Amuse Boro Museum in Asakusa closing

I had heard rumblings about this here and there but no one could provide any first hand knowledge of the info.  Over the weekend I emailed the museum itself to inquire as the Silk Study Tour had planned a half day trip there this May to see this wonderful collection (as we have done many times in the past).  This morning I received an email from them to let me know that this is, in fact true.  They have since placed an announcement on their website in English.

I can’t express how wonderful this visit has always been to me.  I have been at least 6 times over 8 years and each time I come away with something new to wonder about. I had to really convince Hirata san that this was an important place for us to visit with our tour group and every time we went (it was always an “optional” visit), those who did go were moved by the exhibit and its meaning, its place in folk textiles, and how the collection developed.  After celebrating its 10th year anniversary, sadly, the museum will close March 31,2019. We will miss our visit there this year but there is some good news!  The Amuse Museum will be looking for a new location somewhere in Japan to re-open sometime in 2020. There may be a traveling exhibit somewhere, sometime, as well.
In the past, I have posted many photos and blog posts about my visits there. Here is a slideshow I created in 2015 or so. I was getting together photos to do a new one and realized I had already done this!

I also found this which is even better:

So we say a fond farewell to the Amuse Museum until, like a silk caterpillar pupating in its cocoon, it reemerges into a whole new life!

It’s been very rainy here this week and promises to continue here through Thursday. This means I will focus on indoor work and there is plenty of it.  I am finishing up the selection of fabrics for this weekend’s workshop.  All are vintage and varied. I also finished up the second bag sample and took a couple of quick photos. and here are the little vintage textile packs for the boro side of the bags- they will indigo dye their own base fabric as well as the rest of the fabrics for the bag.

I hope to convey some simple concepts through this workshop.  That beauty can be created with simple materials, perseverance, and the need or desire to caretake those around you.

I was also reminded to revisit one of my favorite books, “Rural Japan, Radiance of the Ordinary” by Linda Butler. (You can find a copy here or maybe in your library) I’ve had it for many years and often pick it up to look at the photos. This time I reread the text and was rewarded with the following Japanese proverb:

“Mu kara yuu o umu” or translated, “Out of nothingness, something is born”.

It reminded me of the boro textiles at the Amuse. Thank you Amuse Museum for the pleasure of visiting and learning about sashiko and boro! We are richer for the experience.

Website, webshop, & workshops

Spring has taken hold here and the weather is pretty much perfect. Mid 70’s for the past couple of weeks. We enjoy it now while we get the yard in shape and the summer garden planted before months and months of heat sets in.  Then we enjoy the yard in the evenings and early mornings…

It’s too bad I can’t spend all of my time outside right now but I’ve been busy with a couple of projects.  My website has been needing a redo for a couple of years now since Apple stopped supporting iWeb and I have not been able to update it.  I finally decided to switch everything over to a new Squarespace site where I can easily add my own webshop and get rid of the BigCartel shop I’ve been using for the past several years. Of course I am keeping the wordpress blog which you can also access from the new website.

To tempt you to visit the new shop, I added some new shibori ribbon colors and some of the new shibori for you to explore. For all orders over the next two weeks I am including a sheet of bead embroidery beading foundation.
I also finished a new piece and made a little video with it.

I had fun with it, broke away from it here and there for some gardening and perspective. I never really have a solid plan when I start one of these and I think it helps me not get “stuck”. I always give myself permission to change my very loose plan at any time. Often something seems like a good idea in theory but when you get into it you realize it is wholly impractical if not completely impossible. So, a fun puzzle to solve. I also tend to go through stages where I don’t really like the piece but from past experience I’ve learned to push past that and it almost always takes a turn for the better from that point. The point is not to give up on it.  To finish. For me, with beading I find it hard to go back to a piece if I let it sit too long.

The new website also has all the info up for the 2019 Silk Study Tour to Japan. There are still about 5 spots (out of 16) left so… check it out!  I added a bunch of photos from the tour there as well.
The portfolio page is kinda fun and if you’ve been following along for a while you might see some old favorites there. One of the main reasons for redoing the website was so I could keep my Events page updated. There right now are the 3 upcoming workshops at the Japanese American National Museum. I will soon add my upcoming classes at the Houston International Quilt Festival in November.
As always, my website is always a work in progress and I will be tweaking it here and there.

here’s a few photos from around here since the last post…

Tillandsia alcove

Amaryllis

ladybug

Buddy & Toby

Phil & Joe entertaining at the FOLAR river cleanup

LA cityscape with full moon

dalia

nigella-love in a mist

honeysuckle open

honeysuckle

alstroemeria-dark foliage-new to me

Kuro chan views the moon

 

 

 

from Journey to Odyssey

Gosh, has it been that long?  The first quilt Journey started here. Further photos from the wayback time machine here on Flickr. And it has been a journey that has developed into an Odyssey. Journey was the original mooncloth.

Sometimes it’s funny to go back and read an old post.  Notice how some things change and others remain the same.  Like how I am still not a quilter.  Blogging for over 10 years now and there are so many posts I still enjoy going back and re-reading- as a reminder. Others not so much- but still a good reminder.

In a much more recent post, I showed you how I was binding the edge of the test mooncloth Under One Moon in a little video. A couple of pics of the semi-finished piece:

under one moon

keep going

This was sent off as a gift with a hope of continuing.  Some thread and a needle included.

Continuing on with the larger one I’m calling Odyssey, I’m realizing how much I like the feel and drape of this cloth in my hands as I stitch on it.  And right now as I head towards Quilt Festival I also realize that about 90%+ of the fabric I see there is not fabric that I would want to hand quilt with. Of course quilting began with the reuse of scraps from clothing and household textiles that lived previous lives and had a softness built into them.  Fabrics now are made for machines with tight weaves, bright colors, and slick finishes.  This makes them harder to push a needle through by hand.  And less desirable to hand quilters. I don’t know how others feel about this but I will be noticing next month at the festival and wondering about it more.

I hope I can get this one finished in time.  Or near to-at least in a way that it can be continued on the road. Late afternoon light…
Seems it’s a Nine patch.  Just turned out that way.

And in workshop news… the upcoming indigo workshop at the Japanese American National Museum is going to be a little different.  We will be making some small fermentation vats that folks can take home and continue with.  We will also be using the pre-reduced indigo and doing more shibori.  Perhaps you want to explore doing some more detailed stitched shibori on larger cloth?

making pattern stencils

transferring pattern

stitching choices

nui shibori-many variations

Workshop details and registration are on the museum site. Saturday and Sunday October 8-9

all cloth and thread dyed in the fermentation vat.  mostly rescued fabrics. silk and cotton threads.

 

 

 

summertime, and…

I’m redoing my indigo fermentation vat this weekend.  It’s been a while in coming.  I emptied it out (25-30 gallons) about 2 months ago when I was redoing a fence line that it sat along and it needed to be moved.  At  the time I was also having some issues with fruit fly larva in the vat and wanted to have a fresh start and see if I could solve that issue.

The vat will take at least a week to ferment to a usable state and in addition I need to receive an order of ground indigo from Cheryl at Aurora Silks.  Coincidentally, she is having a sale on the 1 Kilo size ground natural indigo and offers free shipping.  I only had 4 oz on hand so made the vat up with that to get it started and will add the rest of the indigo when it arrives in a couple of days.

I am adding a fine mesh cover to the top of the vat since the lid to this container is not a complete seal.  Additionally, I am making a large net bag to drop into the vat while dyeing to keep all the organic materials and sludge to the bottom and away from the cloth as I work.  It’s really only an issue when working with larger open weave fabrics which I seem to use a lot these days.  It saves having to pick out the particles by hand or resort to lots of water wasting rinsing.  Water is precious here.

When I disposed of the old vat I balanced the ph with some citric acid down to about 7 and used the liquid on the ornamental drought tolerant landscaping.  The rest of the sludge in the bottom I added to the compost and was ready to start again. This vat had been in use for 4-5 years.

I am adding some video of the process of this new vat to the student forum for the online indigo workshop I have in my shop.   Here is a little bit of day two progress…

August 6-7 is the final summer indigo workshop at the Japanese American National Museum. Signups are through the museum here.
Last time this is some of what participants did…

And likely,since Jude had been busy with moons, folks have been ordering the moon assortments which has kept me and my studio helper hard at work…

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.

I get letters…

It was a great weekend at the Japanese American National Museum.  There were several returning students but the majority were new to both dyeing and to shibori in general. It is always a pleasure to introduce people to both.  Most indicated they will sign up again for one of the upcoming shibori workshops featuring indigo in June  and August (contact museum for reservations).  The force is strong in shibori…

combining techniques

understanding shibori on various fabrics

practicing arashi

showing each other

gohan!

makinui

itajime

arashi devolving

plenty of inspiration from the past

Participants were fortunate to be able to see the last day of the exhibit “Two Views” featuring photographs by renowned 20th-century photographers Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank who each captured distinctive views of the Japanese American and Japanese Canadian incarcerations. I had seen it previously and encouraged everyone to take a break and go through the exhibit.

Early on Sunday I had the opportunity to view the other exhibit “Making Waves” before the museum opened to the public. It was really too much to take in in the amount of time I had- I spent a scant 30 minutes and knew I couldn’t do it justice so will go back before it closes the end of June.

really showed another side of artistry

yes.

In other news, I am feeling much better! The garden is blooming, vegetables growing. I also had a chance to see the current exhibit at the Mingei International Museum in San Diego recently.  (Thanks to Nadja for the hospitality!) One thing I was curious about was the attribution of this piece on display.

Obviously shibori dyed but yet annotated as printed.  Unless I am missing something…  I could see the needle marks. Anyway…there were some fabulous pieces there, like this detail from a fisherman’s raincoat woven with reed and seaweed.

I came home from the weekend to find a lovely letter from a customer. Honestly, I have to say this sort of thing keeps me going at times. I know that making things by hand is an incredibly personal and worthwhile endeavor. Sometimes a journey of the soul. Please teach any children in your realm this valuable gift.
now I’m crying…xo

Museum Ethics 101

You know I don’t want to have to go here again. You do. But Here We Are. Once again.

Let’s restate this, o n e  m o r e  t i m e.

If you are teaching a class, use your own work to sell or market the class. Your work. Not someone else’s. Doing so is unethical and fraudulent. If you are a museum, make sure the images you are using to sell these classes are the works of the instructor you have hired.

In this day and age you cannot simply say you “didn’t know”, you “thought it was OK”, or that “it wasn’t my responsibility”.  Your desire to “pretty up” your website does not supersede copyright infringement laws.

I thought a museum was the caretaker of art, artists, and artworks. If not museums, then what is your contribution to the art world? What happened to being a good citizen of the art community?

Here is a good set of rules to go by:

10 Bogus Excuses People Use When They Steal Photos from the Web

You stole an image, used it fraudulently for commercial purposes, and made money from it. You used it on your website to sell workshops. You posted about it all over the web and your various social media sites.

The United States statutory damages for copyright infringement are set out in 17 U.S.C. 504 of the U.S. Code. The basic level of damages is between $750 and $30,000 per work at the discretion of the court.  Isn’t it easier and more cost effective to use your own work?

What?  You don’t have any credible work to show? No work worthy of museum presentation?   Ethics people!!  Do they teach you nothing these days??  Is this how you wish to be known, as someone who steals the work of others?

A letter has been sent.  Screenshots taken. Requests made. Their response?

We’re “looking into it”.

What should happen?
I’m just wondering…

Remember Before?

don’t worry- the copyright watermark is embedded in the metadata
-from the indigo mandala workshop with Richard Carbin and Glennis Dolce

Before is now a new category.

Remember Before? When people and institutions had integrity, when parents taught their children well, and children listened and remembered? Remember a time of due diligence and responsibility? It is getting harder to remember this time.  It seems a far-away land, a place of fairy tales and make believe. Are we able to return to the Time of Before? How did we come to this place?

Money.

Ahh…that’s it.  It happened when Money became King and Everything became Free, that’s when we arrived here.  Not Free(r) mind you.  Just Free for the Taking.  Free as long as you aren’t caught.

There is a situation brewing. Before things get ugly, Time will be allowed for the Right Thing to Happen.

Comments here are turned off for now. Now is not the time for conversation. It is the Time for Action!