My (lovely and very patient) teacher Emma Omote demonstrates
Next up is the loom. You have to get the threads onto the loom itself. This involves pulling each individual thread through something that looks like a needle eye, and then a tiny hole in a giant metal comb. Repeat x 180! There is something akin to a zen meditation about this process…
Next up: time for weaving at last!!
More posts from school here: Preparing and dyeing the thread / Preparing giant bobbins / Preparing the warp
A month ago today I got engaged and have been beaming ever since. Many of you asked for more details of the engagement, so here you go!
We began the day (my birthday) with a train ride across the beautiful Hozukyo Gorge. These carp-shaped koinobori flags are hung out to celebrate Children’s Day. (Excuse the blur – the train was moving!)
And then for a stroll through the bamboo forest of Arashiyama (‘Storm Mountain’)…
Totally oblivious to what was coming, I was happily snapping away with my camera. If I look back at those photos now, my man looks a little nervous… We found a gorgeous Japanese garden built lovingly over 30 years by a film star from the fifties, designed to offer a different view at every turn.
As we were walking through the lush greenery, my man was telling me a story. And then suddenly in it he talked about asking a ‘very important question’. Then there was silence. I had been taking photos ahead of him, and turned around to find him on one knee, asking if I would marry him! (See here)
It was all so perfect. After lots of crying and laughing we went to a little tea house in the corner of the garden for green tea and cake, and started planning the rest of our lives together…
(The next instalment from Kawashima Textile School…)
By Day 4 of school it is time to prepare the warp (and by now I am secretly wondering whether I actually get to do any weaving at all…!) I cannot believe how much preparation goes into this craft, and I will never look at a piece of fabric in the same way again. Respect to professional weavers!
Back soon, preparing the loom…
(Earlier posts here: (1) Preparing and dyeing the thread, (2) Preparing the giant bobbins
(Part 2 of my tales from Kawashima Textile School…)
Once all the threads have been dyed, they need to be put onto big wooden bobbin-type things. When I think of the word bobbin I think of the tiny metal thing that goes in my sewing machine – but these wooden bobbins (‘kiwaku’ in Japanese) are huge!
This stage is important in order to stop the threads getting tangled when you prepare the warp (coming up in the next post).
All these things I didn’t know I didn’t know…
Next time we get the warp ready…
For the past couple of weeks I have been studying weaving at Kawashima Textile School in the north of Kyoto. It was a wonderful, quiet reflective experience, where I was treated to one-to-one tuition. Over the next few days I will share a series of posts showing the process that I learnt.
I will begin with dyeing the thread… First I tried natural dyes, and loved going out into the school’s garden, picking biwa (loquat) leaves and using them to colour the wool. I also tried ‘yamamomo’ which translates as ‘mountain peach’.
Depending on the metal-based ‘mordant’ used, a range of colours were possible. These (above) are the six colours I ended up with using natural dyes. And then I tried chemical dyeing…
Weighing out the chemicals to get the exact colour mix I had chosen
The lovely Hori-sensei, Master of Colour, shows me how to dye evenly
I also tried acid dyeing, which produced a more vivid palette.
These are the threads I used for weaving during my time at school.
Stay tuned for more in the coming days…
Kimono-clad ladies in the cafe of Doshisha University
One of the upsides of living in a shoebox is that you have to get out! If you want somewhere lovely to read, or write, or think, you have to metaphorically ‘get up off the sofa’ (although we don’t have a sofa!) and find somewhere. And Kyoto is the perfect place for this – I think it might just be a city of cafes to rival Paris. I am on a mission to discover all the hidden gems while I am here. I thought I would share a few pics of those I have discovered so far…
Coo Cafe (above and below)
Les Freres Moutaux boulangerie and cafe
Iyemon Salon (more on this later – I am in love!)
Meet me there?
Where is your favourite cafe?
And here it is… my lovely engagement ring!
My man decided to let me choose which one I loved the most, and we got it made here in Kyoto.
I think it is just perfect and can’t stop looking at it.
Seven sparkly diamonds!
What do you think?
In the months leading up to our trip away I was working like a crazy thing. 14-18 hour days, and weekends, trying to get everything done before we moved, not to mention packing up the house. At that time my man really took care of me, cooking all our meals, doing most of the cleaning, running me hot baths, giving me foot massages and making me turn my computer off if it got past midnight.
Now we are here in Japan, there has been a complete role reversal – of course he still looks after me in his lovely way, but especially these first few weeks it has been up to me to pay bills, order food in restaurants, read maps etc, simply because everything is in Japanese. He is picking up the language at an astonishing rate, but it has been a very new experience these first few weeks for me to be the one who sorts everything out. I want him to learn quickly and get his independence, but I kind of like being able to help him this way…
No rucksack space for accessories like these…
When we headed out East we put our entire house in storage and travelled with just a rucksack and a small piece of hand luggage each. Not bad for more than half a year away! This obviously meant we had to clear out or leave a lot of ‘stuff’ behind, much of which I don’t miss at all. I have been thinking about all the stuff we surround ourselves with just because everyone else has it, and wondering about what I actually really miss.
There are a few things I do miss, being in a tiny matchbox of an apartment out here…
* Sofa (means I go to a lot of cafes)
* Oven/hob with more than one ring (means we eat out a lot)
* Garden (means I gravitate towards any public green space)
And a few things I brought that I am grateful for:
* iPad (because I get lost all the time)
* Decaf teabags
* Marmite
But there are also some things we don’t have that I don’t miss…
* Mobile phone
* TV
* Car
(* I still haven’t decided whether or not I miss my GHD straighteners…)
Can you imagine life without them? Maybe you could try it one day? I wonder what you would miss if you went away for a long while?
Today’s shared stories come from Tracy Brandt and Jane Davenport.
For some, doing what they love is a simple straight-line process. “I love to paint” + I find a way to paint = I do what I love.
For me, I honestly don’t love much of what I do.
I do what I do because I love the outcome.
Let me explain: for me, having a dream and doing what I love requires being inside the stringent and often corrupt parameters of a chaotic third world country. You see, in 2005, I founded a home for orphan children in Nepal, called Rising Lotus Children’s Village.
Although I realize nothing worthwhile in life ever comes easy, I have to say that nothing could be more difficult than trying to create and effectively run a program and policy in a third world country when you live halfway around the globe. Every tiny step in this process is a lesson in frustration. There is never enough money. There is never enough time to get it all done. There is always some glitch or delay in every transaction. It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out … to just give up! … to say “Screw this!! Let someone else do it. Let someone else care.”
And that’s when you remember: “Oh wait. I care!”
So I keep trudging forward. Why? Because though the work itself is anything but loveable, I love the possibility of changing the life of an orphan for the better. I love the possibility of helping a child escape the horrid cycle of abject poverty, to give that child a chance! Because an orphan child is as deserving of love and opportunity as any other child on the planet, including my own,
I don’t know when I first realized that I wanted to do this and/or that this work is what I love. I only know that the moment I first stepped foot in Nepal, I knew I was meant to be there forever. And that when I saw the hundreds upon hundreds of orphan children literally discarded in the streets, I knew I had to do something to help.
Have I started a global powerhouse organization? No. Some revolutions are quiet ones. I founded a small, grassroots children’s home with a handful or orphans. Over the years, we’ve grown to 12 kids, then to 20. We have a waiting list of nearly 200. Those truly needing services like ours number in the thousands. It’s enough to knock you down the need is so great.
How did I make this a reality? I tempted fate. I told everyone who laughed at me to go to hell. I carried on. I continue to carry on. I refuse to give up.
I don’t know. My “Do What You Love” story isn’t very glamorous. It’s filled with a lot of stress and frustration and worry. It’s filled with no time for myself because managing this work, along with two boys, and a husband with his own complex company to run (who gets to his wits end with the time and energy running Rising Lotus takes from me) … there just never seems to be much time for me that’s just mine.
But, I carry on because in my soul I feel called back time and time again to Nepal: to these children and to the people there and to the country.
I don’t love it all. Does anyone ever love ALL of the aspects of doing what they love? Is it only worth loving when things go smoothly and right?
We do what we love because we love what comes out of our love. We love the product of our love.
For me, the product of my love is that a child that was entirely without one … now has a positive chance! Not a guarantee, but a chance! Now that’s powerful.
So, I’m sticking with it. Sometimes doing what you love means finding your rainbow and sliding down it. But for others, doing what you love sometimes means staying true to your dream, come hell or high water.
The impossible only seems so until you do it.
[All images courtesy of Tracy Brandt.]
Find out more about Rising Lotus Children’s village here.
I took the leap to be a “Professional Artist” in 2000. It was a monumental decision and seemed very sudden to the outer world.
I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t possible for me to NOT do what I love…
And what I LOVED doing was looking at ladybirds. So I ditched a burgeoning fashion photography career in London and Paris for taking photographs of bugs. I even came up with a term for what I do : Artomology. ( yep, I swapped photographing the human type of stick insect and social butterfly for the real thing!)
Over the past 12 years I have built my reputation as an internationally exhibited photographic artist, prize-winning author and gallery owner. I have also work with fantastic companies who license the rights for my images to create calendars, stationery ranges, textiles and homewares.
I discovered Art Journaling 2 years ago, and for the first time, really felt the creative dots within me connecting. I have since become a bit of a journaling evangelist! I know what a joyful transformation untangling myself in in Art Journal has had for me, and I am rather gung-ho about sharing the benefits of creating a dedicated space for artistic outpouring!
I was asked to teach in an collaborative online workshop about Art Journaling called “21 Secrets” last year and nearly said no, I was too busy with my Gallery, writing a book, painting etc etc… but I adore and respect the person who invited me, so on a whim I said “yes”… then nearly melted with panic!
I created a mini online workshop called ” Draw Happy”, which focuses on the bizarre fact that drawing seems to terrify people, even incredibly creative, arty ones! And as soon as the doors to the class opened, students rushed in and BANG! ! Joy for teaching and empowering women through harnessing their creative potential absolutely exploded in my chest. Serious volcano!
Once I discovered I had a superpower for teaching people to draw from their imagination, the rest of the world kind of dropped away, as my attention turned to this new adventure. I gather so much fun and love from my students and I become ever more creative as a result. To say we have a love inferno going on, is a bit of an understatement!
I run my workshops on two of my own School sites now. They have been a huge success and the results my beloved students get for themselves are amazing quite frankly. A day never goes by where someone makes me feel like jumping on the table and doing a can-can at their creative progress. To help grow another persons confidence is an amazing gift to both parties. I ‘get’ teaching. I heart it.
My big dream now is to continue growing as an Online Creativity Leader. I have so many ideas for workshops! I am also working on some of my own art products, things that are missing from my art supply arsenal – and let me tell you, if I don’t have it as a degenerate art supply junkie, it doesn’t exist!
I also had the immense pleasure of teaching my art heroine, Teesha Moore at her Artfest Annex earlier this year, and I want to combine more live workshops with travel. I have the first of my Escape Artist retreats in Bali this year. Next July will be Paris. The future holds many more fun, juicy events…
[Images courtesy of Jane Davenport.]
To find out more about Jane visit her website.