Another discovery from the depths of the office — a design I drew at lifesize for a onsie. Since I still have a couple onsies in the fabric stash…

I finally have a full time job – with Salsa Express. They are a small company in Fredericksburg Texas (essentially my “home” town) that sells all sorts of salsa, hot sauce, spices, snacks and other spicy fare. I spent two weeks out there in September with my folks working for Salsa and a couple days working there of our family vacation last week. The task at hand is not a small one — redesign and vastly improve their online presence. Everything from the store’s website through Google Adwords and Overture to email marketing and search engine placement. I will also be helping with mid to long term IT planning.

Luckily all things I can do working from home in Mystic. I will miss the almost unlimited spicy and gourmet snacks and salsa on the desk all day. I must have tried 20 different salsas, spiced potato chips, pretzels etc. My favorite snacks were Dave’s Painful Pretzels and Kick Ass Jelly Beans. Maybe it is best for my waistline that I am out here!

One of the things we are launching is a blog at peppertalk.salsaexpress.com for the small team that runs Salsa Express to be able to talk about life in the Fiery Foods industry and what it’s like working out at the ranch. Yes, it’s located outside town on a ranch in the central Hill Country with horses, deer, armadillos and black buck antelope just outside the fences of the company’s area. Beautiful. The staff will also share recipes and their own favorite spicy foods.

Of course on top of all the settling in to a new job, especially long distance, at the busiest time of the year for that industry no less, my wife and I have to prepare for a high-profile local craft show this weekend! I have 30 or so scarves and she has a number of handbags, and such ready, but we should be taking more, so every minute we have is being spent getting more done. Then we still need to print business cards, a portfolio and item labels! Argggggh! Not enough hours in each day. Especially when the laptop starts showing the strains of constant use and abuse of the past two+ years.

Sounds like a bit of griping?
No way! I love having these “stresses” compared to the mounting stresses of 2+ years of unemployment. Tammy and I are closer now than ever before, in spite of, even because of, the extremely rough time we’ve had of it since 2001. Working from home with my son running around the room is a blessing (I do have to work harder at scheduling breaks and play time though) I wouldn’t trade for double the salary. In other words life is busy, hectic even — but absolutely wonderful!

God is good.

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…

Sometimes found with the name fundoutsunagi, this is a design that dates at least to the Nara period (645-794), like the shippō design. It has been used in woven textiles such as twills and brocades, along with dyed textiles and sashiko. I have tried this one successfully using ori-nui shibori (stitched resist) and am currently working on a piece of linen to execute it in awase-nui shibori (stitched resist that stitches through two parallel folds of cloth to produce a pocket between them—commonly used to execute a shippō design element).

The design and the name come from the shape of one of the traditional counterweights used on scales in Japan. Fundo literally means “weight” and tsunagi means “link”. I have also seen shippō written as shippō-tsunagi.

fundo-tsunagi on indigo
(12×12 pixels)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(12×12 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi on indigo
(24×24 pixels)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(24×24 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(48×48 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(48×48 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(96×96 pixel)

fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(96×96 pixel)

two tone grey fundo-tsunagi background pattern
(96×96 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”.

This pattern is from a traditional Japanese design called shippō or “seven-treasures”. The interlocking circles of shippō are said to represent the seven treasures of Bhuddism. Similar linked circle designs are found in many cultures through-out the world. The shippō or shippō-tsunagi(lit. linked seven tresures) design has been used as a motif in Japanese textile decoration since at least the Nara period (645-794). It is quite possible it was in use long before that, but there are few surviving samples of textiles from before then. A piece of fabric exists in the Shōsō-in collection with a similar shippō design done in shibori.

p. Shippō motifs are used in all forms of textile decoration, and are often used as an all over background pattern in a subtle color shift from the ground color, with the main designs layed above. This particular variant of the shippō motif is based on a stencil found in the excellent book Carved Paper – The Art of the Japanese Stencil.

shippō on indigo
(20×20 pixels)

shippō with transparent background
(20×20 pixel)

shippō with indigo background
(40×40 pixel)

shippō with transparent background
(40×40 pixel)

shippō with indigo background
(60×60 pixel)

shippō 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”.

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”.

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”.