Rice Harvesting

The week of the equinox is over today.
Now we have rice harvesting season.

I have a tiny rice paddy in the back yard.
I will use these to make decorations for the New Year.

Life of Things

Nikaido Bunny project is a kind of re & up-cycle activity.
Even today, somewhere in the world there are those who don't have enough clothes due to poverty, war and else.
On the other hand, a large quantities of clothes in mint condition are abandoned.

Mottainai.

I began to call for second hand damaged clothes, old buttons, yarns, beads and so on. And I keep on making these bunnies with them as symbols to think about life of things.

The gate is open

Spider Lily.
Here Japan, it's unfortunately known as ominous flower. Because it's blooming during the week of autumnal equinox and besides poisonous. So we Japanese never send spider lilies as birthday present or other celebrations.

Notwithstanding, spider lilies have unique attractiveness.
I can't help feeling that spider lilies must be gate keepers between this world and the other.

100 days have gone

I held the last natural dyeing WS this summer.

The dye stuff was Crape Myrtle.
It's excellent stuff to get purplish black.

We Japanese call crape myrtle 100-Day-Blooming.
Just like the name, they keep on blooming more than three months even though in such a sever summer.
But the blossoms seem to be finally over, they bear fruits.
It's a sign of autumn coming.

100 days have gone

I held the last natural dyeing WS this summer.

The dye stuff was Crape Myrtle.
It's excellent stuff to get purplish black.

We Japanese call crape myrtle 100-Day-Blooming.
Just like the name, they keep on blooming more than three months even though in such a sever summer.
But the blossoms seem to be finally over, they bear fruits.
It's a sign of autumn coming.

The Last Indigo Tie Dye Workshop

Indigo season is about to be over.
This will be probably last indigo dyeing class this year.My indigo pot seemed to bring the last full power. At last, every participant could get various transparent blue.

The most enjoyable thing when I have a class is that I can hear interesting stories, information or jokes from participants.

Chatting with handwork is the happiest time♡

Tanabata Wish

Today is Tanabata Fes Day.

Tanabata is based on the legendary meeting of two stars, Hikoboshi(Altair) and Orihime(Vega).

As our seasonal function, we write our wishes on strips of colorful paper and hang them from sasa-bamboo branches, which is said to make their wishes come true.

The begining of this week, I prepared bamboo and some piece of paper and pens at the corner of entrance of my studio.

Visitors write their wishes in their own way.

This morning. My eyes were glued on one yellow piece.It was written by a piano-class student girl at the age of seven. Probably she has just mastered Hiragana writing.

Her wish is not something she want nor future of the dream.

"I wish the war between Russia and Ukraine ends"

What is "KIBISO"?!

Can you imagine what is KIBISO(生皮苧=raw-skin-nettle)

The answer is a kind of silk fiber.

However, it would be far from your image about silk. Pre-refined KIBISO silk looks very wild like hemp palm and actually quite hard.

Not known to common, but when silkworms spin first, the fibers are covered with hard protein called sericin. That's why our ancestors put 苧-Chines character on its name though it originally means "nettle". Yes, its texture is exactly like nettle hemp.

When silkworm farmers get silk fibers from cocoons, they boil the cocoons and stroke the surface with a bamboo whisk to find the beginning.(From the beginning to the end of a cocoon, they wind about 1500m faber without a break.)

Before finding the true beginning of a long fiber, at the end of bamboo whisk many short waste fibers are stuck. Silkworm farmers gather these waste fibers and spin. This is KIBISO yarns.

Usually we weavers put off the sericin by boiling the fibers with soda to make it soft and shiny. But as I love raw KIBISO's wild and tough texture, I use this without refining. Very difficult to dye and weave, but really attractive!

When we touch hemp palm or hemp nettle, our hands get chapped. But KIBISO doesn't make our hands rough at all. On the contrary, it makes our skin smooth...!

You know we Japanese have countless monstrous creatures in folk tales. One of the famous creatures 苧うに(Ouni), which has same Chines character on name, is well known to have very hard disheveled long hair.(right photo) Looks exactly KIBISO!

I weave KIBISO cloth for Obi or bags time by time.

The First Spring Wind From Germany

The autumn in 2007. It was unforgettable year for me to make up a big collaborative event "Trave Art festival 2007 in Kamakura" with my darling German artists.

One of the German participants Kerstin Kempe was a potter who created her pottery-work based on Japanese Rakuyaki technic. She and three Japanese calligraphers and I made up a group exhibition together during the festival. At the end of the fes, she gave me some pieces of her lovely potteries. I still keep them as my cherishable treasure.

It was one year later that we got a tragic news. Kerstin passed away by cancer. This news dejected us so deeply, indeed.

At the end of last December, I got an e-mail message from a German friend after long interval.. It said "Kerstin's daughter Marie,who is travelling through Japan, working and wondering. She is on her way to Kamakura to taste the air, her mother breezed. She asked, if we could arrange a place to go, maybe a place to sleep, and who, do you think, we thought about? Right, you, whom else? Do you agree that we give her your adress? She is really lovly." Oh, oh, why not, Thomas!

And lovely Marie Kempe and I could meet each other yesterday. Oh my goodness, she just looks like her mom! As if Kerstin comes back to us!

21-year-old young Marie is using the system of WWOOF, which is an international organization to arrange a sort of working holidays. She studies and gets experiences of working at some organic farms in west area in Japan. And she stopped by Kamakura on the way to next farm working.

Some Trave members and I got together for a small welcome party for her at my house, and we tried to show her Japanese traditional New Year's celebration. About her mother, about herself, about ourselves and about something in future... talking, talking and talking with eating/drinking to the late at night...

Lovely smile and soft speaking, just like her mom. At the same time we can see strong will and independency, just like her mom's art work.

Good luck, Marie. See you really soon.

To the memory of Kerstin Kempe.

Winter Greetings

It was sooo hot yesterday!... No? Oh, it was more than three months ago!

Chinese old proverb says "Youthful years pass quickly before one accomplishes much learning", and "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."... by Mahatma Gandhi. But time goes too fast, indeed.

I strongly feel I was supported by many good meetings and kindness this year at Khaju Art Space.

When we see widely, we can't help saying that we underwent a very painful ordeal this year. it taught us we have to change our purpose, life style, or definition of happiness.

I'd like to do something I can do for Tohoku people with my skill and to think over my own life next year.

Always first of all, I'd like to make the time with one person in front of me "one and only". I believe everything begins with it.

Thank you for your everything this year.

I wish you welcome a happy and hopeful new year.

with love and gratitude,

Tanaka Makiko