Tracy McCabe Stewart - Contemporary Fiber

Boy, did I ever get my exercise today.  I spent the morning at a flea market at the Toji shrine  (pictures later) and then hopped a train to the fushimi-inari shrine.  The shrine is dedicated to the gods of rice and sake (gotta love that).  It consists of endless paths lined with torii gates and endless individual shrines with foxes (inari). 

The path goes up forever.  I mean seriously, it’s all the way up the mountain.  After an hour of walking up, I was pretty much over being spiritually enlightened  and was working on crabby and sweaty.  This was furthered by little Japanese men leaving me in their dust. 

I tried to find a way back down but managed to go off road and end up in a subdivision.  So much for finding a shortcut back; I had to backtrack the whole route.  Anyway, the shrines and the gates are absolutely marvelous.  They are absolutely endless.  Hundreds of gates and shrines, literally.  I took a zillion pictures of everything.  Here’s a few I liked  most:

Torii Gates Galore! (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Inari or Foxes with Grain in their Mouths

A Lane of Lanterns Leading up to the Torii Gates (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Torii Gates on the Way Up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Shrine of some sort (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Another Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Gates on the Way Down (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Elaborate shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Inari (fox) Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

A Really Elaborate Inari Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

 I am going to Nara tomorrow to see shrines (what else) and pet little deer.

My daughter and I were walking around Kobe today and we spotted some wild boar or inoshishi in the riverbed.  Ugly little spuds, aren’t they-despite the cute name. 

Inoshishi!!!

Inoshishi posing

Remember that movie “Romancing the Stone” that starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner?  It was probably out some time in the 80’s.  Anyway, Kathleen Turner’s character goes to Columbia to try to save her sister.  She is trying to get to Cartegena, and has been steered to the wrong bus, it crashes and people are leaving the bus to go on with their lives.  She is left standing in the middle of nowhere with a gigantic suitcase.   She asks Michael Douglas how to get to Cartgena.  He replies, “Angel, you are hell and gone from Cartgena”. 

I kept having flashes of that scene while Ashley and I tried to get from Kobe to the Five Lakes Region around Mt. Fuji.  Change the country and that’s us, complete with Ginormo, the giant suitcase.   Our directions from the travel agent were to take a bullet train to a specific station and transfer to another train line to get to Mt. Fuji.  We got through the first leg and found that the train line to Mt. Fuji didn’t come within 30 miles of the station we were currently standing in.  Thank God that kid of mine speaks Japanese.  After numerous exchanges with train personnel, she located a bus we could take to get to our hotel.

We didn’t have enough cash for the bus, so wandered around for a while trying to find an ATM that took foreigh credit cards.  We finally found a 7-11 with a machine that we figured out after about 10 tries.  At this time, we decided it must be cocktail hour and added booze to our supply list.

This is Ginormo.  I have been hauling this 50 pound suitcase up and down stairs all day.  Don’t ever let people talk you into “bringing a few things over for them”

Ginormo, the Giant Suitcase

Anyway, 2 hours on a bus later we get to our hotel.  we have dinner and are too tired to even drink the booze we bought.  We do try on the Yukata that are provided in all Japanese hotel rooms.  Aren’t we cute?

The tired Yukata twins (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

They have had a freak snowstorm and when I look out my window in the morning, I see this:

Snowy Day 2 (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and this:

More Snowy Day (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and this:

More snow (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

We are totally unprepared for snow.  Ashley has a pair of girly, city shoes and I have only packed a jean jacket.

Ashley's Girly Shoes

Thankfully, it all pretty much melted that morning and it turned out just fine.  I got to see these beautiful gardens in snow and see the cherry blossoms when it had thawed.  I missed most of the cherry blossoms at the lower altitude, but this area is up about 2000 feet and they were still here in all of there glory.

Cherry blossoms in the hotel garden (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

a close up:

Cheery Blossom close up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

The hotel is on Lake Komoguchi, in the middle of a National Park and they had an observatory at the top of the hotel with wonderful views: 

Out the other side of the hotel is a spectacular view of My. Fuji.  At the end of the day, When the clouds cleared a bit,  I managed to get a picture of the top:

Top of Mt. Fuji (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and a bit broader a view:

Mt. Fuji (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

We went to see the exquisite kimono of Itciku Kubota later that day.  They didn’t allow photos in the museum, but I got lots of shots of the gardens.  I’ll try to post them as soon as I can.

Okay, I have given up on trying to sleep tonight.  It’s 3am local time.  I thought I would organize my things for the day and ran across this in the drawers, which completely made my day.  I’d expect the Gideons to have left a bible, which they did, but I didn’t know the Buddhists were into evangelism 🙂

Buddhist Evangelism

Well, I made it safe and sound to my hotel in Kobe.  I am pretty frazzled from the trip, but things actually went fairly smoothly. 

I took the train from Osaka airport to Kobe.  Very dense housing, everything a bit grey from pollution, very urban.  Unlike the States; relatively few cars, tons of people riding their bikes and tons of bike storage, and every residence had a balcony with an elaborate clothes line system.   There were these little pockets of green:  ornamental gardens, parks and small agricultural plots.  I did see some ball fields with children playing in them right next to what looked like a sort of shanty town-numerous homeless people living in the park.  The makeshift shelters looked like they’d been there a while.

As we got closer to Kobe, the trains got incredibly crowded.  Thank God I am a giant.  I think my claustrophobia would have really kicked in if I didn’t have my own air space!

 I only have the energy for one picture today.  This is the view from my hotel room down to the street in Kobe:

Kobe view

Tomorrow I get to see my daughter (whoohoo!).  She will take me to see her school and then we head up to the Five Lakes region near Mt. Fuji.  I should have gorgeous pictures while staying up there.

Here are the scarves I started a few days ago.  I will bring them all to Japan and let my daughter choose the one that I give to my daughter’s host mother.  I posted about this yesterday here.

I thought the scarves needed another layer of vat dye, so I screened an indigo and grey mixture over them.  I got better haloes today, too.  I think this one below is my favorite.  There’s a real hot spot from my camera’s flash.  The color is much more even:

Procion MX and vat dyed scarf by Tracy McCabe Stewart

 Here’s the second scarf:

Tree screened scarf by Tracy McCabe Stewart

The final scarf turned out all right, but the new screeend flowers turned out really blurry.  It was all the same vat dye, so I don’t know what happened.  I like the look of it anyway:

Procion and Vat dyed Scarf by Tracy McCabe Stewart

I am headed out for a 10 day trip to Japan this Wednesday.  My daughter has been finishing her last year of university in Kobe and staying with a host family there.  she has a minor in Asian studies. 

Big in Japan is a fun song from the 80’s by Alphaville.  It’s one of the worst music videos ever; complete with Robin Hood sort of outfits that don’t really have much to do with Japan, as far as I can see.  See it here.   We hum it around here because I am 6’2″ and going to the land of 5′ people.  I’m guessing I won’t exactly blend in. 

Right now, I am trying to get gifts together for Ashley’s host  family.  The Japanese have a somewhat complicated ritual of gift giving.  Here’s what I know:  gifts from/related to your geographical location are appreciated.  The presentation is really important, too.  I will wrap my presents in hand dyed fabric to try to make them extra special.  

I am from Chicago, so I am bringing them a book on Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.  I am also making a hand dyed scarf for my daughter’s host mother.   Apparently she wears very plain, dark clothing, so I am trying to do something pretty subdued.  I started by dyeing silk scarves blue grey and screened them with vat dye solution.  Here are the results form the vat dyeing.  They will probably get a layer of fabric paint before they are complete. 

Here’s a picture.  I am having a hard time getting the colors true because the silk is so reflective.  I barely got any haloing on these-too bad.  She wants plain, so I won’t add another design layer, but may screen some paint to make the effect more monochromatic.  

Hand Dyed Scarves by Tracy McCabe Stewart

I was at the Port Clinton Art Festival yesterday and ran across this completely amazing photographer, Lisa Kristine.  For those of you who know me, I am generally completely bored by artwork of people unless they are abstracted; a beautiful curve of a torso, an interesting pose,etc.  I don’t generally like faces in artwork at all; abstract or realistic.  I think they are too prescriptive for me.  I don’t want to be so directed by a work and faces seem too easy.  I would rather have to find my own way with shape, texture and color.

I normally don’t love this art festival, the artwork is usually all a bit too slick and shiny for me.  I like organic work with a bit less polish.  I go because it’s pretty much the last festival of the year and I generally feel like I haven’t seen enough art over the summer.  This summer was no exception.  This year was much better; I think they may have had a new juror or two because there was much more of the kind of aesthetic that I appreciate this year. 

I had a pretty good pumpkin tamale from Hot Tamalesrestaurant at the fair as well.  I never have tried pumpkin if the had had other flavors handy, but it was pretty darn good.  It’s pretty hard to screw up a tamale in my book.  The are one of nature’s most perfect foods.  I will revisit the actual restaurant another time.  The menu looks good.  Duck tacos?  Yumm!!!

Lisa actually specializes in photographing indigenous people. She has traveled extensively.  I had such a visceral reaction to her work,  and felt so moved by how totally she captured the beautiful spirits of her subjects, and the sensuous colors and textures of both the people and their surroundings.  There is a reverence about her work that spoke deeply to me.  Here’s her site:  http://www.lisakristine.com/images/index.html The little images don’t convey her intention as well as the big prints I got to see, but I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. 

By the way, I love comments.  They make me feel like I’m not talking to myself!  Feel free to leave some on the blog 🙂  The comment section is below.

Rothesay Castle Moat

We never went into Rothesay Castle this trip (where we were married) but I did take some pictures of the moat:

Here’s the last of my pictures from Scotland.   I passed by this busty lady in town every day and she never failed to amuse me.  I’m not really sure why, but something about her teensy head and generous chest always brought a smile (yes, I am immature)

Busty Gal

We took the bus down to Kilcatten Bay and started walking down to St. Blane’s chapel.   This beautiful rock formation is called Hawk’s Nib.  click on it to enlarge (as with all the pictures)

Hawk's Nib

We also passed this lovely lighthouse:

Lighthouse

I think that’s one of the Cumbrae islands behind.

Beautiful view of Cumbrae

Ken kept running into and scaring wildlife this trip:

Ken, the Cow Whisperer

St. Blane’s is a wonderful ruin of a 12th and 13th century church.  amazingly, quite a bit of it is still standing:

St. Blane's Chapel

There are a surprising number of graves still standing.  The upper churchyard was reserved for clergy burial in Medieval times and men later.  The lower section was reserved for commoners in Medieval times and women later.

Here’s another shot:

More Chapel Pics

Clergy section and wall to the commoners section above

Here’s another:

12th Century Section

This section was reserved for clergy to worship.  The commoners had a separate section that was added later.

Here’s a gravestone from 1767.  It was in the church, so has held up amazingly well:

1767 gravestone

Another day we went up to Mount Stuart.  It’s the ancestral home of the Marquess of Bute.  The Marquess owns most of the island and has a grand home with amazing gardens.  The current Marquess apparently wants to be more accessible and refers to himself as “Johnny Bute”.  Here’s a little picture of his digs.  We didn’t do the house tour-I’d done it before.  Instead we did the gardens.  Here’s a picture of the outside.  The home is HUGE and I could only get a small bit of it without a wide angle lens.

A Teensy bit of Mount Stuart

Here’s a lovely pond just outside of the house:

Mount Stuart Pond

Here are some shots of my favorite UK plant, the Gunnera.  It’s some kind of giant rhubarb.  It is really giant, each leaf can span 6 feet!  I wish I could grow it in Chicago, but, alas, it’ too cold here.

Gunnera

More Gunnera:

Gunnera Seed Pod Thingie

and some great shadows on this one:

Gunnera Shadows

Leave it to me to find animals!  There were a few of these cute burros:

Burros!

and a beautiful Beech tree:

I am going to try to get some actaul art work done today.  I WILL post art pictures again!

Man, do I love this woman’s art quilts.    As someone who has made an attempt myself to capture birds in fabric, I am awed by the creativity and skill Karin uses to create her “bird” pieces.   She seems to share my love/obsession with cranes.  Check out her work.  It is amazing!  http://www.karinfranzen.com/wp/ 

I’m off to Scotland today-first to Paisley (a burb of Glasgow) and then off to the Isle of Bute. I hope to post again in a day or two.