Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

The day was beautiful. The setting perfect. The ceremony perhaps less of a ritual atmosphere than I would have liked (but as my friend Susan said, perhaps Izukura realizes how little tolerance and experience westerners have of ritual). We sat in the circle of the riverside gazebo, in this early spring wind and sun, and dyed beautful scarves, each woven in two weaves to give texture to the wisp of color that resulted. The dyes were from plants and insects (mine, a final soft grey) was dyed with cochinil. 

I went to church today, although it was Saturday, and the chapel was a gallery lined with chairs. The spiritual master who presented his message was textile sensei Akihiko Izukura, and, although he spoke in Japanese through a translator, the message of his personal presence was clear in any language. Izukura, born into a traditional obi-making family business, has welded tradition, history and innovation into his factories, his dye ceremonies (more on that after I participate tomorrow) and his garments that manage to be both ethereal and earthy.

His dye baths are used until the pigment is all transfered to the cloth; the dye materials are burned and their ashes incorporated into handmade paper and glazes for pottery. People in his workplace are as carefully matched, and he refuses to go to cheaper labor markets for his handmade clothing, keeping work in the rural communities of  Japan where women sit at looms to weave the silk garments -- the garments themselves designed much as sweaters are, without cutting and waste of fabric.

At the heart of his work is the idea of "not choosing."

"Using natural materials is using and borrowing their lives to make something new. All is appreciated. All the stages, all the the parts.  This is the basic thought: not choosing, not one thing over another as more beautiful. To appreciate all of the lives. This is what I call the aesthetics of consideration." 

I don't know how I can incorporate more of his zero waste philosophy into my own work -- in a way, my insistence on using thrift store fabrics and old clothing as the raw material for most of my work -- is my own version of that philosophy, if not as stringent and well conceived. I also like to use my dye liquids as much as I can -- throwing fabric into "exhausted" dye pots, to achieve background tints, if nothing else. Yes, I use commercial chemical dyes and probably too much of them. Today's lecture does inspire me to look more closely -- and yes, to get back to the recycling I gave up when it started seeming too hard to do from 30 miles north of the city limits. (I'll add photos of the exhibit and of Izukura when I get home and can download the pictures, so check back if they aren't here yet.)

The Southwest School of Art and Craft website says this about Izukura's philosophy and practise:

Through his nearly spiritual engagement with textile processes, Akihiko Izukura imbues his garments and artwork with beauty and a sense of peace. As one of Japan's most extraordinary textile artists, Izukura’s personal philosophy of natural harmony has led to an extraordinary zero-waste philosophy. For instance, he works mainly in silk, and every part of the silk cocoon – even parts considered waste –  is used in the weaving. Garments are designed and engineered as they are woven, eliminating the need to cut into the fabric, which would leave waste.

Izukura has pioneered a way of dyeing that doesn't pollute water. He uses only natural materials (nuts, betel palm, onionskin and so on) for colors, and then uses every drop of the dye liquid, so that color intensity changes from piece to piece. In fact, even the materials used to extract the dye are processed into a powdery ash that is then used for pottery glazes or papermaking.

Read more about Akihiko Izukura at his website, http://www.akihikoizukura.com/en/.

Last weekend's El Cielo workshop (Full Moon/Fool Moon) was a lunar event extraordinary. Because I had read the lunar calendar wrong, it was actually a dark/new moon event, but turned out to be the Lunar New Year, the most revered Asian holiday of the year.  We combined our own investigations of spontaneity and accident in dyeing and painting, rusting and painting with a red-decked rituals for this celestial new year. So, here's your next opportunity to join this adventure:

Calling All Archetypes

At El Cielo Studio, Pipe Creek, Texas

With fiber artist Susie Monday 

April 7-8, 2007

Each of us depends on a cast of inner characters to get our work done: the organizer, the dreamer, the judge, the caretaker, the scout, the wild woman, the fool, and the wise one. (I'm sure you can think of others!). Whether we call these inner guides, inner selves or archetypes, their multiple voices help, hinder and guide our creative work.

During this renewing Art Journaling and Art Quilt workshop, participants will explore these inner aspects as characters, as well as their relationship to the archetypes of legend and myth. With personal imagery developed through journaling, each person will transform his or her insights into a small art quilt. Participants will explore their inner teams with a series of interesting and revealing art journal exercises adapted from diverse readings including Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves, as well as other writers. Then, using the information and images that were developed in the journaling exercises, each person will design and create a journal quilt or artist’s altar art quilt honoring one of their inner archetypes, angels or voices. Quilt design techniques include working with fusible webbing, machine and hand quilting and embellishment with printing and stitching.

Those present will share meals (bring a sack lunch for Saturday, Saturday supper and Sunday brunch are included in the fee), vistas from the deck and hikes or bike rides down the country roads or into the cedar as the weather permits, as well as participate in a variety of fun and meaningful exercises using simple materials. Accommodations are available at my home and studio for a modest fee ($15 to $30 depending on the room). For the commute, count on an hour drive from midtown, or 30 minutes (16 miles to Timbercreek turnoff) from the intersection of Hwy. 16 (Bandera Rd.) and Loop 1604. Then 3.5 miles on the paved road to the studio.

Supply List: A shoebox full of fabrics of your choice, scissors, embroidery threads and beads, journal and favorite writing materials, a poem that speaks to your inner self (selves). Any snacks, toys or treasures you wish to share. You are welcome to bring a portable sewing machine, but you can also share the studio resources.

TO REGISTER: Send me an email at susiemonday@sbcglobal.net 

FEE, including supper and a simple brunch: $150 per person. Limited enrollment, 10% discount for registration before 3/21/06 ($135).

I'm just 6 months old as a blogger. Nothing to boast about, in this area of technology, I've been a late adopter I think. And the technosphere keeps blasting past me (is blogging even still considered an edge?).

Me and my morning blogging companions, Cheech and Lucky (big blur). 

 However, I  have made it past the danger zone of short starts, and after the initial stage of panic that I would have nothing to write about, I find the discipline and order of keeping track of my studio ideas and activity, even in a two-or-three-in-a-lucky-week mode, has much to reccommend it. If nothing else,  this writing keeps me on the lookout for ideas outside "my field." We artists can so easily find ourself locked into the the art ghetto, even the art quilt ghetto. Time on our hands is wisely focused on our craft, our colleagues, our cliches, the next deadline. It's quite easy to forget that an enormous world is happening out there.

Keeping a blog has been a key for me to the outside bigger world of business and enterprise, fine art and fashion, technology and trend. It keeps me honest, when my little world is exploding with ego. Keeps me level headed when the next crisis pops up in the fiber arts world of San Antonio and surrounds. Keeps me stretching with ideas that challenge my own self-importance. And, as someone who once wrote for a big city paper, gives me the writer's satisfaction of self-publishing sans city desk deadlines.

I may never have a readership of 2,000 or 20,000, as do some of the blogs I follow, but every month the number of readers grows and the comments I receive feed my inner scribe. Sobeit.

 Here's what one was posted today at my newest finds --Merlin Mann's site about personal productivity, 43folders.
(He was sharing his contribution to Brian Bailey's new book, The Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of Your Church Through Blogs. )

The most exciting and difficult time for a new blogger is the barn-raising period after the new blog is launched and the daily dash for new and interesting content begins. As perhaps thousands of ostensible bloggers discover — sometimes as early as their site’s inaugural week — this can be surprisingly hard work. It’s hard not simply for the obvious reasons — that regularly-scheduled writing (or photography or even just linking) takes time, preparation, and care. You may also have days where you just have nothing to say and are tempted to meta-whine about how you have nothing to say. You may find yourself padding pages with the results of online personality tests or the latest funny-once meme du jour. Resist this with extreme prejudice.

Remember that your blog is only incidentally a publishing system or a public website. At its heart, your blog represents the evolving expression of your most passionately held ideas. It’s a conversation you’re holding up with the world and with yourself — a place where you can watch your own thoughts take different shapes and occasionally surprise you with where they end up…
That last fact is something I learn and re-learn every single week, and it’s still the most surprising and illuminating dividend of thinking and writing in public.

Thus said, and so well, if you are thinking about writing a blog, I say, GO FOR IT. This internet thing is changing the world, and at 59 (nearly) I am determined to stay on the slopes for a while longer, even if the lifts operate on ether and the black diamond trails are reserved for 20-somethings. (OK, I never was a skier, but you get what I mean.)