Saturday, August 14, 2004
It’s a great morning, perfect in fact, blue skies. We’re headed out just now for the fair, lot’s of people down there today, good music in the park and it looked like a sizable number of people were buying too. Most of the artists are returnees from last year (or the past 30 years in some cases) but there were a number of new artists. Two were particularly interesting: one a quilter who dyes her own fabric to do photo realistic quilts, from a distance they looked like a photo or maybe a painting. Then there was an indigo katazome artist who I had seen a year ago at the Mystic Art Association. She works mostly on cotton and had a multitude of table cloths, shoulder bags and purses in her booth. All very nice and apparently popular with the crowd.
Hopefully, Charlie will leave Mystic be, but the artists are understandably concerned as the current forecast is for winds up to 50mph late tonight and tomorrow morning. We’ll see, but at least today was beautiful. We especially enjoyed just laying in the park enjoying the live music.
Things are turning around here, I’ve been talking with a local store owner who is opening a second store. After talking about fabric decoration (he carries a good bit of batik) he expressed interest in seeing some of the stuff I have been doing. Since most of my work lately has been straight shibori, I took some in for him to see. He was genuinely excited about the possibilities. Some of what I had (mostly fabric yardage as opposed to finished garments) to show would fit perfectly in his current store (casual spring and summer wear) but mostly he was interested in the things that would go for the new store, which he is aiming at higher end–more linens and silks. We talked today a bit about my influences and the direction I would like to take it– further exploring and combining rōketsuzome (wax resist), shibori (bound resist) and katazome (stencil pasted resist) in pieces.
So now I have to figure out how to carve a genuine studio out an apartment guest bathroom. Luckily I have some silk and linen on hand, enough for a handfull of scarves and some loose men’s shirts. With Tammy’s seamstress skills she might be able to squeeze one summer dress out of the linen as well. Of course this also means I will need to buy or rig a safe steamer for silk, invest in acid dyes and find some larger poles (and the space to use them) for arashi, not to mention get scales and fabric. Man, it’s good to have these types of problems! They’re sort of sweet worries, as opposed to sour ones!
The sample above is being used to create “ditty” bags for knitters and other craft people. It is heavy cotton canvas, 9″ wide. The circular patterns are bai shibori. Conical peaks of cloth are gathered up and roughly shaped with the fingers, then bound with sprial wrapping of thread (in this case artificial sinew) up the peak of cloth and back securing it at the base of the cone. The meandering lines are created with awase-nui shibori, a stitched technique in which two folds of fabric are created and stitched together. The stiches end up going through 4 layers of the fabric, in this case where the valley between the folds is very shallow it creates a strong central resist along with the broken resists on either side. When using the same technique to create a shippō-tsunagi pattern, the elliptical shape of the valley allows more dye penetration, often with very interesting patterning.
Hmmm… I wonder if I could get the VA to allow me to use my GIBill to attend the Kyoto Seika University‘s Textile Design Department? Probably not…
Sunday, February 29, 2004
One last traditional Bishamon pattern. This one is known as maru Bishamon. It is another interlocking pattern, and one that I have long admired. Except what it shares with the Bishamon-kikko pattern, I don’t know much of the history of this pattern. I have seen this pattern in use primarily in sashiko and katazome textile decorations.
This time around I have the images in 23×26 pixel, 40×46 pixel and 56×64 pixel resolutions—both indigo backed and transparent. If anyone knows more of the historical and cultural background of these patterns please let me know. Also if you want these downsized from the original vector files.
- maru bishamon with indigo background
(23×26 pixel)
- maru bishamon with transparent background
(23×26 pixel)
- maru bishamon on indigo
(40×46 pixels)
- maru bishamon with transparent background
(40×46 pixel)
- maru bishamon with indigo background
(56×64 pixel)
- maru bishamon with transparent background
(56×64 pixel)
If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Here is a second traditional Bishamon pattern. Except what it shares with the Bishamon-kikko pattern, I don’t know much of the history of this pattern.
This pattern, again like the Bishamon-kikko pattern, is used on all forms of clothing and can be found in many other forms of traditional art in Japan. It appears in sashiko, shibori and katazome textile decorations.
This time around I have the images in 60×60 pixel and 40×40 pixel resolutions—both indigo backed and transparent. Pick your poison. Again the files are public domain, although I sure wouldn’t mind a link and attribution by way of a nod if you do use them. As for why the deep indigo color, it is simply because that is the traditional color of much of the shibori dying.
- bishamon on indigo
(20×20 pixels)
- bishamon with transparent background
(20×20 pixel)
- bishamon on indigo
(40×40 pixels)
- bishamon with transparent background
(40×40 pixel)
- bishamon with indigo background
(60×60 pixel)
- bishamon with transparent background
(60×60 pixel)
If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.
Saturday, February 28, 2004
The strip on the left above is a background pattern I recently decided to make. It is based on (ok ripped directly from) a traditional Japanese pattern. The pattern is known (at least in most references I have) as Bishamon-kikko. I don’t know much history of the pattern overall. I do know Bishamon (or as the warrior Hachiman) is a protector of Bhuddist law and is one of the Shichi-fuku-jin: the 7 Japanese gods of fortune. Bishamon brings good fortune—to the poor especially—and is the patron of priests, doctors and soldiers. Bishimon-kikko is an interlocking toroiseshell design often seen on armor fabrics and armor padding.
The pattern is used on all forms of clothing and can be found in many other forms of traditional art in Japan. I have seen it used in sashiko, shibori, katazome, and kirei sabi decorations. My own use of it has been exclusivily in shibori where the design is more abstracted due to the nature of the resist techniques I used. I think I should execute it in katazome very soon.
The background pattern was created in MacroMedia Fireworks and I have both the 40×40 pixel white on indigo (the background image for the <div> at left above) and a white on transparent 40×40 pixel image for you at right below. The white on transparent file can be used to create your own color combinations quite easily in just about any graphics application. The files are public domain, although I sure wouldn’t mind a link and attribution by way of a nod if you do use them.
- bishamon-kikko on indigo
- bishamon-kikko with transparent background
If you can’t see the second Bishamon-kikko image then your browser has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.
