Unravelling

2010/02/21

Yeah, Right.

In nearly four years of blogging, I never once noticed this "View Post" link. Ben says it was always there, but I think it snook in with the latest upgrade. I'm right, yes?

2010/02/20

Our friend Tim Wraight the sculptor finally has a website! But now that it's up and running, it was worth nagging Tim and his partner Claudia for three and a half years. Though there'll be fine tuning in the next wee while, the gallery is loaded.

TimWraight.co.nz

Next, Ben and I must win the lottery so we can commission work by him.

The city of Eureka, California, one of Nelson's sister cities, is going to install a piece Tim donated some years ago in a new building, we hear. That'll be exciting, too.

What are We?

What are we called, collectively? Fiberphiliacs? Clothaphiliacs? Stashophiliacs? I was wondering, because Mom and I actually fought over who has more stash while cleaning her stash room. I still think she has more, but she has a stash room about twice as big as mine so it looks as if I have more. She disagrees.

Dad's reaction: a mixture of amusement, bewilderment, and gentle forfeiture, as if he was looking at two pups with hideously broken limbs.

Harrumph!

The Yet-Unnamed Challenge

Email to put your name in Ben's baseball cap is due me February 28 your time. No big changes to the guideline for now.

Those "signed up" so far are: Holly, Dana, Trapunto, Rose, Julia and Desiree.

I'll contact you early in March.

Please remember you're not committed until you email me not your expressions of interest but your name and postal address. Thank you.

I got my pictures selected! Now, as to what paper I'll print them on, and how much explanation to add to each...

2010/02/19

Handweaving.net is Now on Twitter

Here; RT Desiree, literally, her Twitter.

2010/02/18

Is Bamboo Rayon??

There is a storm in the tea cup that is New Zealand, about the environmental friendliness of bamboo fiber. It started with an article in our much respected Consumer magazine; you can buy the article here if you wish. I understand the article dealt with the manufacturing process of bamboo fiber, comparing it to cotton and rayon. A short comment in one of the fiber-related newsletters I subscribe to, summed up the article, saying: "So, bamboo is rayon."

I need to get a hold of this magazine and read it because I know nothing of the subject, but I know someone who knows a great deal, and she has a totally different opinion to the article. I hope to post her view here in the near future.

Floating

The Old Head has gone into hibernation. It's all a blah, but then again, I did try to use every minute in Japan observing and absorbing new ideas, and not just visually, but by reading and watching docos and taking notes, so the OH had a really good workout.

Yesterday, I couldn't get out of bed until 10.30AM, and if that wasn't bad enough, today it was nearly noon when I peeled myself off the mattress.

I feel like inside my head, I'm standing in the middle of a wide road. There are no cars, but lots of pedestrians - you know how they block roads for festivals and such? And this road has fabric shops, notions shops, galleries, bookshops, stationary shops, used book shops, art supply shops, and nicnac shops all around.... Bakeries, chocolate shops, jewelers and don't forget a dainty hat shop. And people are dressed in interesting colorful clothes.... And I'm standing in the middle as if time has stopped for me, but not for others... I'm gazing at what's going on all around, the colors, the shapes, and the sun and the shade.... My eyes stop to look at one Thing, and before that Thing registers, they move to another Thing of interest...

I can't concentrate, but I'm not distracted. I'm just soaking it all in.

I don't want to work on my photos just yet; they will make me concentrate on certain Things and I want my eyes to keep floating.

However, I must share some nice finds before I forget. In between the lovely HAND/EYE magazine, (and I mean the hard copies which arrived while I was away) were:

Guatemalan backstrap weavers get better support: HAND/EYE article / Synergo Arts

Alabama Chanin fabric: HAND/EYE article / Alabama Chanin

India Flint: HAND/EYE article / her blog

It turns out India visited Amuse Museum in Asakusa, Tokyo, last Thursday and Mom and I, Friday. It's a new museum well worth a visit as they packed a lot of interesting stuff in small spaces, but not too packed. Their young staff were surprisingly well-informed, (though I don't know how multi-lingual they are), and we're allowed to photograph anything and touch some of the exhibits, which is rare in Japan. They have a special relationship with Anthropologist Tanaka Chuzaburoh, who has a massive collection of folk anything, mainly from Aomori Prefecture, (northeastern Honshu Island), particularly from the old Tsugaru region. Asakusa neighborhood of Tokyo is visitor-friendly.

And then there's the Taisho Era (1912-1926) of Japan. I discovered many Japanese painters I like flourished between the two wars. I knew this was true of writers, poets and publishers, in their work and their scandalous so-called private lives, (many ending up with tuberculous and dying young,) but I didn't know much of visual artists. During this time, hideous working conditions of young women in spinning mills among other things prompted labor movement, women worked towards suffrage (1925), but the mood was surprisingly buoyant and the populous enjoyed what they called Taisho Democracy, democracy being a strange and wonderful foreign concept. A quirky sense of humor, represented best by novelist Natsume Sohseki and essayist Uchida Hyakken, emerged.

I'm not sure what happened during the Great Depression in Japan, but the period between teh two wars is worth looking into, not only in Japan, but in arts around the world.

EDIT: The big earthquake hit Kanto region in 1922. Japanese Wiki says the Great Depression decimated Japanese economy, and makes a particular mention of the stoppage of spun yarns, (I suspect silk??) to the USA. The entry alludes to the subsequent invasion of Asia, Manchuria in particular, as purely financial, and though the path to WWII was similar to Germany, the entry claims ours was less racially/ideologically motivated. Though ideology was not at the forefront, I personally think Japanese racial superiority, (we are the children of Emperor the God, remember?) had much to do with it.

Compared to the first half of the 20th century, the period between WWII, particularly post-1964 Tokyo Olympics, up to this recession which started around 1992, was amazingly peaceful and prosperous. I really should read more Japanese history.

2010/02/17

Hi!

I've been home, (and that'd be Nelson,) for nearly 48 hours. My body is great, albeit even plump-er than before the trip, but my head is exhausted. Yesterday I managed to get up at 7 but had a nap in the afternoon, and today I couldn't get up until 10.30.

I've tons of photographs and thoughts/observations/craziness to share, but the Old Head needs to start working so I can work on them, although if the OH were working, it and I should be working towards the Art Awards, for which photographs are due 26th of this month. (Four "working" in one sentence...)

From the very edge of the left field, while I was away I sold a short story. No, that's an exaggeration; I got paid to have one of my first drafts as an example in a writing course. This and the fact the only thing I sold in my hitherto only solo exhibition was a sunset shot makes me wonder if I'm in the wrong field. Too late, I've got to consume the stash in my stash room before four small boxes arrive.

I'm a weaver. I have more respect for myself as a weaver than a writer or a photographer. Besides, there are fewer of us in the world, which makes us more special, yes?