Hangout in the Kura barn while i light sage, spin Ornette Coleman and fill up an accordion-style scrapbook with postcards and other postal treats using various sticky corners, washi tape, double-sided tape, envelopes and odds and ends. No chit-chat (not even my lovely beard), just ambient craft session.
Grab a chair if you want some company or otherwise have a notion.
Typing Aerogrammes in the kura barn studio – Really, that’s it, typing aerogrammes on an Olivetti Lettera 34 at a desk in kura barn studio in a corner of provincial Japan – sometimes with a weird look on my face as I scrunch my nose to hold up my glasses, listening to REM’s “Reckoning” vinyl. No chitchat, just ambient hanging out.
Continue reading Typing Aerogrammes (ambient, in the kura barn studio)
{Catching up with…} Scant days before our adorable baby came into the world, my remarkable wife fired up her mom’s sewing machine and decided to start with making so many thing… Then we busied ourselves with a few photo collages combining these handmade items with custom tie-dye shirts received from brother/uncle Dan and card from Kim, Brad, Ben, April (among other delights to be documented later).
Started with cloth diapers (not pictured) / easy right? So Then moved on to these incredibly handy “pee caps” (meaning little cloth “cones” to put over his willie when changing diapers…
– as it turns out, lil fellas in general often use the sweet freedom of a diaper change to let loose with their venting)…
Then made a completely cute soft cotton hat with “io” initials (which i want to make into a rubber stamp as well).
Then came bibs! oh the bibs! using Aloha print cloth i’ve had in my stash since 1996 or so, these hav a velcro tab for easy (and safe) on and off and style points to spare.
Continue reading Diary: sewing things for Ichiro + tie-dyes and pee-caps
It’s so cute! Ryoko cutting cloth, threading needles, and sewing diapers for baby Ichiro (in belly at the time), upstairs at Tsuchida Cottage here in Okayama, Japan.
Added “Girl” music by (appropriately) Belly from their wonderful Dove album. Just for a little something something – no narration, instructions just rocking the sewing machine and adding love for his ‘lil bum and whatnot.
Update: I told/asked Tanya Donelly of Belly (+ Throwing Muses, solo, Breeders etc etc) about using the song and she replied enthusiastically and kindly (note: her other job is a post-partum doula)
Spring 2020 if you are curious.
Various handmade “pictograms” from from watercolour notebook paper and various foreign postage stamps and inky stamps – mostly made in Newfoundland and Labrador, though some in Nova Scotia whilst i was rambling Maritime Canada seeking a home (which i did not find).
Continue reading Pictograms: Notes to adventurers (mixed media + ephemera)
Snapped with Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera – some pics by Jamielee Eldridge – of my old VW bus (dubbed “The Earthship”) which is now a bus sauna at Mangy Moose Lodge in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Pics stuck to watercoloured paper, annotated or otherwise embellished and mailed to folks.
Continue reading Pictograms: Earthship (Lomo photo + watercolour)
