Student's Invisible Work

Students can work for months incrementally on a shibori or weaving project at the house and when finally completed the work vanishes forthwith.  It is like pulling teeth to get it back at the house to get a decent photograph. Kamei san worked away for a few hours each week for one eternity last year in the cold half- finished broken floored center room.  The blanket and the construction came to completion within minutes of each other and then the blanket was mysteriously gone. It had been a constant in the chaos peeking from under a separate dust protecting blanket thrown over the top of the loom. After a good nettling she sent some pictures of her first twill indigo-dyed blanket with the flawlessly twisted fringe.

So many wonders come out of the indigo vat as well. In the rush of cleaning up and the excitement of having made something the piece of work seldom gets the attention it merits. Set on the table with a round of green tea with praise and observations. Taking time......some quiet silent time to observe... where the object made is the subject, not the maker or the mistakes the maker felt they made.

For the past year with the nuclear accident and then the house construction and then the tour coming the subjects have been: the disaster, the victims , the radiation , the cedar plank flooring , the necessary extra bathroom, the mysterious coming guests, the unfinished electrical wiring. Now the subject is: me, me, me. I didn't finish this. I spent too much on that. I didn't listen to instincts. I need to get this done, etc. Life is exhausting with "I" as the endless subject. Somehow a shift took place. Where is the 'caps unlock' button for this?

Maybe in observing the finished piece of indigo work on the table and figuring out why it turned out so good or why it was a bit of a flop.

Good work Kamei san. The light is playing cooly off all those indigo dips and shuttle passes.

Tsumugi, Kasuri and Katagami hori

It was a quiet class day with everyone concentrating on their projects. Kamei san's carpet made a few rows of progress.

 Tanaka san spun silk floss on my spinner for the first time. She had pulled floss like they do for Yuki tsumugi for her graduation project last month at the Kurashiki one year textile program. This hand spun thread will be dyed and used for warp and weft of her first back-strap loom project.

With so many fresh leaves outside they were the natural subject for a new stencil project. I drew it out on paper to give them the idea (it was slightly more complicated this time) and they drew their patterns out on persimmon paper and started cutting them out.

Yamaguchi san started her third back-strap loom project. This time as warp kasuri. Here she is patiently tying up the resists. They will be dyed with indigo and then the wrap removed.

Finishing Up a Hydro-sulphate Indigo Vat

The chalk-like sediment is visible when you stir the indigo adding to the guesswork of the condition of the vat.

A hydro-sulphate de-oxidised indigo vat cannot last forever. The slaked lime (or other alkaline agent) and the exhausted hydro-sulphate eventually build up at the bottom of the vat. When the vat is stirred the liquid in the vat becomes cloudy from the disturbed sediment. This adds one more factor to consider when reading the condition of the vat each day. It takes time after each agitation (intentional or accidental) to settle to the bottom again and then it is lurking there and going to effect the quality of the dyeing by getting on thread etc. When the thread dries a white powder can form. This could be the result of suspended sediment in the dye liquid.

It is not desirable to make a new vat every few weeks because there will be a reasonable amount of precious indigo pigment thrown away with the water as well as being a lot of work.  When you stir the indigo and feel the sludge at the bottom of the vat building up, imagine what is happening down there in the deep blue.  The above mentioned whitish-green cloud in the freshly stirred indigo is also an indicator that  it is time to go through the hassle of cleaning up the vat and starting fresh.

Of course the vat will have usable indigo pigment in it. The trick is how to exhaust the pigment effectively and properly.

There was no denying yesterday that the ceramic vat outside the front door needed re-done. Liza dropped in a piece she was dying. It floated to the bottom and when I retrieved it it was covered in deep-sea indigo monster mucus.

There were three more kilograms of red cotton thread to over-dye with indigo sitting there. They were put in the bath tub after the humans were finished last night and this morning they were well wet enough to dye. The indigo vat in question got a good spiffy up with a topping off of water, the pH adjusted and a good hit of hydro-sulphate and a strong whirlpool stir  before bed. The sediment had all settled by morning and the thread was dyed gently five times until it was obvious the pigment was nearly all soaked up.

Thank you indigo vat. I set this one up with Eri chan one cool November morning a year and a half ago. It had been very well used.

I threw in an old Snoopy blanket to suck up as much pH as possible and then hung that in the sun to dry. It will get thrown away with the regular garbage and they can burn it with the filter at the garbage dump. The exhausted dye bath was drained onto the gravel near the stream. Not strictly the most environmental thing to do but I worry that the sudden pH shock will kill the bacteria in the new state-of-the-art septic tank that was just installed.

Ryoma and Ryota were over for a visit and nothing could keep these curious little handsome weasels away from the main event of the day.....green sludge coming out of a hose. Of courser their white t-shirts ended up dyed blue.

The sludge at the bottom of the vat was scooped out and spread thin on a piece of plywood to dry in the sun.  That will take a few days and then it will be scraped up and put in a plastic bag and thrown away in the regular garbage.

The work involved in keeping a indigo vat going over a long period of time is daunting whether it is a fermentation vat, a hydro-sulphate vat or a zinc vat. (Jean I think of you!) Any questions just ask.

Bamse kept a distance but was caught up in the general vat emptying excitement. On a windy spring morning the most mundane things are amplified and bigger than life.

Indigo Planting and Indigo Balls

As the tour members were on their way out the front door on the way to the airport they planted a dozen or so indigo seeds each. This year will be my 19th year growing indigo and the help from my planting assistants  will have a special significance this year as I reflect on how indigo has come to be a significant part of life here.
The timing of opening the straw bag with fermenting indigo wasn't perfect. It could have used a few more  mixes in the early spring and stopped a few weeks sooner. I stretched it out too long and caught the indigo just on the edge of fermenting too much. I made it quickly into indigo balls and am drying them in the sun with the help of a light sprinkle of slaked lime to halt the fermentation. However, it is raining this evening and the house reeks of ammonia as I dry them in front of the kerosene fan heater.

Spring around the House

ひとりしずか/ Japanese name: By Myself Quiet.

Spring arrived late this year. It arrived all at once with plum and cherry blossoms back to back.  We had snow just the other day and now your lungs fill to capacity with a gentle sniff there is so much oxygen in the air from the new leaves. I roamed around the back of the house today trying to name a few of the plants that have shot up out of nowhere.  Aghhhhhhhh so beautiful. Just impossible to put into words. These are the most beautiful days of the year. The backlit dark arrogant spring grey clouds at dusk seemed magnetically charged and unable to move the impatient lean, puppyish green mountainsides. Aghhhh...no camera. I'm still a bit dazed and confused after the tour. Slowly putting things back where they belong and getting back into a regular rhythm again. It is Golden Week right now. A string of national holidays timed just right to get back on my feet while breathing/taking in the new landscape.

熊谷そう／Kumagaisou in front of my bedroom window.

Sky above the house this afternoon.

Outside upstairs bedroom window this morning.

Jack in the Pulpit

Broken Umbrella.

Thank You Indigo Sisters

This was the first Japanese Textile Study Tour. How can I really thank Mrya, Janine, Nat, Cynthia, Blandina, Judi, Jean and Lis? They signed up without knowing me except through Nat and my blog.  They flew in from all corners of the planet with suitcases full of gifts they lavished on my friends and myself. Long expensive flights and a long journey to get to this nowhere village. I tried my best to make their journey worth it. I and felt bad that the weather wouldn't cooperate and kept Mt Fuji hidden. Here we are actually standing on the lower slopes. Unfortunately we barely even caught a glimpse of its snow capped peak.
Thank you ladies for being such great sports. I kept the pace a little too fast. Sorry.
I hope our paths cross again some day.

Bryan

Katazome Master Visit

 I first visited Noguchi san's time slip katazome studio seventeen years ago. He is the seventh generation stencil dyer here and his son Kaz  become the eighth a few years back.  Our entourage arrived and Noguchi san was happy to have me do all the explaining. He shies away from any limelight and has called me before to help when a group of non-Japanese somehow found his Japanese Hobbit-like Indigoshire heaven.

Judy said she, "lost it" while watching him at work. I am not quite sure of what she meant but can imagine how she was overwhelmed by both the tradition itself and the magical atmosphere of his studio and his indigo dyed yukata.

 "Stand still I can't get a picture of you that isn't blurred....."(Sorry there was just too much to explain.)

Noguchi san ferments his indigo differently than anyone else I have ever met or read about. He keeps several vats in a thick fermentation state and scoops out the fresh pigment and bacteria laden liquid and pours it into the main dying vats in a separate room.

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There is a tremendous amount of information to take in on a visit to this studio. It is not laid out in a tidy classroom like format. The family lives with and in and amongst the studio. The processes include sizing and ironing the yukata material, keeping indigo fermentation vats alive, stretching the material on the long maple boards, preparing the pastes, handling of the stencils, drying racks in the sun, soya milk production to size and over dye with soot, washing the rolls of cotton, pressing them again and finishing them up to sell. All of these processes and their accompanying tools and space jumbled in together. I was so impressed with our tour members for taking so much in. It took me years to get an idea of what is involved and how he manages it.

In the pasting studio his son gave a demonstration on how he applies the paste. I arranged for Noguchi san to let us all have chance to paste a piece of our own. The tour members enjoyed this thoroughly.

The red pigment is added to make the paste more visible when lining up the stencils for a continuous pattern.