Japan Vacation: Tokyo

After a 13 hour flight and a nap I woke up ridiculous early in Japan and started exploring. 

(Do not feed the fish, Koi, or for that matter anything in any park)

A short walk from our hotel was this sculpture.  Dubbed the "golden poo" by locals.

I was really excited bout food here and after this particular meal, both of us were messed up (gory details if you ask me in person, but thanks Jenny Scroggins for the tip about carrying your own tissue for public bathrooms!)

This is all water behind us with these crazy beautiful huge water plants taking over the water part of the park.

Balcony outside one of the temples.

This picture is completely Lynne Bruning fault. Sewer covers with great detail abound.

So I had breakfast, no coffee. But in Tokyo there's vending drink machines on at least every corner. I was surprised to get a hot drink from vending, like really hot,  hard to hold in your hand. The ones with screw tops are the cold ones.

This doesn't even begin to explain the hub of anime, stores and tech that we were overwhelmed with, seriously, so much tech, dvd, comic, slots & pincho, lights....we were just looking for a coffee shop!

I then headed for the green space on my Google maps. The Gardens of the Imperial Palace. So many fruit trees! Walking up what's left of the original palace, it's a very similar feeling to the fort at St. Augustine in Florida....

This is part of the gardens, but there were a number of birds....definitely a heron, and a few questionables.  Japan bookstore bird book? Done and done.  For myself, I couldn't find a defining Sailor Moon manga...I'm a bit embarrassed to ask she trolling the teeny bopper section! I'll be looking into it, the only new Sailor Moon Crystal hype in print was fan fiction.

Umbrellas are a thing, so is bicycling!  The bikes are amazing here, so is the gear. But the classy umbrella holder... <3

This is the train station, also pretty much a mall. It's hard to focus getting through!

And trains abroad are....easier and cleaner and classier, I wish I had bullet trains in the US.

Rice fields from the train, it was going too fast to get the egrets. ..

On to Kyoto!

Artist Residency in the Porcupine Mountains: Part 3

My second week at the Porkies began quite rainy and overcast.

You couldn't see Lake of the Clouds, because, well, it as in a cloud, so I hiked down to the lake:

Lake Superior was quite tumultuous.

But there was still lots to see, especially close-up.

This scenic outlook...still foggy.

I loved the way the fog was sitting in the forest.

Preque Isle was not foggy, definitely easy to hike and see lots!

Lake Superior Sunrise.

Lake of the Clouds later in the week once it cleared up.

As I was packing up to head home, it was still dark and tripped over this little guy.  I took it as nature making sure to see me off!

Artist Residency at the Porcupine Mountains: Part 2

I'm just posting some photos in chronological order at this point....

Bear den program (that's a black bear skull).

Tapestry Weaving progress.

Black bear eating leftovers at Konteka.

Trappers Falls

It was rainy yesterday so I took the opportunity to go to Calumet. I love the Paige Ward Gallery there. Paige invited me to show my work....we'll see what I can do after we get back from Japan.

Lake Superior sunset last night.

Front side of my weaving (you can start to see the transparencies)

Back side this morning... 3.75 inches done.

My shelf of insect repellent...the middle one has the DEET...and it actually works!

Artist Residency at the Porcupine Mountains: Part 1

I arrived to the Porcupine Mountains on Monday evening after about a 10 hour drive from East Lansing.   Sherrie and Carol showed me around the cabin (mostly Sherrie, Carol is the composting toilet guru).  I have plenty of room to work and live, a back porch looking out toward the stream behind "Dan's Cabin" which includes a wood burning stove, gas lanterns and a camp stove/oven. 

I have hiked two trails so far, on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Tuesday I stayed in the woods and Wednesday I found a beautiful spot on Lake Superior.   I have been struggling with mosquitoes attacking me (despite layers of bug spray). The girl at the Outpost swears by a citronella lotion so I'm going to try that today.

I had a hard time leaving the cabin today.  I am moving along really well on the tapestry that I started and it's hard to pull away!  I packed my notes from the class that I took from Rebecca Mezoff at the MLH Workshops in 2012 on gradation techniques in tapestry and I.m utilizing a number of the techniques.  I'm working from the back so you can't see much at this point. I'm almost to two inches (this piece is 13 inches wide), another few inches and I may be able to get an image of what the front is starting to look like!

Please bear with me on my updates for the next month or so, I'm learning to use my tablet for the bulk of my posting since I will not be taking a laptop to Japan. I'm trying to make - do with smaller devices. So far my phone is better, but it's because I'm slow - learning what I can and can't do on this thing.

MLH Day 2 and 3: Class and Workshop Walk-about

Day two of beadweaving Russian leaf I taught my students how to close up the leaf into a pod form.

I don't have anyone cut thread until they know how they plan on using their leaves, hence the "thread spaghetti" as Marty said.

After another day of beading we got to walk around to the other classrooms:

Nancy McRay's tapestry class

Holly Brackmann's disperse dye class

Dawn Edwards eco-dyeing class

Myself and Dawn

One of Connie Lippert's students

Rosalie Neilson'a class 

Inge Dam's card-woven edge class.

Wynne Matila'a class

And the final products from my students! :

(I have no idea why this posted and then reverted back to draft form. I suspect it had something to do with my Blogger issues via my tablet.  I hope I re-did it ok)

MLH Day 1: My Class and Instructors Presentation

Day one with my class at Michigan League of Handweavers Summer Workshops was fantastic!  I've gotten all of my students well into stitching the Russian leaf and we are repeating the number of leaves so that everyone gets the hang of it.  By the end of the day they have started in on increasing the width of the sides of their leaf.  We will start with that again this morning but here's yesterday's progress (I have 7 students, two I have worked with before):

We also had the MLH Annual meeting last night then the Instructors Presentations:

Holly Brackman is teaching "Dyeing without a Dyepot:Disperse Dyes" (Dispersed dyeing looks cool!)

Dawn Edwards is back again, this time teaching "Explorations in Nuno-Felt and Eco-Printing

(This made me interested in eco-printing, the wrapped bundles that she showed looked like they were packages about to unlock mysteries)

Connie Lippert is teaching "Wedge Weave Fundamentals" 

(I've done one wedge weave sample in my life and I want to try again now)

Connie Lippert

Inge Dam is teaching "Tablet-Woven Side Borders" 

(WOW, below is not a great photo, but she's putting tablet cards on her warp between the reed and the heddles and changing them as she weaves to creating words, imagery and pattern. So cool and mind-blowing).

Inge Dam

Nancy McRay is teaching "Foundations of Tapestry" 

(She's my fellow East Lansing native and across the hall from me for workshopping)

Nancy is doing ArtPrize this year, vote for her number! 57203

Nancy's piece for ArtPrize

Rosalie Neilson is teaching "It's in the Warp: Color & Design in REP"

(I forget that warp-faced weaving can be so interesting, I haven't done much myself)

Rosalie Neilson REP

Wynne Mattila teaches "Finnish Runner/Cotton Rug Technique"

(Her color play also looks wonderful, she's going to write a book this year)

Wynne Mattila 

(not a great photo of one of her rugs, it was getting darker in he building)

I don't have a photo of myself, yet, but I went last and kept it short, we were running way late.  I do have to say, I tanked MLH profusely for having me teach.  Being in the Black Sheep Weavers guild from when I was little when I thought that MLH Conference and Workshops was like a weaving fairy-land of what dreams are made of and I couldn't wait to be old enough to attend.  Yes, it still is.

Then Sue and I went out for a drink.  Sue used to be in the Lansing Guild with me, but has moved up north in retirement.  So I usually only see her at MLH and we have started a tradition that we go grab a drink together one of the nights of MLH and compare notes. I'm rather excited that thanks to the Untappd beer app on my phone I hunted down "Lake Erie Monster" by the Great Lakes Brewing Company in Holland (it's out in E.L.) so we went to 8th Street Grille.  Also, get the Boom Boom Shrimp. Yum.

Again, not a great picture, but Sue pointed out to my why all of Holland has its public artwork covered up this week (month?). They are making a statement about what Holland would be like without art.  I'm not usually one for big statements and public examples, but I thought this was an interesting way of going about making the general public aware about the importance of art in their community. Great job Holland!

I swear I thought Lemonjello's Coffe Shop was open by 7am on Saturday and Sundays, but alas, it's open at 8am.  So I'm going to go backwards from yesterday, coffee in the cafeteria first, then off to Lemonjello's for some quiet and coffee before I start up teaching again this morning.