzfws6DQI2Z_WM8%22%2C%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/ingridmclaine?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARCLfdR9pDas1QVtpo69ogEP6VAWBN07DM4eOK-PWMA-RPwh0-gw-ydgY60RvBmdMGzfws6DQI2Z_WM8&fref=mentions" style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" title="Ingrid Mclaine">Ingrid Mclaine</a>when I told her I was going to try to set up a life in Japan. </div>
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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.</div>
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“Yeah…something will work out.”</div>
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The sentence is still at hand and just as sustaining as it has been all this time. </div>
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I never did figure out which one of us actually said it. Probably Ingrid. </div>
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Remembering vividly the first time I was inside a Japanese farmhouse. It was truth. </div>
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When we see or hear or read a truth we nod our heads and say…yeah…that is the truth. </div>
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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. </div>
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A self-satisfied smirking Cheshire Cat…. might have even had a green shirt on… different shade of course. </div>
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I digress.</div>
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Walter Gropius the founder of Bauhaus wrote an introduction to a book on Japanese domestic architecture in the 1950s :</div>
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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 …. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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.’ </div>
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I usually leaf through the disintegrating picture book with my newly arrived workshop guests on their first day here. </div>
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The images of life are worth much more than words. </div>
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I translated the last few lines of the forward without an ounce of elegance.</div>
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Nothing has left behind a richer imagery than the unpretentious pictures of life here.<br />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?</div>
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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.</div>
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<br />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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-1161850894628433112020-01-31T12:07:00.001+09:002020-01-31T12:07:23.862+09:00Procraftination & Craftermath<br />
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" I cursed you as I procraftinated for weeks and then double cursed you in the craftermath."</div>
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The workshop participants are usually on their best behavior the first few hours of the workshop.</div>
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We meet in a calm hotel lobby in the chaos of downtown Tokyo at ten in the morning and I have them in the quiet mountain village by twelve for lunch. There is always that WTF-how-did-I-get-here-? feeling in the house as they peek in their rooms and check out the house and pets and bathrooms. Then they stealthy eye up their fellow indigo otters. (And the otter chief.)</div>
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But the happy-happy-craft-holiday-in Japan-spirit is present and thick. </div>
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After lunch we gather round the table and look at the dreaded homework. (They inevitably shyly boast of how they were stitching the last twenty rows on the airplane.)</div>
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A total group of strangers and they have to show what work they have done in preparation the past few months.</div>
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Judgement time. </div>
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I send out a homework box from Japan to their homes around the world in advance. There is not enough time to stitch and cut stencils once they are here. I use the homework projects to keep them busy to the point-of-almost-desperation the entire ten days. </div>
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There are two bigger projects that take time and talent.</div>
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Cutting a few stencils on the smokey smelling traditional persimmon tannin paper.</div>
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A woodgrain stitching project that can take up to 50 hours of stitching. A pattern is drawn on and the horizontal stitches and jumps determent the pattern. I send an amazing 2 meter piece of crinkle fine linen for this project. It dyes in indigo to perfection. </div>
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The patterns each has chosen and drawn on with disappearing orchid ink are of endless interest to the young indigo otters. Each person stitches differently. Some have incredibly fine even stitches covering the entire cloth. Others have rough irregular stitches. These details are quietly noted with pursed otter lips and twitching whiskers standing around the table. </div>
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Over the next ten days the threads are meticulously drawn up and tied and dyed in indigo twelve dips/ twelve oxidations and then opened rinsed and taken to the river and beaten until the water runs clear and the blue is deep and gorgeous.</div>
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The process binds the otters as they see the pride and hard work and determination in each other through the steps. </div>
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One Scottish lady years ago had a tad too much rice wine at the welcome lunch. She didn't seem so plussed about putting her work on display either. </div>
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" I cursed you Bryan as I procraftinated for weeks and then double cursed you in the craftermath."</div>
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Silence.</div>
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Fer a wee moment we taut 'er accent was bit 'ard to understand.( Or she 'ad a wee bit of a wisp. )</div>
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Then we all cracked up.</div>
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I am putting together the 50 spring homework boxes right now to get them in the mail in a few days. </div>
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It has become a winter tradition. Hiro was in the hospital this winter and that gave me plenty of time at home being serious and focused on methodical tasks.</div>
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Finding cute stamps for the box, endless postal form filling and double checking everything is in each box and they inch towards the post office....</div>
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The country town post office workers dread the days I swamp them with a truck load of homework boxes. </div>
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It is comforting to know that the boxes are opened all over the world with anticipation and delight. It adds to the excitement of their trips to Japan.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-1826264740229730552019-11-22T23:57:00.003+09:002019-11-22T23:57:44.766+09:00<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I lost my voice for a few days of the last workshop. We were down in the river beating indigo dyed projects on the rocks in the fish ladder.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">We had climbed back up the staggered ladder rungs imbedded in the faux rock face and were standing around all chattering from our frozen November wet feet, the excitement of the unfolding of freshly beaten beautiful indigo projects and the overall beauty of the spot with golden light filtering through breeze-fueled autumn leaves.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The old</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; display: inline; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> hunter guy next door was up on the road just out of sight firing a rifle over our heads.<br />WTF?<br />I doubted he could see us below. Synapses fired... Is anyone dressed like a boar or a monkey by chance....No..thank God.<br />Are we dressed in monkey-grey hoodies with red-assed trousers on?<br />No... God is merciful.<br />I doubt he has his hearing aid in because it would deafen him when he fired the rifle.<br />Screaming will do no good.<br />But insanely animated jumping jacks and shouting seemed the only reasonable thing to do in the situation.<br />The workshop of United Kingdomers...<br />What is going on? Turned to amusement, turned to terror as I started jumping around waving my hands screaming at the half-unseen 89 year old monkey-killer-hunter on the embankment above us.<br />Perhaps he would hear the twelve of us screaming just below his field of vision and aim downward to shoot 'monkeys' as they ran across the bridge to escape without looking?<br />"Indigo workshop members shot in cold blood after rinsing their homework projects...."<br />He noticed us and blushed and laughed.<br />He might have been shooting into air just to amuse himself at our expense.<br />I love this old guy. Lives in the house in front of mine. One foot in hunter/ gatherer in 2019. No glass windows on the front of his old house. Just the most elegant simple entrance imaginable. A red tengu mask above the door.<br />I walked back to the house and told James the story.<br />"You mean he was shooting 'at' monkeys over your head. I thought he was shooting monkeys over your head for a moment."</span><br />
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-47154632585127884622019-09-15T21:22:00.000+09:002019-09-15T21:24:25.337+09:00Ogata Kane 1918 - 2019<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="ipoe-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="ipoe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ipoe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ipoe-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="ipoe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Sutras need to be chanted to send off our friends to their next destination. </span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1tp0r-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="1tp0r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Some sutras are about listing up the deceased persons life.</span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1g04t-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="1g04t-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Born. Experienced war. Married. Kids. Grandkids. Played the role of a parent/grandparent etc. Liked to garden and cook. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="2nkqb-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2nkqb-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="2nkqb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> The sutras read as the coffin is about to be loaded with flowers are more profound. More solemn as the casket is pushed into the furnace. Hypnotizing as the bones are picked up with chopsticks by friends and relatives and placed in the urn.</span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="3ia8k-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3ia8k-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="3ia8k-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Really serious sutras about how nothing really exists but everything exists while the bone urn is placed on the alter and the journey to become a monk in the afterlife starts.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="eonma-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Ogata san showed up at my house when she was 85 and wanted to join the Tuesday indigo/textile class I ran for years.</span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="etbql-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="etbql-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> At 85 I figured she wanted to drop by for an hour and dip something. </span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6r4ci-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="6r4ci-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> No.</span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="dd82-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dd82-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="dd82-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> I drove to her house not far away at 8:30 in the morning to pick her up for many years. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="f7fn6-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f7fn6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="f7fn6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She was often in her flower and vegetable garden. Harvesting something. Pruning something. Weeding something. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="cdd3n-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cdd3n-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="cdd3n-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She always brought along a lacquered box with some delicious rice dish and something she made from her vegetable garden to share with the students at the house. </span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6ndbd-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="6ndbd-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She made herself at home and knew the contents of every drawer and cupboard in my kitchen. She cooked for us for many years. Always delicious.</span></div>
</div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e99de-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="e99de-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She would climb down the steep ladder into the river to collect wild greens. She would climb up the back mountain and gather mushrooms or ginger flowers.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="7rfbp-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7rfbp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="7rfbp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Sometimes she sat quietly and stitched her projects. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="2mfsf-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2mfsf-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="2mfsf-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She had immaculate taste. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="3cvf6-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3cvf6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="3cvf6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She had silk farmed and wove kimono as a young woman. Her paper-like hands never forgot how to handle those thousands of fine silk filaments as she helped me warp a loom.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="cpr1r-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cpr1r-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="cpr1r-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Sometimes she was talkative and told us stories of her life. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="35v8c-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="35v8c-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="35v8c-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> We all loved her and worshipped her. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="ahaon-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ahaon-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="ahaon-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Up until she was 100 years old she would come over to my house and show my foreign guests how to make noodles from scratch.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="2jchl-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2jchl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="2jchl-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She met hundreds of foreigners. Hundreds of them.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="dfqnp-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dfqnp-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="dfqnp-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> They all loved her. She was so impressive in her demure way. She embodied a certain Japaneseness that we yearned for. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="45m09-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="45m09-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="45m09-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She modeled at 96 years old for a Finnish designer.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="3hpn5-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3hpn5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="3hpn5-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She came over and saw that I had some sexy hot tattooed Dutch guys staying at the house. She went home and changed into a kimono and came back and flirted shamelessly with these guys. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="aq54h-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aq54h-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="aq54h-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She had a sense of humor that would take us by surprise. As often happens, I would get carried away with a rather crude story..... she loved them. No prude. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="ag7l8-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ag7l8-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="ag7l8-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> We had media interviews together. We cooked and made things together and we ate together for so many years. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="8h6am-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8h6am-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="8h6am-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She sat and stitched after dinner her entire life. She stitched until a few days before her peaceful death at home. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="6jtic-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6jtic-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="6jtic-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She prepared dozens of hand stitched towels and they were handed out to wipe out tears at her funeral. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="39s1v-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="39s1v-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="39s1v-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> She used to buy the kits with pictures of Hello Kitty and stitch them up. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="2sott-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2sott-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="2sott-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Last year at 100 she went rogue. She free stitched bright colors with random stitches on gauze and gave them to her admirers. (She was a Leo.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="837no" data-offset-key="2h5c3-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2h5c3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="2h5c3-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> As my plane took off in the Southern Hemisphere on my way back to Japan she passed away. I must have seen her out the window of the plane in the blue sky above the clouds. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c2fq-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Our name collects karmic dirt as we move through life with our sins of greed, arrogance, selfishness......duality....</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2nr59-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> In Japan when you die a Buddhist priest gives you a new name as you move on to your training as a Buddhist monk after death. The new name is announced at the wake. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="fcf0c-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Ogata sans new name included the characters 清 and 藍。A 'pure indigo blue'. I felt honored. She showed up at 85 years old at my house to study indigo. She was born in 1918. She was 101 years old.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="efil6-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> Thank you beautiful Ogata san. Thank you for those thousands of moments we spent together over the years.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="315qt-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> You will always been my heart. </span><br />
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-52868122436309907082019-08-17T14:22:00.000+09:002019-08-17T14:22:25.337+09:00Summertime Indigo Life.<div style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
An Australian doctor, an artist/ teacher from Hong Kong, an artist/teacher from France. We spent ten days together in the heat here in the mountains getting to know each other and time at the indigo vats and time in the river rinsing the cloth. It was a beautiful time. There was harmony and happiness the entire time. Hiro kept us well fed. We were all valuing the precious time we had together. </div>
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I am thinking of packing in the live-in workshops one of these years. I will have <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">to find some solace somewhere from the sadness of not having times in the future like these past ten days.</span></div>
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My lovely dog Momo was bitten by a pit viper and was in the hospital for a week. She came home and for a few days Joanne, Yuk Ling and Helene were able to meet her. She is getting better day by day. </div>
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We harvested three varieties of indigo. Persimmon dyed in the morning before the heat was too much. Some projects ready for the next steps. To be embellished and cut up and stitched together. </div>
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Hiro arranged lotus flowers on the dining room table.</div>
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Magical days...and Momo is better....</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-33884496577463877402019-07-02T14:01:00.002+09:002019-07-02T14:01:58.525+09:00<br />
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Most of the silkworms have been spitting out silk since yesterday. Spinning a cocoon around themselves so that they are safe to metamorphosis into moths.</div>
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They are like tubes of toothpaste. They are practically empty when the cocoon is finished three days later. The little nub that remains hardens and a moth forms.</div>
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It is quite easy to find the end of the thread and unravel over a kilometer of a silk filament. Or melt the cocoon into a floss and spin it. I do it both ways but these years I prefer the spun silk. </div>
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They hatched 29 days ago and were the size of medium ground black pepper. They eat for days and then stop and shed their skins and then eat some more. They shed four times.</div>
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The last week they eat constantly. Fresh mulberry leaves only.</div>
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Their appetite slows and then stops. They sit still for a few hours while the liquid they have accumulated from eating mulberry leaf turns into a liquid silk inside them. Then they start to walk and climb looking for a reasonable place to make a cocoon. </div>
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Silk farmers around the world figured out different frames from natural materials on hand to make a place for them to cocoon. Branches of shrubs evolved into bamboo and straw woven tools in Japan. And then to these cardboard suspended things.</div>
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They look like huge dreary brutal apartment buildings from<br />
the 1960s and 70s. Japanese and Soviet style monstrosities I've seen first hand. Arghhh....</div>
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Charlie Chaplin could have done a good job on silk farming parody. </div>
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Beneath the hilarity of being farmed and fed and pampered...the fears and sorrows of every silk worm. </div>
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As I picked up the fallen silkworms for hours on end and replaced them inside the cubicles and hoped they would start to cocoon in the space I allotted them quickly so I can get some sleep I was thinking of Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick.</div>
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How would they use this melancholic scene as a metaphor for our Modern Times?</div>
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Ingmar would have been direct...memory... the reality of cruelty...</div>
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Kubrick...would have used dark humor and music....</div>
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Memory...<br />
I was thinking of how I took time to make those beautiful bamboo and straw cocoon spaces for the worms for years. How I despised the green plastic ones from the Ministry of Agriculture I have used. </div>
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Some silkworms have escaped the dreary safety of pre-arranged destiny accommodation and made cocoons in corners around the house. </div>
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There are other things around the house that are nesting.</div>
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The endangered forest frogs are laying eggs all over the yard. There is not enough space for them all to survive at my place. Tadpole mortality rates are low but with too many they attract too many poisonous snakes and other enemies. </div>
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<a class="profileLink" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100002315534236&extragetparams=%7B%22__tn__%22%3A%22%2CdK-R-R%22%2C%22eid%22%3A%22ARCjIlNHRtrk8TV6jLGWodywyEZ_2dr5Ab_Zyfs6-sFcL9w2Yt0A1YvKbEUPL1QoDnW0MMwRvBPZiVzl%22%2C%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/yumbo.suzuki?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARCjIlNHRtrk8TV6jLGWodywyEZ_2dr5Ab_Zyfs6-sFcL9w2Yt0A1YvKbEUPL1QoDnW0MMwRvBPZiVzl&fref=mentions" style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" title="Yumbo Suzuki">Yumbo Suzuki</a> took two big foam bags of frog eggs home to his pond for his son to see hatch and grow. </div>
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And dear Momo... she is deaf and her eyes are going. She is odd. Her trauma from being a Fukushima refugee seems to haunt her again. She has been a house dog for years. She prefers to spend her days and often nights outside now up behind the house. She has dug a little space for herself and looks forlorn up there when I look out the kitchen window and see her. </div>
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<a class="profileLink" data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=613655076&extragetparams=%7B%22__tn__%22%3A%22%2CdK-R-R%22%2C%22eid%22%3A%22ARBYHljisq6x8unSR9bK43TV_EQqwWjP5fvexmnB3KYEil226HEeqQfSnTEDhe3LF46jqMg7Gsk_2y2c%22%2C%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/richard.grehan?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARBYHljisq6x8unSR9bK43TV_EQqwWjP5fvexmnB3KYEil226HEeqQfSnTEDhe3LF46jqMg7Gsk_2y2c&fref=mentions" style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; text-decoration: none;" title="Richard Grehan">Richard Grehan</a> and I walked to the top village with three old silk farming houses two days ago with his wife and son. It was raining and the mist was rolling up the sides the mountains. It was pure poetry.</div>
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The slowness and sense of time almost made me gag on my busyness. It rose in my throat several times. </div>
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We interrupted a couple and their bear dog while they were having lunch. They were siting outside with a small hibachi heating a charming cast iron kettle of water for tea. </div>
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They have rented a small section of a barn belonging to one of the houses. </div>
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25 years ago I was offered to rent the same small derelict space. Life would have been different if I had. </div>
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Humble surroundings and the simplicity of the tea and the steaming rice ball they offered Richard's son made my heart ache. This extremely simple space with clothes hanging by a cheap metal pot-bellied stove seemed the epitome of sophistication. </div>
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When is enough enough?</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-68770737276107603512019-07-02T13:59:00.001+09:002019-07-02T13:59:32.009+09:00Workshop Season Over for a While.<br />
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Spring workshops finished this afternoon. I have had three months of solid work. Most of it completely enjoyable. Dozens of live-in guests at the house. I can't even begin to thank all the help I have received in making the whole thing run smoothly. Hiro, Keiwa, Takeshima, Sumi and Debbie.... Thank you. How may thousands of tasks completed? Thank you to all the wonder students who shared their talent and time with me. </div>
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We had tea ceremony yesterday and Mr Whiteboots bombed th<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">e whole thing with his cuteness.</span></div>
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Silkworms are almost ready to spin cocoons. </div>
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Busy days coming to an end.<br />The house and garden are tidy and bed is waiting at sunset.<br />The rainy season has started.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-30812030527334929432019-07-02T13:53:00.002+09:002019-07-02T13:53:39.639+09:00Textile Workshop<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-13573772692340825832019-06-14T21:26:00.003+09:002019-06-14T21:26:42.260+09:00<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot is going on here at the farm in May and June.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tea Harvest. Live-in workshops. Silkworms. Indigo planting. </span><br />
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The last ten-day live-in workshop of the spring ended yesterday.</div>
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It makes me smile to see the students reluctantly leaving the house wanting to </div>
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'...stay here forever'. </div>
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It is a sort of heaven I suppose. No need to worry about food. Hiro is a great cook. Cabin fever... I make sure you get out of here every few days to see something interesting and go shopping. The rest of the time is just sleeping, socialising and making textiles and listening to textile related lectures. A lot of supplies on hand and indigo to dye in to your hearts content. </div>
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I had five workshops this spring. Two regular indigo workshops. One Hanten jacket making course, a huge indigo production workshop group lead by Debbie Maddy and the annual Sumindigo course with people related to Otis Design school in LA.</div>
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For the most part I enjoy the workshops immensely. (Occasionally there are idiots that make me wish I had a trap door next to the indigo vat that I could one-way flush them to the train station with a single pull of a indigo cord.) Many interesting people staying at the house. Although I am busy I can hear their stories out if the corner of my ear as they talk and get to know each other and I can see there talent and skills as I work on their indigo projects together.</div>
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The cold early spring and cherry blossoms slowly turned into glorious green mountainside and tulips and daffodil paradise. Ending with an early misty rainy season. </div>
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Silence today, except the sound of silkworms munching away. </div>
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Unfortunately I don't have the time to document the workshops. I have too much going on.</div>
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The hanten jacket course is two weeks long. We had some great work come out of it this time. They each made two jackets. Hand sewn and at least one of them hand indigo dyed with hand cut stenciled insignia dyed with indigo. </div>
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There is such huge volume of amazing work dyed at the indigo vats. It should all be documented but there is never time.</div>
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Some of the mokume shibori the students stitch for homework gets photographed.</div>
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And some group photos get taken.</div>
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We make a lot of samples during the workshop and they are often made into a kind of Buddhist patch blanket when the students get home. Wonderful work. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIj5FGTwLk/XQOR839J-KI/AAAAAAAAJYI/7iFlnAgFkmYoVX504T7yW0QIZiHpHxRRgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0772.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIj5FGTwLk/XQOR839J-KI/AAAAAAAAJYI/7iFlnAgFkmYoVX504T7yW0QIZiHpHxRRgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_0772.jpg" width="300" /></a>And of course soot dyeing.</div>
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Please contact me at: japanesetextileworkshops@gmail.com for a brochure of upcoming workshops.</div>
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-23345745227127819362019-05-09T16:36:00.000+09:002019-05-09T16:36:06.643+09:00Daddy Waiting.I have been raising silkworms for over 20 years. Last year I took year off. 1000 eggs about to hatch tomorrow. Such anticipation and excitement. The mulberry is salad fresh. Daddy is waiting. A few months from now I should have some beautiful hand spun silk floss thread.<br />
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-9557418574594692562019-03-26T23:12:00.003+09:002019-03-26T23:12:59.900+09:00Winter SilenceThe blog was quiet and hibernating.<br />
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I had the house to myself all winter. Hiro was in Brazil for three and a half months. I went to New Zealand for a trip. I loved it. I kept busy with textile related stuff... I just didn't write about it.<br />
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I sat on cold nights and wove the gothic cross alpaca blankets I had warped a year ago while listening to The Brothers Karamazov for the umpteenth time.<br />
There was something wrong with the dent so I bought a new reed and re-sleighed it less densely. It looks great now. My buddy Yumbo came over to build a stone wall behind the pond and tried weaving for the first time.<br />
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Whiteboots immediately made the freshly woven blanket his own.<br />
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There were a few kilograms of medium dyed madder wool lying around that was not asking to be woven into anything. A few kilograms of madder and a re-mordanting.....<br />
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The two working back strap looms were empty and sad upstairs.<br />
I warped them both in a few days and they are so happy to be of use again.<br />
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The indigo vats are open for the year! Diana Sanderson from the Silk Weaving Studio in Vancouver was here for a visit and the de-sludging of the sleeping vat.<br />
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Tobie and Janie were here for a visit and they managed some gorgeous work in a short time.<br />
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We visited Noguchi san for the day.<br />
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Cocoons were reeled and silk hankies were made.<br />
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There is never enough time. Never. </div>
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I had a few cancellations for ten-day workshops this year. If you are interested. Please get in touch.</div>
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Bryan</div>
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-78184123505888492752019-03-26T22:25:00.003+09:002019-03-26T22:25:44.812+09:00Quick visit to Laos <br />
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I worked on a few development projects in Laos 15 years ago.<br />It was all very exotic and exciting spending time in ethnic minority villages in the mountains of northern Laos. The learning curve was in your face.<br />What development work is. What the world might look like for traditional villagers when roads are built next to their isolated-for-millennia villages and a slightly better lighted and complex world starts to swallow their existence. </div>
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The expat world of do-gooders, opportunists, nut cases and CIA operative do-gooders/opportunists/nut cases….</div>
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In short….I loved it. </div>
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I was in the back of a dusty truck bouncing and sliding through the mud through the damaged tropical landscape. Smiling so much my face hurt….an added addition to the adventure was the impossibly handsome, charismatic French surgeon beaming and laughing while we tried to hang on and to not get thrown overboard by the teenage driver.</div>
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We were out of the truck and then wading across a muddy slippery stream to arrive in a dusty village of thatched huts as the sun set.</div>
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Inside a smokey hut our small group with the help of a translator tried explaining the protocols of a fair trade project.</div>
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The absurdity …… </div>
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When asked how she would spend the wave of money that would flood into the village as our handicraft project flourished and lifted them out of poverty with schools and flush toilets….. and electricity ….. a village wise woman enthusiastically rattled on…pakpukpidywak..ajinomoto..snuckslackjatanalke..</div>
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I stopped the translator because I had distinctly heard the word “Ajinomoto”. The Japanese brand name for monosodium glutamate.</div>
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In the oil lamp lit, smoke circling in blackened rafters and molding palm frond thatched hut on stilts…</div>
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Sure enough…that is what she was hoping to purchase with the future village wealth.</div>
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I had the translator tell her, “It’s bad for you.”</div>
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He translated her tart words back to me, “I know but it tastes sooooo good.”</div>
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So much for sewer systems and graduate school scholarships.</div>
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I later snooped around the village and saw an impossibly horrible opium smoking dead-eyed father with a tangle of thin-legged hungry kids sleeping lengthwise across the battered broken floor slats of their home so they wouldn't fall through to the ground below. A pathetic drug deal instead of a monosodium glutamate deal materialized on a foggy screen in my sensory overloaded head.</div>
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I had the dumbest resume one earth…well so dumb I would have been humiliated to have written it down at the time.</div>
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I’d spent the last ten years of my life in a small village in the mountains of Japan learning about primitive silk farming and natural dyes and weaving traditional Japanese textiles. Along the way I had learn to repair silk farming, silk reeling and weaving tools. A few contemporary skills like breeding silk moths and using contemporary spinning and reeling and throwing machines.</div>
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I had missed the 90s completely. </div>
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I'd been doing this simply out of anthropological curiosity and a habit I’d picked up as a kid to take things apart and be interested in long processes that ended up in some sort of art work….think 60’s Ford Mustangs and eagle feather Indian headdresses. </div>
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Heading back in the back of the truck Dr Philippe had somehow sussed out the carefully shabbied, shaggy-pony-tailed 40-year-old-me … the skills and openness to adventure and his offer of work in Laos had my head spinning. </div>
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A few years later the recession of 2008 put an end to the development games.</div>
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I’d seen Philippe a few times over the years since then. I was in Bangkok a while back and flew up to spend a few days with him and his family in Laos. </div>
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Vientiane was much as I remembered it. </div>
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Dusty.</div>
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We drove by the spot where we had a motorcycle accident many years ago. Cracked bones in my ribs, right foot and left hand. Still bothers me in bad weather. </div>
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A dog had run out in the street in front of us.</div>
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Crunch.</div>
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Hours later as Philippe was finishing up a plaster cast for my arm and the beer painkillers were really working I asked him with genuine concern, “What happened to the dog?” His eyes twinkled and he mischievously kissed his fingertips and said, “Bon appetite.”</div>
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Philippe and Babette still keep the silk business going. He scooters back and forth to the hospital to operate a few times a week. Farming super foods has his attention now. Endless curiosity of life around him, a bear hug and a big smile as he moves through his compassionate, gregarious and humor-filled life.</div>
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Pictures now and then.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-23008398878517634012019-02-15T00:06:00.002+09:002019-02-15T00:06:31.580+09:00Japanese Traditional Book Binding<br />
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A tiny handmade box with a tiny book inside.</div>
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I am at a loss for words.<br />The Present God has graced me with something special.</div>
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Last September I ran a Japanese book binding course at the house. A group of ten strangers on my doorstep for ten-days of living together in the old barn. Although the place is huge we eat, indigo dye and work in close quarters. </div>
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Most of the time the human dynamics are very good. We don’t get on each other's nerves. It is a little bit of an orchestra…we sacrifice a bit of our individuality for the benefit of the group. </div>
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I was in rough shape and heading out for intravenous drips every morning and Yamazaki sensei graciously taught the book and box making part of the course where I managed to teach the indigo dyeing part.</div>
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The bamboo on the mountainside. The cats and Momo the dog are quiet presences. Steady Hiro in the kitchen keeping an eye on things. Occasionally monkeys scrambling through the green underbrush around the house. </div>
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Throughout the year we had the wettest slushy snow and skin searing heat quieted by sunset indigo washing trips to the river. The sweetest softest green spring days and moody blue/black late autumn skies. </div>
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A lot of variables…along with the sometimes scrambling, slushy, searing, softest, moody temporary human inhabitants of the house.</div>
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Kate is from Sydney. Once she arrived and we all get to know each other I saw that she is a very accomplished book maker.(Amongst other things...multi- talented.) I wondered if she was getting anything out of the course. Kind and quiet and talented…humble as they come.</div>
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This small book box with a book inside is a mini version of the books we made together.... arrived in the post last week.</div>
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Inside are the loveliest watercolors of the the house, the bamboo and of course the ridiculously over photogenic house dog, Momo.</div>
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I'm at a loss for words. </div>
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I was able to see again a glimpse of her experience of the workshop.</div>
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It is a reward…I sometimes get frustrated with the work. A few times I’ve wanted to call it quits.</div>
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The photos people take of the workshop and each other and around the house of the endless amount textile related paraphernalia move me.<br />When I see that strangers who met at the workshop keep in touch and visit each other….even on different continents….</div>
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Makes me feel good. I suppose the workshops can be likened to a magnet. A brief orbit is created. And the larger orbit of the participants sometimes collide.</div>
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The orbits often bring students back to the house. </div>
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Thank you otters.<br />Thank you, Kate. The precious little book will live on the precious-little-things-shelf forever.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-53702966703065628472019-01-25T13:07:00.001+09:002019-01-25T14:33:08.498+09:00Indigo Quilt<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_HF8z3HL9MU/XEqDoJ5dK4I/AAAAAAAAI7I/ocszXpb_8LczNp9R7jBuVEJ56iiWfhuRACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_2340.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_HF8z3HL9MU/XEqDoJ5dK4I/AAAAAAAAI7I/ocszXpb_8LczNp9R7jBuVEJ56iiWfhuRACK4BGAYYCw/s320/IMG_2340.jpg" width="240" /></a>I run a two-week traditional Japanese Hanten/Firemans jacket sewing/dying workshop at the farmhouse here twice a year. The students are often repeaters who have come back to Japan to visit/study with me here time and time again.<br />
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One of the jackets we work on is a very ambitious project. Designing an insignia for the back of the jacket. Cutting a stencil for that. Deciding the colors to use. Soot for blacks and greys. Madder for pinks and reds. Indigo for all the blue tones. (And combining these for more nuanced colors) There are sight variations of sleeve length and width and body length and drape etc. Dying a full lining with persimmon tannin. Putting together antique cloth to make a second hanten....<br />
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It is a fun but intense stitch filled two weeks. Living together and eating together and making artistic choices in front of each other.<br />
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And some strong beautiful accomplished characters from all ends of the planet.<br />
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The designs are so personal. Although we focus on perfecting our own design while learning the construction and dyeing techniques we are aware of our fellow hanten otters working on their individual projects.<br />
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My old buddy Jacky Eyre did something special that made me tear up with delight and and gratitude.<br />
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I repeated a story to Jacky and the students from Yazaki san the kimono seamstress whom I have known for 25 years.<br />
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"You can't call yourself a kimono maker until you have made 100. Not 98 not 99 but 100."<br />
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The old saying is not just referring to a kimono stitcher. It is meant to refer to all crafts...writing, playing an instrument and stonemasonry. (Some of these skills are more quantifiable.)<br />
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Having made a few dozen of these jackets myself over the years but knowing that true mastery is elusive...maybe two hundred at my pace.<br />
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Jacky made me this quilt with 100 hantens. At first glance I could see that it was constructed with Japanese folk textile scraps.<br />
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I was moved.<br />
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It was a lot to take in at once with a group of people watching me open and receive the gift.<br />
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I was smiling in gratitude and admiring the overall design and color scheme. I felt a little choke up coming with the 100 hanten theme.<br />
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Then one block caught my eye. It was a hanten with a large box kite embroidered on the back. It was instantly recognizable as lovely Alex's lovely design.<br />
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A single tear escaped and then I noticed that the central panels were all images of the other students in Jacky's group hantens. I bit my lower lip to stop the flood and walked into the adjoining room to hide my tears.<br />
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Jacky is a larger-than-life-no-nonsense-practical-clear-blue-eyed-Australian-tough-beautiful woman.<br />
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She captured those two precious weeks of being together and put them in that quilt with humor and respect and talent.<br />
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(One rule Bryan....No shagging on top of that quilt...but underneath is fine.)<br />
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Camilla meticulously placed carp stencils her hanten.<br />
Molly the surgeon chose a brain and heart insignia. (Heart on the sleeve.)<br />
Jo used antique material carefully composed.<br />
Melissa who lives in a forest carefully drew a pine motif.<br />
Harriet the social justice activist meticulously hand wrote out the names of the victims of a factory fire in Britain in the early 20th century on the lining and an emblem of worker/ farmer solidarity on the back,<br />
Sophie the French architect was tired of concrete and used a butterfly motif.<br />
Alex used her kite motif.<br />
I used some old persimmon and indigo scraps.<br />
Jacky hand pasted concentric circles on her hanten.<br />
There were many other references to our time spent together here in Japan and Australia.<br />
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So it all gets an A plus another A.</div>
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It works together and has a spirit. </div>
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Thank you Jacky. </div>
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Misc. pictures of the workshop last spring. Thank you.</div>
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And our perfect kimono sewing teacher Keiko Yazaki with her shy back to the camera.</div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-73003074335181657202018-10-18T18:05:00.000+09:002018-10-18T19:14:34.781+09:00Minako Passed Away<div style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">Minako passed away three days ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">She was born in 1920 in a village about 15 kilometers from the mountain village I live in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">Her village was different. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">The houses were grouped together in a sunny place and although the fields were on the side of the mountain, the slope was not steep like it is near my house. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">The people were different. Friendlier. Better educated. Brighter eyed. Not as suspicious. Their Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines made of better wood with finer carving and more elegant mossy stone staircases.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">People have been inhabiting that village for thousands of years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">25 years ago I knocked on her front door and asked to see the kimono fabric she made from the silkworms and cocoons she had raised. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">I’ll write about the relationship with her and her husband and family another time. There was a way of life in the village that was ending after hundreds of years of remaining much the same. I'll try to write about that one day too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">When I met her I knew it was the only chance I would ever have in life to study textiles in that particular depth. Silk farming. Weaving. Natural Dyeing. The people in that village were the last of that dying culture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">We enjoyed each other's company threading heddles, digging madder roots, reeling cocoons, driving through the countryside or visiting neighbors for tea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">The villagers had grown the trees and thatch to build their beautiful homes. They grew all their food and caught the eels and fish in the river. The sublime roots of Japanese food came from these villages. Every household grew silkworms and many of the houses had produced their own kimono in the hundreds of steps from moth eggs to the cocoons to the thread. They made the tools for every step of the process.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">Only one house was still silk farming that day. And one woman still weaving kimono. It was Minako. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">I knocked on the door and after she showed me the masterpieces she had woven </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">I knew that I would spend the rest of my life working with Japanese textiles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">I spent many years in that village with the people there as they helped me learn to reel and spin silk, warp looms, and breed silk moths and propagate mulberry. It was a time slip. I missed the 1990s…. Completely. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">The wake and the funeral were at the austere and elegant temple near her house. There were several hundred people there. The toddlers that were under feet not that long ago were playing games on their cell phones under the manicured pine trees on the temple grounds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;">The priest chanted sutras while family, friends and fellow villagers that had known her their entire lives filled her coffin with flowers. I put in some cocoons and silk thread we had reeled together and dyed with madder a delicate coral color. She had grown that madder under the plum trees on the not-so-steep mountain slopes overlooking the village.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Palatino-Roman; font-size: 13pt;"><span id="goog_369271984"></span><span id="goog_369271985"></span><br /></span></div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-73931619943422480832018-05-22T02:52:00.001+09:002018-05-22T10:12:46.263+09:00Gratitude to a Textile Teacher..<div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "helveticaneue" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(80, 80, 80);"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: "helveticaneue" , "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Gratitude is the emotion that is like the breeze rippling over the fresh tea leaves by the gently cascading river on a perfect blue skied morning with buddies helping harvest that same delicate tea while quietly humming Van Morrison paying homage to Mick Jagger....</span></span></div>
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<div class="G1VCxe kno-fb-ctx" jsname="rdVbIe" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 12px;">
<div jsname="U8S5sf" style="line-height: 1.24; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span jsname="YS01Ge">I can see the lights way out in the harbor</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the cool, and the cool, and the cool and the cool night</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the cool, and the cool, cool night breeze</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And I feel the cool night breeze</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And I feel, feel, feel the cool night breeze</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the boats go by</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And it's almost Inde, Inde, almost Independence Day</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And it's, and it's and it's almost, and it's almost Independence Day</span></span></i></div>
<div jsname="U8S5sf" style="line-height: 1.24; margin-bottom: 12px;">
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh </div>
<div jsname="U8S5sf" style="line-height: 1.24; margin-bottom: 12px;">
I took the bullet train down to Mie prefecture to spend a few days with Uchida san the "Intangible Cultural Asset" stencil cutter for a few days. On the way back home I stepped onto the local train near my place and sat down. </div>
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My heart dropped when I looked over to the seats next to mine. </div>
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I wanted to vomit and cry. Crawl off the train and curl up on the platform and close my eyes and transport myself back years to the beauty of the days spent in a small village with old friends....</div>
<div jsname="U8S5sf" style="line-height: 1.24; margin-bottom: 12px;">
Two women I knew from what seemed like a previous life were sitting there. I instantly knew what they were doing. </div>
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They were sisters in their 60s. On the way to visit their 97 year old mother in an old age home tucked away in the mountains. </div>
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Near my house. </div>
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They wouldn't recognise me.....years have gone past. I'm in my 50's. Thin as a rake. Shaved head to deal with a receding hairline I haven't made friends with yet. </div>
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(Not the twenty-something-year-old with a trace-of-baby-fat left and long hair tied back...)</div>
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Any hesitant pause would make me a liar....I stood up and sat with them. Channelling Robert Downey Jr.....Three conflicting emotions playing off my face simultaneously. </div>
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Guilt, relief & gratitude... </div>
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Not wanting to scare the hell out of them with that amount of emotional energy punching its way out of my body I did my best to smile softly and be a gentleman.... </div>
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One second... cocky and scruffy and unshaven, tattoos visible... comfortable in grungy jeans needing a washing machine and a sweaty shirt... from a long train ride from Kyoto.....and the next second feeling self-conscious.... a lean fragile existence under my skin...</div>
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These two women were the daughters of my old teacher and friend Minako Kato and her husband Ko. The woman I spent six years learning to silk farm and weave from....</div>
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Those dozens of fine processes there is no place to learn except by spending years with someone who has been doing them their entire life...</div>
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My life would have been nothing if I hadn't met her....</div>
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Those years.....spent learning all those precious... precious... precious... ancient skills of making cloth from silk....from the moth breeding to reeling thread and digging roots and harvesting berries to make the dye baths......</div>
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Again Van Morrison was humming in my ear.....</div>
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<i>'No guru, no method, no teacher...just you and me in the garden wet with rain...'</i></div>
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No classroom...no fluorescent lights... it was in an ancient village in the ancient fields surrounded by the ancient mountains with ancient paths everywhere and misty spring mornings and chilly autumn evenings with desolate winter days with precious low sunlight lighting the old bamboo reeds we threaded...</div>
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During those years I knew I was the luckiest person on earth....the clouds had opened and rays of grace and blessing were sitting on my shoulders like fresh snow....</div>
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I am not exaggerating. </div>
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And now she has been in a fucking old age home for years and I hadn't gone to visit her in years....</div>
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Face the facts...feeling like a piece of shit...arghh...</div>
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I drove the two daughters to the old folks place and we met again. </div>
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It wasn't easy. Both of us sobbing and she wailed in happiness. </div>
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I remembered many years ago when I had some family problems. She was the only one who looked me in the eye and understood the situation instantly and uttered just a few words and tears that eased some terrible pain for me. So odd..two human beings with such insanely different backgrounds..we spoke the common language of using our hands to make textiles.</div>
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I picked her up in my arms and put her in the van and I drove the narrow back mountain crazy ancient roads to my house. We reminisced and talked for hours. </div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;"><i>First comes the acknowledgement of goodness in one’s life. In a state of gratitude, we say yes to life. We affirm that all in all, life is good, and has elements that make it not just worth living, but rich with texture and detail. The acknowledgement that we have received something gratifies us, both by its presence and by the effort the giver put into choosing it.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;"><i>Second, gratitude is recognising that some of the sources of this goodness lie outside the self. At this stage, the object of gratitude is other-directed; one can be grateful to other people, to animals, and to the world, but not to oneself. At this stage, we recognise not only the goodness in our lives, but who is to thank for it, and who has made sacrifices so that we could be happy.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">The streets are always wet with rain</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">After a summer shower when I saw you standin'</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">In the garden in the garden wet with rain</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">You wiped the teardrops from your eye in sorrow</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">As we watched the petals fall down to the ground</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And as I sat beside you I felt the</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Great sadness that day in the garden</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And then one day you came back home</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">You were a creature all in rapture</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">You had the key to your soul</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And you did open that day you came back to the garden</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">The olden summer breeze was blowin' on your face</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">The light of God was shinin' on your countenance divine</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And you were a violet colour as you</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Sat beside your father and your mother in the garden</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">The summer breeze was blowin' on your face</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Within your violet you treasure your summery words</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Ignited me in daylight and nature in the garden</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And you went into a trance</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Your childlike vision became so fine</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And we heard the bells inside the church</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">We loved so much</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And felt the presence of the youth of</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Eternal summers in the garden </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And as it touched your cheeks so lightly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Born again you were and blushed and we touched each other lightly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And we felt the presence of the Christ</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And I turned to you and I said</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">No Guru, no method, no teacher</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Just you and I and nature</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And the father in the garden</span><br />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Programme, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">No Guru, no method, no teacher</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Just you and I and nature</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And the Father and the Son and the holy ghost</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">In the garden wet with rain</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">No Guru, no method, no teacher</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Just you and I and nature and the Father and the son and the holy ghost</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">In the garden, in the garden, wet with rain</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">No Guru, no method, no teacher</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Just you and I and nature</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "programme" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">And the Father in the garden</span></div>
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Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-2067541615392314232018-05-17T23:12:00.000+09:002018-05-17T23:12:48.711+09:00Time is contagious. I held four workshops at the farmhouse so far this spring. I have a few week break to harvest tea and catch my breath.<br />
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The first three workshops were the regular introduction to indigo use in Japanese textiles. Wonderful easy-going friendly participants. It actually snowed one day in the first workshop. We had a few participants from the southern hemisphere who were really excited to see snow for the first time.<br />
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The last workshop was a two-week hanten jacket making course. All eight members were back for the second time or more. It was just wonderful to have a group of eight intelligent talented women at the house. Special thanks to you Molly, Melissa, Camilla, Harriet, Jacky, Jo, Alex and Sophie. Looking through the pictures this afternoon I was overwhelmed with the hundreds of moments you captured. The house and gardens. The food. The cats and Momo. The indigo dyeing. The construction of the jackets. The immense immense amount of creative effort. Just brilliant. Thank you all. Thank you.<br />
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We were all exhausted by the end of two weeks. Sorry.<br />
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The mountains and trees transformed day by day.<br />
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Busy days. It takes effort to take time to appreciate the transformations around the house. What a show. It is beyond words.<br />
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On a sad note...</div>
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Many of you have spent time at the magical Noguchi stencil studio with me in Hachioji. </div>
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Mrs Noguchi has been a friend for twenty years. It seems like time stands still in that place. Her friendly no nonsense sturdiness. She was there one day as always greeting and lending a hand, hospitalised the next day. I went to visit her and she looked perfectly fine. We laughed and joked and teased each other as we have for twenty years. She went a few days later. Pancreatic cancer.</div>
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Her husband and children and grandchildren are in shock. I took the hanten making course there last week and there was a sombreness that hurt our eyes in the hash afternoon light. There was a wistfulness as the day wore on. It was a tough day with everyone working on different jacket projects. I think the husband and son were relieved to have some structure again. No time yet to grieve. Still in shock. We will miss you Fumiko Noguchi.</div>
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Some pictures from the hanten making course. Thank you all for the cluster photos. My apologies for not crediting each picture. </div>
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I am so proud of the work produced by you all.</div>
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Your storage cubbies waiting for you.</div>
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What are we going to make? That first attempt to get it across.</div>
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Thank you for helping plant some indigo, safflower and cotton. It is all up now.</div>
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I love you all behaving so inconspicuously like the Japanese on the train...</div>
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That hot morning at the antique market.</div>
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We bought so much stuff we had to box it up and send it by special delivery back to the house.</div>
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Our lovely Yazaki san with endless patience. </div>
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And those beautiful jackets came together almost magically.</div>
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Each of these individual pictures deserves a story. The days of spring just overwhelm us with beauty and all these flowers and people have such special stories to tell. </div>
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-66256976363586608112018-03-21T22:58:00.002+09:002018-03-21T22:58:36.857+09:00Lotus & Death & Textiles<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-243mLuNucvg/WrJhmsKfmFI/AAAAAAAAIOY/UCcdhYtDFVgpFpJYBxjvAo4vrbfKOxdhwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_2430.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-243mLuNucvg/WrJhmsKfmFI/AAAAAAAAIOY/UCcdhYtDFVgpFpJYBxjvAo4vrbfKOxdhwCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_2430.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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At my friends funeral last week a large purple shroud with lotus patterns was held up and its significance explained to the mourners before being placed over his body and before we all gathered around and filled the coffin with flowers before the actual cremation.<br />
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Another aspect of Japanese textiles I hadn't given much thought to. Buddhist-influenced funeral related textiles.<br />
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Speaking of lotus & death.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yiIYdsJ8Tao/WrJgpXfux9I/AAAAAAAAINo/IFYeSqQ_No8G2Fu9YzK4yne7rHNOnVVCwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_9220.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yiIYdsJ8Tao/WrJgpXfux9I/AAAAAAAAINo/IFYeSqQ_No8G2Fu9YzK4yne7rHNOnVVCwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_9220.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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Every other year the lotus pots outside the front door need to be turned upside down and the stinky muddy roots untangled and trimmed and replanted. The dirt requires bonemeal and fish fertilizer to grow healthy leaves and flowers.<br />
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The love dog of my life, Snoopy, died years back. I had her cremated at a local Zen temple. Just like humans in Japan, her bones are places in a white urn and in a silk lined box. It sounds morbid but I take out a few Snoopy bones and crush them and mix them in the lotus clay every time I re-pot them.<br />
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So Snoopy can come back and visit in flower form every summer.<br />
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Just as I was sprinkling some Snoopy powder in the pot my friend arrived and she started to shriek!</div>
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She thought we were sprinkling my recently deceased neighbor in the pot. </div>
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I quickly let her know it was Snoopy and not Kiyotaka. We had a good laugh.</div>
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I remember a lotus stencil I had drawn and was cutting years back. I left it on the floor and Snoopy walked over it and snagged the delicate paper and put holes in it.</div>
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It was my stupidity for leaving it on the floor. </div>
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I kept the stencil as it was and used it a few times. I plan to recut it one day.</div>
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I used those lotus and their magnificent leaves growing outside the house as motifs for stencils for years. It may be time to use them again this summer when they bloom. </div>
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Lotus flowers grow on the end of long stems like this.</div>
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Water lilies bloom near the surface of the water like this:</div>
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Lotus season seems far away with a full day of spring snow today. The pets just collapsed near the stove and dreamed of the door back into the spring they were enjoying just days ago.</div>
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-81407360269963392012018-03-11T21:37:00.000+09:002018-03-11T22:12:18.747+09:00Katazome...Japanese Stencils: Recreating Antique Japanese Textiles<br />
I've seen thousands and thousands of pieces of Japanese katazome indigo stenciled cloth. I don't get too excited.<br />
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Only a well-drawn stencil, a cleverly designed stencil, a rare motif, exceptional indigo color and often a nostalgic stencil a friend or old student has cut can make me pause, examine and think.<br />
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I picked up this Japanese butterfly patterned cloth at Morita Antiques in Tokyo a few years back. Butterflies would not make it on a list of favorite motifs but the clever use of other natural motifs set in the wings was so elegant yet humble. The use of soot to get the gradations of grey to black and the delightful shades of faded blue made it irresistible.<br />
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Pre-industrialised poetry. Before electricity.<br />
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It is from the late Edo period 1800 to 1850.</div>
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It is made of handspun Japanese cotton and handwoven at a 36-centimeter width.</div>
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It was part of a cotton kimono or an afterbath kimono worn by a man. Samurai class or perhaps merchant class. </div>
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The background is naturally dyed indigo. The black and grey parts are dyed with soot and bound to the cloth with soy milk. </div>
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The pattern is finely drawn. Natural motifs of peonies and bamboo leaves are inside the wings of some of the butterflies. Typical of Japanese design.</div>
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I took the cloth to my old friend 7th generation Noguchi san's studio and told him I wanted to reproduce the cloth and needed his help with the eventual pasting.<br />
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He looked at it with disbelief.</div>
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The main obstacle to reproduce this antique cloth was finding someone who can cut the stencils for it. I thought of trying myself but simply do not have the time or the skill level. I found the master of masters, Isao Uchida from Ise in Mie prefecture. (This town supplied all the stencils for all of Japan historically. ) He is the head of the Japanese persimmon paper stencil preservation association. He is a tsukibori stencil cutter. He uses the board with the holes underneath the paper so to cut graceful lines. </div>
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I visited his home and studio 5 years ago and took the above pictures.</div>
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I took a sample of the cloth and headed down south to meet him and ask for his help last month. </div>
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He agreed.</div>
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It took him a few weeks to complete the cutting. I can see how he cleverly reproduced the stencil with the use of carbon paper and his God-given drawing skills and infinite patience with a razor sharp knife. </div>
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People are bigger than they were hundreds of years ago and I asked him to add a few butterflies on the 36cm width to get a full 40cm width.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JZnFzY8s7S8/WqUfrg6qvwI/AAAAAAAAILI/roVFOXF4WXIbBMQydvCbZzN4i5sWdwwUwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0138.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JZnFzY8s7S8/WqUfrg6qvwI/AAAAAAAAILI/roVFOXF4WXIbBMQydvCbZzN4i5sWdwwUwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_0138.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The stencil arrived today and they are beautiful. It takes seven different stencils to recreate this pattern. Three for the white lines alone and four to help cover with paste the grey and black areas once they are painted in with soot and soy milk.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7wr6WqrGW7I/WqUfyXxJTOI/AAAAAAAAILQ/Ko0kEvkB_lATiYWTC65yYGEIUiPN7JmKgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7wr6WqrGW7I/WqUfyXxJTOI/AAAAAAAAILQ/Ko0kEvkB_lATiYWTC65yYGEIUiPN7JmKgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_0137.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The stencil would be too fragile to be cut on a single piece of paper. So the fine lines were spaced apart from each other and spread over three papers.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tMvM5V_9N4M/WqUhOf_F9bI/AAAAAAAAILo/wQz-dfgpodEyWT6kGEvYjF88ex9PvUUegCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0125.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tMvM5V_9N4M/WqUhOf_F9bI/AAAAAAAAILo/wQz-dfgpodEyWT6kGEvYjF88ex9PvUUegCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_0125.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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You can see the pattern with two of the three overlaid on each other.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vdogl1JmMjs/WqUhYCgioeI/AAAAAAAAILw/xaz6NVCpfUcxkL2pcL_2V5-43Z7Kw63gQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0130.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vdogl1JmMjs/WqUhYCgioeI/AAAAAAAAILw/xaz6NVCpfUcxkL2pcL_2V5-43Z7Kw63gQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_0130.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Whiteboots photobombed the stencil to be used to resist the grey sections. </div>
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I started writing a book on Making Japanese Hanten Jackets. Starting with indigo seeds. </div>
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The reproduced butterfly stencil will be used to dye a gorgeous lining for the jacket.</div>
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I'll take the stencils to Noguchi's place with my first wave of workshop students this spring and see what we can do.</div>
<div>
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<div>
Very very exciting days...</div>
</div>
Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709628913790065104.post-30261907711431914162018-03-08T22:18:00.002+09:002018-03-09T19:16:26.465+09:00Monkeys, Drag Queens, Glasgow and Van Morrison & the City of Paisley.I went running a few days back and a group of twenty-odd monkeys came racing up the mountain from below out of the tea fields and spilled up onto the road around me and ran with me a few dozen meters.<br />
<br />
At that moment I was listening in rapture to Van Morrison on earphones. Thinking about the opening lyrics to Domino with a big grin...<br />
<br />
<br />
<div jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Don't want to discuss it</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I think it's time for a change</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">You may get disgusted</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Start thinkin' that I'm strange</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">In that case I'll go underground</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Get some heavy rest</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Never have to worry</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">About what is worst and what is best (get it)</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Oh oh Domino (all right)</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Roll me over Romeo</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">There you go</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Lord have mercy</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">I said oh oh Domino</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Roll me over Romeo</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">There you go</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say it again</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">I said oh oh Domino</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I said oh oh Domino,</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard;">I had to stop and laugh and dance for the monkeys....."there you go... Lord have mercy..."</span></span></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
<span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard;">I punched the air Rocky-style smiling so hard I couldn't laugh and I swear a few of the monkeys joined in with me for the following verse dancing in the trees...</span></span></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
The Van Morrison and the monkeys....agh... I never finished writing that blog in Glasgow started in December.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsGA4_Y89c">Domino Van Morrison</a></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 13px;">
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<br />
Back in Glasgow after some quiet time on the Isle of Skye I wandered for hours on end in the streets holding my camera by my waist with the flip out viewfinder secretly taking endless pictures of mostly unsuspecting random people walking down the street or preparing for a Christmas parade or staring into a pawnshop window looking at guitars. I've been in the habit of this for years. In Russia, Georgia, New York, Melbourne, India..<br />
You get drunks and punks and mates. Occasionally a couple in love, a toddler with a walleye eating a sugar glazed donut.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RSmIRebTKnA/WkmpXFiBe1I/AAAAAAAAH_8/iepJwp_RRD4g-hEl9X9UtxQdhPdpz7TOwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1893.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RSmIRebTKnA/WkmpXFiBe1I/AAAAAAAAH_8/iepJwp_RRD4g-hEl9X9UtxQdhPdpz7TOwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_1893.jpg" width="247" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mKbWWz8U6NU/WkmpbVA71FI/AAAAAAAAIAE/bYDePcKaeuIV1eVGzku1RBunIZbNn9htQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1896.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mKbWWz8U6NU/WkmpbVA71FI/AAAAAAAAIAE/bYDePcKaeuIV1eVGzku1RBunIZbNn9htQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_1896.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hv_MqFLe5eA/WkmpehtXofI/AAAAAAAAIAM/bOVDHHK4LR0qFny_CX_BU0C3eMj18ncQwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1921.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hv_MqFLe5eA/WkmpehtXofI/AAAAAAAAIAM/bOVDHHK4LR0qFny_CX_BU0C3eMj18ncQwCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_1921.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w9oyVTwpNZU/WkmpixcpHJI/AAAAAAAAIAU/79GBTROoU-UlG67nNwAv6D-AR0Cl9Gw2wCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1864.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w9oyVTwpNZU/WkmpixcpHJI/AAAAAAAAIAU/79GBTROoU-UlG67nNwAv6D-AR0Cl9Gw2wCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_1864.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
The moment was gone.<br />
<br />
The already low-angled solstice sun lowered, it was raining and snowing and the buskers were mixing in Christmas carols next to Rolling Stone covers. I nicked into a pub to sit quietly and edit out the blurry pictures, the empty frames, close-ups of down jackets and think about the habitats of the city I captured for my own amusement digitally.<br />
<br />
I got my pint and some chips and glanced around the pub to see who my fellow sleet-escaping buddies were.<br />
<br />
A little on the gloomy and serious side.<br />
<br />
All ages and no specific dress code. Even the matron who moved in on me and was curious and looking to start up a conversation as soon as I looked away for my camera editing.....<br />
<br />
<i>Tourist.....?</i><br />
<i>Yeah.</i><br />
<i>Where you from?</i><br />
<br />
I had to smile.<br />
<br />
She was speaking with a deep Glaswegian patter.<br />
<br />
She had to smile back...she raises both arched eyebrows, one at a time, and turns her head slightly, glances sideways, coyly up and away and takes a sip through a straw of her cocktail and lets the razor stubble, eyeliner and peculiar cleavage and husky voice register and then the eyes move back to meet mine and then the head follows for dramatic effect.<br />
<br />
<i>Canada.</i><br />
<br />
A few pints later I had heard her family story.<br />
<br />
A North Irish bricklayer father who had eloped with her Scottish mother to escape the troubles and then escaped the troubles of looking after a family and vanished. She was living with her <i>bloody handsome straight brother, built like a refrigerator, </i>who came back from Iraq with a post-traumatic disorder and was between wife number three and four.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>So what do you do in Canada?</i><br />
<br />
<i>I'm a farmer and a textile designer and actually, I have lived in Japan for the last thirty years.</i><br />
<br />
I raised my eyebrows, turned my head slightly, gave it my best world-weary distant gaze, (probably man-spread a little), took an intentional manly drink of my beer and then moved my eyes back to meet hers and then slightly pivoted my head so the vision and the nose lined up and locked at 90 degrees.<br />
<br />
I thought of that old song...<i>"When love congeals, it reveals, the faint aroma of performing seals."</i><br />
<br />
She blinked those clumpy mascaraed lashes in rapid succession. Three quickies and a slow rise. Set them and smiled while seemingly making her incisors grow a little...<br />
<br />
<i>Well.... you must go to Paisley then. It is only an hour away. That is where all the paisley was made for the world in the days. The trains leave Glasgow station every twenty minutes.</i><br />
<i><br /></i> So the next day...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TTGlUwPME0s/WkmoMCYzo1I/AAAAAAAAH_w/zg9L4di6bCkxpSwoJeC3NN8QcIw5C7RjQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_2048.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TTGlUwPME0s/WkmoMCYzo1I/AAAAAAAAH_w/zg9L4di6bCkxpSwoJeC3NN8QcIw5C7RjQCK4BGAYYCw/s400/IMG_2048.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
No weaving has taken place in the town of Paisley since before WWII. Living in my village in Japan where every single house had produced silk for hundreds of years I know how that industry determined generations of local's lives. Again, the not-well-funded-aesthetic of small museum rooms with donated looms with moth-eaten threads dryly suspended from the front and back beams, rusted heddles and miscellany of weaving production awkwardly displayed on poorly made display boxes and cabinets.<br />
<br />
It was a wonderful three hours non-the-less. Reading through the placard history of the weaving union workers and the history of the shawl adaptations as styles changed and seeing some beautiful work was well worth the short trip from Glasgow.<br />
<br />
<br />
The sad Christmas fair with almost empty amusement rides in the town square I'd have to pass through again to enter the train station made me reluctant to brace the cold and wind. I bought a good book on Paisley from the museum gift shop and sat in front of a life-sized paper mâché Darth Vader near a radiator and read it until it was 5:00 and the museum decided to close.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gscVQWdKGVA/WqEu4Xz-_8I/AAAAAAAAIIQ/Kp7ccR3JAD8Bv-l-_CZtiPTTL0qPTgTugCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3312.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gscVQWdKGVA/WqEu4Xz-_8I/AAAAAAAAIIQ/Kp7ccR3JAD8Bv-l-_CZtiPTTL0qPTgTugCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_3312.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k62z9sXLjTc/WqEu-zM60gI/AAAAAAAAIIY/gZc3xwVdjvoOnTX2qELpcfZGYlqD_KW5ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3280.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k62z9sXLjTc/WqEu-zM60gI/AAAAAAAAIIY/gZc3xwVdjvoOnTX2qELpcfZGYlqD_KW5ACK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_3280.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_v7vrOpa-bo/WqEvDs9VybI/AAAAAAAAIIg/fCIecrUWFkwwsOF5x3rkhQ0E9AR2LZ5zACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3321.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_v7vrOpa-bo/WqEvDs9VybI/AAAAAAAAIIg/fCIecrUWFkwwsOF5x3rkhQ0E9AR2LZ5zACK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_3321.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4XiS8inOz8c/WqEvI5JWJgI/AAAAAAAAIIo/n0hR8lO9_uoucbOtBWHe8-D33UhUZ30QgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3318.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4XiS8inOz8c/WqEvI5JWJgI/AAAAAAAAIIo/n0hR8lO9_uoucbOtBWHe8-D33UhUZ30QgCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_3318.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WQmwH3OY-FI/WqEvM5cbbOI/AAAAAAAAIIw/VmLaaQ4kstMgep9nkkwhGVb27cr20wVLwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_3317.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WQmwH3OY-FI/WqEvM5cbbOI/AAAAAAAAIIw/VmLaaQ4kstMgep9nkkwhGVb27cr20wVLwCK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_3317.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILJtwt57md0/WqEvSgjzvBI/AAAAAAAAII4/rJYXSscW30o4WLe68sEJEfgswfxgCkshACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1996.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ILJtwt57md0/WqEvSgjzvBI/AAAAAAAAII4/rJYXSscW30o4WLe68sEJEfgswfxgCkshACK4BGAYYCw/s640/IMG_1996.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PogubVpvFNs">This makes the paisley shawl make sense. One minute clip.</a><br />
<br />
I did go back to the Scottish pub in Glasgow the next day humming, 'Madame George' but she wasn't there.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrOgYjp20j0">Pure Heaven.</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
<br />
<div jsname="U8S5sf">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Down on Cyprus Avenue</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">With a childlike vision leaping into view</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Ford and Fitzroy, Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Marching with the soldier boy behind</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">He's much older now with hat on drinking wine</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">The cool night air like Shalimar</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">And outside they're making all the stops</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Happy taken Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">That's when you fall</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Whoa, that's when you fall</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Yeah, that's when you fall</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">When you fall into a trance</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Sitting on a sofa playing games of chance</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">With your folded arms and history books</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">You glance into the eyes of Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And you think you found the bag</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">You're getting weaker and your knees begin to sag</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">In a corner playing dominoes in drag</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">The one and only Madame George</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">And then from outside the frosty window raps</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">She jumps up and says, Lord, have mercy I think it's the cops</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And immediately drops everything she gots</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Down into the street below</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And you know you gotta go</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Throwing pennies at the bridges down below</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye to Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dry your eye for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Wonder why for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And as you leave, the room is filled with music</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Laughing, music, dancing, music all around the room</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And all the little boys come around, walking away from it all</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">So cold, and as you're about to leave</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">She jumps up and says, hey love, you forgot your gloves</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the gloves to love, to love the gloves</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">To say goodbye to Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dry your eye for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Wonder why for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dry your eyes for Madame George</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye in the wind and the rain on the back street</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">In the backstreet, in the back street</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye to Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">In the backstreet, in the back street, in the back street</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Down home, down home in the back street</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Gotta go, say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dry your eye, your eye, your eye, your eye, your eye</span></i></div>
<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye to Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">And the loves to love to love the love</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dry your eye for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Wonder why for Madame George</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">The love's to love, the love's to love, the love's to love</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Say goodbye, goodbye</span></i></div>
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<div class="_Wzr" jsname="U8S5sf" style="margin-top: 13px;">
<i><span jsname="YS01Ge">Get on the train</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Get on the train, the train, the train</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">This is the train, this is the train</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Whoa, say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Get on the train, get on the train</span></i></div>
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<br />Bryan's Japanese Textileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02047099866454091251noreply@blogger.com1