A beautiful Autumn morning – the sky was deep pink ahead of the sun rising. It is not cold but a nip touches my cheeks.
I am experimenting outside where the crows are crawing, with Japanese Kimono silk that I bought from the flea market in Kyoto on Christmas day 2023.
The kimono is of brown silk with plumb blossom flowers, lined in scarlet silk with cranes and chrysanthemum in the weave.
It is 7:45am. A man, over the road, is sweeping leaves from around his house with a yard brush. The sound of brushing takes me back to when I lived in China and all I could hear every early morning, was the sound of sturdy bristles sweeping – sweeping rubbish, or dust, or leaves or anything before the honking sound of horns started. Brushing in the hutongs, is a sound that is so deep inside me that I had forgotten it. But here it is, resurrected over the road – not a leaf blower to be heard.
This morning, I am working on my piece called ‘ Between Paper and Silk, and I have again become excited about the kimono fabrics that I bought in Kyoto. It is a pure joy to look at the patterns in the fabric, like water marks of cranes in scarlet.
But, when I apply the glue and water to the scarlet fabric, I think it will wash away the cranes but they are still visible so the fabric is woven. I am learning the materials and how they react to water and shifting light. When I was in Kyoto, Maki San, said that you cannot wash the old kimonos which is why people don’t really want them. I now see 2 reasons why you wouldn’t was a kimono. 1. The colours do run. They are not moder dyes that are set and 2. The pattern that you see dancing in the fabric may be water marks and not weave. Having said all that, the scarlet silk is holding its cranes and chrysanthemums inside.
Here is my progress. Paper Rice bowl. And Cyanotype flower tea pot.
I’m bringing together all of the tools of my crafts
I have posted previously, that I am currently working on a textile piece called, ‘I Cannot Reach You.’
It is a piece about the space in the relationship between me and my sister. The knitted piece will also encapsulate the Japanese concept of Ma, the spaces in between 間 （ま、Ma) the silences, the unspoken past, the misunderstandings in the past and present, it could be in the silence when I hear the sound of a cup being placed in a saucer during a visit. Ma is, the things we know but never say.
My sister and I were born eleven months apart, I on 26/06/1963 and she on 27/05/1964. Our mother dressed us identically for about 12 years until we probably tried to impress our own tastes upon the clothes we were wearing. At that time, my Grandad enjoyed the latest photographic technology available to a working class man – a small camera then a polaroid camera. He took many photographs, particularly in 1970 when I was seven and my sister six years old. In the photographs, my sister and I are beside each other but rarely touching – there is an unspoken physical and emotional space between us. All of the images were ‘set up’ in a way that my mother wanted to show that she dressed her daughters well. In the empty space between my sister and I, there seems to be a lack of intimacy or connection, we are not smiling in any of the images. I remember very little of growing up but I do remember the feel of every fabric of those clothes. Clothes carry so many unspoken signifiers – wealth / or not, clean / or not, fashionable / or not, comfortable / or not. I cannot remember much about my childhood.
Here, we are ‘well turned out’, as my Mother would say. For years, our Nana, my mother’s mother, knitted us identical cardigans to match the identical dresses. She used the wool available to her in those days – nylon from Woolworths.
For one month – from the end of May to June 2024, my sister and I are both 60 years old and are very much ‘like chalk and cheese’. I love my sister dearly and carefully, and she loves me, but I cannot reach her. Our love is not one of laughter or discussion or going places together or tea time calls or spontaneous catch ups or quick visits or trips away together – it is one of careful organisation of a preplanned time and place and length of visit to suit my beautiful sister, who has begun to shut the world out. And, believe me, I can understand that. I cannot reach her but I try. I wait, I hope, I try to reassure but, all I can do is be beside her for just slightly more than one hour at a time that she can manage and I have learned to understand that gift of time. Being with her makes me very happy.
I have initially, knitted something that is recognised as a jumper but it isn’t only that. The wearable, knitted jumper sits well within the intersection between craft / skill / materiality / wool/ textiles/ conceptual art / family / sister’s heritage and cross cultural discussion. ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ is an expression of the space in between us, using the medium of a skilled knitting practice to produce a jumper, that could be for me to wear but that it has a name – ‘I Cannot Reach You,’ it has one sleeve knitted slightly longer than necessary, ending in a knitted glove. The second sleeve knitted in plaited and aran knitted stitches – I chose the Fair Isle for its intricacy and my love of Shetland culture and I chose the Aran sleeve to represent how I plait my hair. Giving the jumper a name, never wearing it and placing it upon the wall, makes it art, right? Textile Art. Now, I am knitting a matching jumper in identical patterns as the first 100 colour piece but this time, it will be knitted in the colours my sister likes, with a blackberry or plain knit sleeve to relate to my sister and how she wears her hair. I hope that one day, we can both wear our respective pullovers and stand closely side by side. Without a space between. But, at the moment, I feel that when the second pullover is finally finished, both will be hung side by side, not touching but with a space in between. Ma 間 （ま、Ma)
If you are interested in the Fair Isle Pullover worksheet, it is here in the link
tracey doxey 