Flood of Guests to Best Exotic Indigo Hotel

Liz tagged the house,"The Best Exotic Indigo Hotel" last year. Someone referred to her moniker and it stuck through the duration of the workshops. (Thanks Liz.) The amount of guests here at the BEIH past few months has been staggering.

The guests from the first spring workshop left a few days back.  Once again it was all great fun. It was different this time. I didn't push the production as much. I tried to leave breathing room before, during and after the activities.

I get a little teary-eyed seeing people fly from all over the planet to come spend time with me and the indigo and dogs in this little village in Japan. They make humans look good, arriving with their enthusiasm and good-will packed in their suitcases and over-flowing. In the semi-chaos of ten days together, while witnessing beaming smiles and moments of being here/there together I  found some silent spaces to travel by myself. Flashes of wit, tenderness and insight from the workshop members making all the effort worthwhile. Thank you Lesley, Carole, Bee, Kate, Emily and Jennifer sans for sharing those days of your lives with us here in Japan.

A backlog of guests and pictures.

Ako Shimzato's daughter heard the sad stories of Momo and Geiger in Fukushima and sent these dog treats for them with her mother from Washington state. They tried to pull off a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti slurp. So cute.

Anneke's friends from The Netherlands stormed the house for only a single day of intense indigo fun. 

 http://www.tenuedenimes.com/blog/522-tenue-de-nmes-goes-japan-day-1-indigo-dyeing-in-fujino#.UX5-b79B0qY

Ogata san ran straight for the hunky tattoos again. 95 years old I suppose she knows what she likes.

Victoria and Thomas and Anita visited from Argentina and we spent some magical early spring days together.

And the talented and beautiful Keiko from Toronto charmed us with her storytelling.

And Diana and Jo from Vancouver. Dyeing Diana's hair with indigo. 

Time flies by so quickly. I wish I had more time to spend with each guest, get to know them better and have a few more laughs together. 

The past few months have been busy. Spring came several weeks early. It's early arrival cheated us from that extra few weeks of suffering the cold, the cedar pollen and painful kerosene bills and the precious anticipation of the gentle progression of the first thawed earth smells, birds returning and the orderly smiling parade of sprouts and blooms.

Middle spring  hit us like a sucker punch. 

It is cold here in the winter and the number of guests and friends drop with the temperature and hours of daylight. Like the accelerated spring, the number of out-of-towners and sojourners surged presently.

The weeks fly by. Luxuriating in the bright company I can only shake my head and be grateful for these clear and eventful days.

Too many great projects on the go to mention and document. Kawamoto san bought some spectacular crisp antique linen at the local market a few weeks back. Luc models her shibori masterpiece. 

In a few days the first spring workshop members will arrive. Hoping the weather stays like it was these past few days. There is room for one or two more members in the ten-day indigo and textile workshop starting on May 13th. Anyone interested please drop me a line.

Bryan

Ogata san Modeling

Hanna and Yehia and kids were visiting from FInland for a week. They brought some clothes designed by a friend in Helsinki and were looking for models. Ogata san was a natural.

Nels and Marianne were here form Denmark to witness Cathy's katano shibori masterpiece unfold.

Keiko Shintani charmed us today with pictures of her work and great stories of life.

Anneke's mama from the Netherlands was here and shibori shocked us with her masterpiece as well.

A lot of guests and a lot of fun these days.

Mulberry Cultivation for Silkworms Hint

Three years back I needed some mulberry saplings for a new mulberry field nearer to the house. It was June and slightly too late to take cuttings and start from there. I did, but only 10% took. I planted a dozen mulberry berries and had a bumper crop of sprouts. 150 healthy saplings. Great. But no. The original mulberry berry was from a hybrid.  A very good hybrid. Thick juicy dark leaves. Plenty of nourishment for the silkworms. The from-seed-saplings had reverted to a wild variety. Thin leaves and pale colouring. Not much nourishment happening there. The original cut saplings were stronger and kept the original hybrid genes. The saplings from seed have strong roots and it seems a shame to throw them away.

The old guy next door saw my weasel-like mulberry and advised me to graft quickly before they started to draw the ground water in spring. After talking to him for a while I came to understand that in the old days the mulberry saplings were in fact started from seed and then had a hybrid sprig grafted on after two years because saplings from cuttings would have a weak root system.  Hmmmmm.

I grafted on some twigs from my favorite monster mulberry tree near the river. I later paraffin waxed the graft to keep the graft point moist.

This is a pretty specific post but someone out there might just find this information handy.

Saplings from seed. Most were a tad on the weedy side. They had reverted to a wild variety. Soy beans and indigo in the background.

Strong roots from seed-started mulberry but the leaves are not up to par.

I later waxed the graft. This was a few days ago and it seems the graft has taken!

Snoopy Bonemeal Lotus Food.

Snoopy was cremated at the local Zen temple and her urn has been in the house with fresh flowers the past four months. At first you could feel her hanging around. She caused a little mischief now and then. She has gone far away now and it is time to take the goodbye to another level.

There is an ever expanding group of lotus lovers in the town. The pot gets turned upside down every spring and re-potted. The extra lotus roots and shoots are divided up and another lotus fan is born.

We were re-potting the two pots outside the front floor and while mixing bonemeal with the clay-dirt I had an idea. Snoopy can visit us in the lotus this summer. Although sad, everyone thought it a good idea. I took a few bones from her urn and crushed them and mixed them in.

The lotus in summer.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow

of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! 

The cherry blossoms are blooming, the indigo was in perfect condition. There were so many projects of growth and life at the house on the weekend. But somehow it wasn't sad to meet Snoopy on such a beautiful day. She was a sublime piece of art ol' Snooperoo. She was. Like Hamlet.

 The stage is littered with bodies in the last scene but we feel uplifted not depressed. The presence of great art uplifts. 

And Geiger came to pay his last respects and smell the incense in tribute to his predecessor and friend. 

(Click on the photo.)

Two Month Live in Apprentice: Mini chan

I get requests for long-term live-in apprentices. I want to teach young designers about indigo and silk and Japanese textiles in depth. It occurred to me that it would take at least several years of full time working with a student to impart a decent amount of knowledge. What am I going to do with it? Take it with me at the end of my life? I've refused quite a few eager beavers but finally accepted Mini-chan from Singapore. Just by the tone of her emails I felt she really wanted to study. She wanted a longer apprenticeship but I felt that two months was enough for me to see if we get along. The farmhouse is in the mountains and there is no alternative place to stay except in the guest rooms on the third floor.  So I have  stranger living in the house with me for several months....
I took the chance and it looks like no problem with Mini.
I have a second young designer coming from Finland soon. I might just enjoy this. The farmhouse is ramshackle but cool. I have interesting people coming through from all over the world. Life is pretty good. Those five guest rooms upstairs were a good idea.

Mini is starting off with how to make and maintain a hydro sulphate indigo vat. She indigo dyes something every day. Shibori and katazome and thread. I try to give her a reasonable idea of how a design studio based around indigo might work in her future. Her original design sensibilities are very different from my own. Her portfolio is full of gauzy ultra-feminine draped designs in contrast to my chunky rough indigo and persimmon dyed work. She follows me to the knit studio and I put her to work doing something new every day. She had a full on course on silk cocoon reeling. A complete overload of information but she takes it all in. I'll keep posting on her progress over the next few months.

Katazome Technique Number Five: Hikibori

The final technique is Hikibori. This is the technique most commonly used for Yukata, (cotton summer kimono) and Yuzen dyeing. The blade is drawn towards the carver. The technique is difficult to diffentiate with the push blade technique. The blade for hikibori is shorter than the one used in Tsukibori. Very fine curves are more easily cut with the push technique, tsukibori than the hikibori pull technique.

I use this hikibori technique the most. I will move onto tsukibori in the near future. I'll go back to Ise this summer and find the specific cutters and boards and determine the appropriate paper and figure out the essentials of this designs that fit the tsukibori  technique. Here are two dyed pieces from stencils I have cut with the hikibori technique.

I have a lot to write about on the subject of these five katazome techniques. With the spring workshops fast approaching it is not the time.  I will get back to the subject when things have settled down. The techniques them selves are fascinating but there is much more to the subject.