So much for my ten-day silkworm challenge. In a ten-day album challenge it would have been like running out of energy on day four on the Bob Dylan side of The Concert for Bangladesh. “It was raining from the first and I was dying there of thirst so I came in here. And your long time curse hurts but what is worse is this pain in here. I can’t stay in here. Ain’t it clear? That I just don’t fit. I believe it’s time for us to quit. When we meet again, introduced as friends, please don’t let on that you knew me when, I was hungry and it was your world.” The presence of great art uplifts us. Everyo ..read more

Day 3 of the silkworm challenge. Three videos on this post. Watch them and change your life. The silkworm eggs didn't hatch today...oh oh. This is getting tedious. I asked Minako, the old woman who taught me about silk farming and weaving and dyeing many years ago. ‘Why is that silk thread rough and that silk thread smooth?’ She replied, ‘ One is reeled and one is spun.’ Meaning that one type of thread is made when you unravel the cocoon and the other is made when you make a fluffy floss and spin it. Today I will write briefly about spinning silk. Yeah… The silkworms eat for 28 days and then t ..read more

Day two of the silkworm challenge.  These bamboo trays (Ebira or Kago) are used to raise silkworms on.  There is not a single respectable old farmhouse in Japan that doesn’t have a stack of these things under the rafters or in the corner of a barn.  Japan was closed off to the rest of the world for hundreds of years. (Except for some Dutch who were allowed to trade on a small island off the coast of Kyushu.) When Japan opened to the rest of the world they desperately wanted to avoid the fate of other Asian and African countries that were colonized and raped. They needed foreign ..read more

Silkworm eggs....Yeah...exciting stuff. Instead of the ten day, ten album challenge to see what ten albums have shaped my taste in music I will take the silkworm challenge. Eggs to thread and perhaps to textile. Plenty of comments. I have these Utamaro woodblock prints on the wall on the third floor near the far guest rooms. No one ever sees them. They are a series on silk processes. (Yes, they are originals.)  No, the silk farming beauties did not wear such gorgeous work kimono. In this picture you can see the beauties with two silk moths with their legs tied to threads so they can’t fl ..read more

I’ve been living and making my living in this 650 year old mountain hamlet and 150 year old silk farming house for over 25 years now. I didn’t think much about it and basically enjoyed the time and seasons go by.  The house, the village and I have aged and changed. The ancient ghosts on the paths and near the streams are much the same. It just took me many years to simply acknowledge them by diverting my eyes when we meet so not to offend.  I suppose I am the type of person who is relatively fine with uncertainty. (Unlike others who gulp for oxygen if the washing machine eats a sock ..read more

" I cursed you as I procraftinated for weeks and then double cursed you in the craftermath." The workshop participants are usually on their best behavior the first few hours of the workshop. We meet in a calm hotel lobby in the chaos of downtown Tokyo at ten in the morning and I have them in the quiet mountain village by twelve for lunch. There is always that WTF-how-did-I-get-here-? feeling in the house as they peek in their rooms and check out the house and pets and bathrooms. Then they stealthy eye up their fellow indigo otters. (And the otter chief.) But the happy-happy-craft-holiday-in Ja ..read more

I lost my voice for a few days of the last workshop. We were down in the river beating indigo dyed projects on the rocks in the fish ladder. We had climbed back up the staggered ladder rungs imbedded in the faux rock face and were standing around all chattering from our frozen November wet feet, the excitement of the unfolding of freshly beaten beautiful indigo projects and the overall beauty of the spot with golden light filtering through breeze-fueled autumn leaves. The old hunter guy next door was up on the road just out of sight firing a rifle over our heads. WTF? I doubted he could see us ..read more

Sutras need to be chanted to send off our friends to their next destination. Some sutras are about listing up the deceased persons life. Born. Experienced war. Married. Kids. Grandkids. Played the role of a parent/grandparent etc. Liked to garden and cook. The sutras read as the coffin is about to be loaded with flowers are more profound. More solemn as the casket is pushed into the furnace. Hypnotizing as the bones are picked up with chopsticks by friends and relatives and placed in the urn. Really serious sutras about how nothing really exists but everything exists while the b ..read more

An Australian doctor, an artist/ teacher from Hong Kong, an artist/teacher from France. We spent ten days together in the heat here in the mountains getting to know each other and time at the indigo vats and time in the river rinsing the cloth. It was a beautiful time. There was harmony and happiness the entire time. Hiro kept us well fed. We were all valuing the precious time we had together.  I am thinking of packing in the live-in workshops one of these years. I will have to find some solace somewhere from the sadness of not having times in the future like these past ten days. My lovely d ..read more

Most of the silkworms have been spitting out silk since yesterday. Spinning a cocoon around themselves so that they are safe to metamorphosis into moths.They are like tubes of toothpaste. They are practically empty when the cocoon is finished three days later. The little nub that remains hardens and a moth forms.It is quite easy to find the end of the thread and unravel over a kilometer of a silk filament. Or melt the cocoon into a floss and spin it. I do it both ways but these years I prefer the spun silk. They hatched 29 days ago and were the size of medium ground black pepper. They eat for ..read more