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

Piano, Children and Happiness

　　

Andante Piano Studio is one of the most popular classes at Khaju Art Space. Instructor Keiko is an original member of Khaju since 1997, opening year.

Keiko and her students hold class concert once two years. And today was their 7th concert day at Nikaido Gagusha.

Almost all Keiko's students have been in this class for a long time, small students glow up here, no students quit. (It's the best medal for all teaching pros, isn't it?)

I'm always looking forward to this concert and enjoy to help with making the flower arrangement on the stage, and narration at backstage.

They don't only play the piano but also sing together, play the handbells together with the audience. Keiko is a super stage director, indeed. Last one week there was full of high-tensioned air in the piano room and many students were far from perfect playing..."Are they all right?!"...I always worry...
However, as all the students inherit their teacher Keiko's quality, they perform best when they are on the spot! Unbelievable!

For children, such kind of stage experience must be a great life treasure. They were so shiny, beaming with happiness! I love to see this. Keiko, Otsukaresama.

Kamakura Tea Time Report

It was another nice autumn day yesterday. "The 1st Kamakura Tea Time" was held in warm and gentle breezing at Khaju.

The organizer Mr. Yahara brought some different kinds of high qualified coffee beans from South American countries and served in a very professional way.

One of the guests was from Nasu, Tochigi prefecture! Thank you so much!
All the guests who belonged to different life-back ground were wrapped softly by coffee aroma and a sense of unity developed among us beyond any differences.

See you next time!

Emoticons, this or that

When I get e-mails from Wester friends, I always wonder why they draw(write?) emoticons in 90-degree turned like this : -).
It's inconvenient to see, isn't it?
Is there any particular reason?

We Japanese usually draw emoticons and other letters at the same angle. And probably Japanese create the most unique emoticons.

ex.

(^_^) (^ o ^)...smile

(^_~)... wink

(T_T)... weeping

(_ _;)... cold sweating

( * _*;)... puzzled

m(_ _)m ... I'm sorry, or please

(^ ^)ゞ... embarrassed

( ；∀；)... weeping, crying

・ﾟ・(｡>Д<｡)・ﾟ・ ...crying

(*｀ｪ´*)... angry

v_v｡)ﾉ)) ... I miss you, or good bye

ヾ(-ω-；) ... give me a break, or wait a minute

Do you have any particular emoticons in your area?

Indigo Blue - Color of Japan

Summer is the season to dye blue color with indigo.
Indigo plant is the one which we Japanese feel familiar, have been used as dye stuff since it was brought from China 1400 years ago.

In the leaves of this plant are including much "Indican", blue component. Through many process with particular techniques,taking long time,Indigo liquid is laid finally for dyeing.But now we can get synthetic indican powders and make up indigo pots with it comparatively easily.

I have two pots of synthetic indigo in back yard of my studio.
This summer I renewed my indigo liquid after ten years interval because the liquid is getting weak and weak recently by long-year-tough using.

The new indigo gave us amazingly clear brilliant blue color during this summer. Many students of my dyeing class and summer workshops could enjoy indigo dyeing! →photos

As same as many other countries, we also have long history of natural dyeing. Humid and hot climate gives us various kinds of wild plants and many of them are good foods, medicine, and dye stuff. However it is not known that most of natural dye stuff only can dye animal fibers like silk or wool. Linen, hemp or cotton is quite difficult to be dyed with plants.

Indigo is one of the exceptional stuff which can dye vegetable fibers. So until before Meiji era, for the common people, who were allowed to wear only linen and cotton, indigo was the only color to wear. This limitation became the big motivation to develop complicated tie-dye, embroidery or kasuri weaving techniques in every village side.

For us Japanese, Indigo blue have been important color to forget the summer heat and to purify mentally. In fact as we have to ferment indigo liquid, summer season makes the best condition to dye. The heathy fermented indigo liquid has many blue-violet bubbles on surface (we call it Hana=flowers)and liquid color is jade green. Every material,soaked into the liquid, get dyed green color first and the color is changing into blue in the air by oxidation.

The old wooden box damaged by white ants which had been covered my indigo pots to keep humidity and heat couldn't work any more... But during this summer two friends of mine remade a new wooden box! It seems to work very well, it might another big factor of unbelievable beauty of this summer's indigo blue. Thank you, guys!

*The photo of indigo plant is from this site.

Open letter to Indiana Jones

Dear Dr. Indiana Jones,

I went to movie theater in Yokohama with my son yesterday.
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ...oh, welcome back, Indy!

When I saw the first one of this series "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark", I was the same age as my son. That movie was full of adventure, dream, romance, and amazing imagination, in fact, worthy of kingship of Hollywood stuff.

So yesterday I was so excited because I would be able to share my good memory in my childhood with my son although there is a big generation gap between us.
And yes, my son came to like the latest Indy very much, of course.

Indiana Jones,
I'm so happy to see you again. You are still very attractive, giving a great hope to aged people and becoming my son's new hero .

But at the same time I think you made a big mistake this time. And this mistake is unpleasant for us Japanese, Indy.

Nobody can survive from such a terrible explosion of atomic bomb.
No matter who.

You put yourself into an old refrigerator to avoid the bomb's effect, right?
Nonsense.
According to the knowledge from my school education, at the center of the explosion such a cheep refrige melts down in a few seconds.

After the explosion, you unbelievably get out from the reflige and look up the huge mushroom cloud just in front of you!!
No way.

And you wash out "ash of death" with water and deck-brushes!
Too easy, Indy.

August 6th, 1945.
As you know the Enola Gay threw drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima city.
And 3 days later another one was dropped on Nagasaki.

According to the research in 1991 by Hiroshima city, it is said that the numbers of victims by acute radioactive disorder is 140,000(＋−10,000) at the point in November 1945.　During following 5 years, other 110.000 people died by the aftereffect.
Other living victims have been keeping on suffering from long terrible physical aftereffect and miserable mental pain called "prejudice" until today. For more than 60 years.
In my country, not only for the victims' generation but also for my generation who have war-experienced parents, atomic bombs are the one which we must not explode again even in books, on TV or in movies.
The one which is absolutely untouchable.

Indy, why did you make light of atomic weapons so stupidly although you are such a world-wide-famous hero?
Don't you think many kids might get a wrong image about atomic bombs?
Why atomic one. Are there no other ways to show your attraction without atomic bombs?

You married Marion. Happy for you, Indy.
But I know your marriage would become tough.
Because you will have some different kinds of cancer at the same time very soon.
Surgeries, painful endless chemical treatments, the burden of financial problem......... it might be hard for you and your family.

I'm so sorry about it.

Good bye, Indiana Jones.

Your fan,

Makiko

Under my skin

As I used to live in Hokkaido island (north Japan) for several years in my childhood, I'm good at ice skating.

But it's speed skating with long-edge-skating shoes. Without any graceful performance elements like figure skating. "Run fast, run!", that's all...
As we learned skating in school gym class every winter time, all the local kids including me could skate well and enjoyed it although we sometime felt a little boring (no spins, no turns, no jumps...).
Actually full-throttle-riding on a huge ice link was crazy exciting !

One day, my feet and legs got entangled when I was skating in full speed on ice. My body was suddenly thrown up to the air and fell down from head. At the moment my sight turned into darkness, and I faded out for a few seconds.
After some minutes, I got finally able to stand up with some friends' help...

Of course my mother took me to hospital immediately because I still felt sick, had ringing in my ears.
As soon as I got the hospital, the doctor decided to take X-ray photograph of my skull.

Somebody, have you ever seen your own skull? Maybe quite few.
That was one of the most unbelievable, impressive and funniest photos that I've ever seen.

As I felt so bad and very sulky, I clinched my teeth and I knitted my brows so tight. My face must have looked so painfull.
However, in the photo, all the teeth were shown to the end of back ones very clearly, there were no skin gathers, of course........Yes, to my astonishment, my skull showed a big smile!

At that moment, I could get a very philosophical answer although I felt sick.

A, ha.

Something painful, disgusting, unpleasant, sad or angry happens only upon my skin....

My skull was smiling even when I faced hardships.
Is smilimg today, will be smiling tomorrow, too.....under my skin.

Getting colors from Mulberry Leaves

KUWA. Mulberry tree in English.
We all Japanese have been feeling familiar with Mulberry. Because Mulberry leaves are only foods for silk worms and you could see many silk farming-farmers here and there in Japan until before the World War 2. In fact, you can see " Mulberry Mark"(the right photo) in any Japanese maps as a common.

Although Japanese silk is well-known to all over the world with its high quality, Japanese silk farming is almost disappearing in these days because there are no successors.

KUWA is dioecim. Male and female has different shape of leaves.
I have a female KUWA tree in my garden and it has a lot of berries right now.

Last year I dyed some silk scarves with the leaves of my KUWA in the same season. I could get very profound dark greenish grey with iron mordant. My color therapist friend said " This color has a special power to ease people's pain and to remind them importance of having time to make a conversation with themselves."

Of course KUWA berries are good items for making jam or fruit liqueur.
At the same time we Japanese have been taking its dry leaves as tea traditionally. It is said that KUWA leaves includes much iron, calcium

I and some students in my dyeing class will dye with KUWA leaves again tomorrow.
We are going to try to get 2 colors from KUWA liquid with 2 different mordant : iron and aluminum.

I will report the colors later.

Shape of Life

Makiko,Today is July 4th in 1985. This card is to be delivered 16 years later.You are to be 35 or 36 years old. You must have married and have 2 or 3 kids . Or are you a sccess as a great textile artist? Any way, Grandpa and Grandma wish you all happiness from heaven."......

On New Year's Day this year,　2001, I surely recieved the card which my grandmother wrote this message on at an event of Post Capsule to 21st century　&　supervised by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in Tsukuba World Science Exposition in 1985.
I wonder why she wrote this message to every grandchild supposing she would be dead 16 years later though she was 65 years old in good health at that time.
As she passed away 3 years later, I can't help feeling that the card was delivered from heaven.

Yes,I became a professional weaver,but contrary to her expectation, I'm single, have only one kid. Sorry, Grandma.......

The card made me aware that my life is sustained by not living people around me, but people who has been already dead.
I could see that the people used to live with dead people until my parents generation.
They used to report every day's happenings to their dead parents or gandparents in front of a house holded alter.

'Bon' is one of Japanese annual functions in August 13 〜16 (July 13〜16 in the Lunar calender)
Originally,　it's from Buddism. Many of us take Bon-holidays around these days even today. But the spirit seems to be almost lost. It has been quite naturally thinking that the closed dead people come back to their family during Bon.
All the family gather to spend the holidays togather including dead members.(By the way, on the16th,　the last day of Bon, we prepare some dolls in the shape of horse or cow made of cucumber or eggplant as vehicle for dead family to go back to the other world. It's a little delightful,　isn't?)
I suppose the distance between to be alive and to be dead is perhaps much shorter than we think.

Custom of birthday celebration has become permanent fixture with today's Japanese society. If a boy forgets his girlfriend's birthday, she will not speak to him for three days and all grandparents have their grandchildren's birthday present at heart.
But, until the World War, as it was general thinking that people grew a year older on New Year's Day in the year. Birthday itself seemed not to be so important at that time. On the contrary, it was the Day of Person's Death called 'Mei-nichi', which is written 'Day of Life(!)' in Chinese characters, that the Japanese had been taking as much more serious. When somebody passed away, his or her closed peopleused to memorise and pray for him(her) not on 'Mei-nichi' day, but every monthly 'Mei-nichi' day.

Each family keeps the family list book of carender called 'Kako-cho'(notebook of history), in which all the names of dead family and each date they passed away are recorded. As my mother was the eldest daughter of her parents and had no brother, she inherited her family's 'Kako-cho' . But it is kept on being closed recently.
It's easy for me to belive that some people say civilization began with funeral performing.Thinking of the way of sending off the dead and death itself could be connected to thinking of 'how to live', the essence of civilization, I suppose.

I have a vision. Being born is that a small part of universal energy gets a shape.
A shape and another shape make a good harmony.
A shape and another shape repel each other.
A shape and another shape get united and divided again and again.
That's to live, isn't it?

I dye some natural fiber materials to weave in my studio where is more than 70years old wooden house in Japanese traditional style surrounded a big yard full of various kinds of wild plants and trees.
I take those plants as dye stuff almost every day season by season. I boil all kinds of leaves, roots, barks and fruits to extract hundreds colors. The colors are put onto silk, wool, linen and cotton yarns. Each color changes delicately depending on the season, weather, soil and so on. Through every process of dying and weaving I can see life of plants changes its shape complicatedly. I'm always surprised that unbelievable beautiful colors which are not imaginable from the color of extracted liquid and the plant itself come out, and are put onto, for example, silk fiber spat out from tiny silk worm's mouth. After dyed yarns are set on the weaving loom, warp and weft sing in turn to make a symphonic poem 'cloth'.
I feel a whole process of this work is a relay of life, shape to shape.

Shimura Fukumi who is a living national treasure of weaving in Japan and also well known as an outstanding essayist wrote about such process in her book.
The bark of cherry tree is a good dye stuff to get pink color,but the color changes season by season. Only in spring, just before blooming, the bark gives me pale pink, the very color of cherry blossoms. It seems that the tree of full body stores the blossom's color for blooming.
A shape of energy is not influenced by another but by invisible energy that hasn't have any shape yet. And maybe it will influence next shape .
To be given a shape, to give back the shape. This repitition could be the cycle of life and death. ....Overthinking?

I could see that there is a rule taking charge of all of these universal energy's actions. If it's allowed to call the rule 'God ', being aware of such huge energy, to imagine waves of the energy, or trying to read the way of energy's moving is a dialog with God for me, I wonder.

We have some choices to dispose empty shapes. I wouldn't like to put my shape into a tomb. Thinking of any other style of disposing, I've found my parents was thinking in the same way and they became members of " Free Funeral Association" putting the head office in Tokyo. They seem to hope that their crashed bone is scattered in the ocean. (Oh, no, wait a minite. Who scatters their bone ash??)
The 21st century is the time of ecology. So, I don't care to give any parts of my shape to sombody needs it. But, at the same time, I can't agree with easy thinking of modern medical science like "Let's cut off the diseased part and put the new one." Then, for the time being, I've finished registered my eyeballs to Eye-bank. It's the last message to others from me who has been working in the world filled with beautiful coloers and trying to transmit the fun of colors.

Living with dead people and unborn people thinking about universal enargy.........
Saigyo, a well-known monk as Tanka poet 1117-1198, says "I want to die under a cherry tree of full blooming in spring." But I 'd like to give back my shape to the earth in the deep forest of beech tree at the middle of May hearing of murmuring of a river with believing "Yes, I've certenly hand something to following people." And I'll be so happy if my shape becomes manure for the forest.

Oh, it's perfect.

by Tanaka Makiko

-from Khaju Newsletter 2001 early spring version