The Big Exhibit opens

The purpose of this trip was from the beginning my exhibit in Japan. Takarazuka City is a place where I now have friends. The nearest big cities are Kobe or Osaka. It is a pretty, scenic place, located in a steep river valley, famous for a women's musical theater, and with about 150,000 population, small by Japanese standards.

The procedure here for private exhibits is to rent a gallery space, pay the owner a set fee and take your chances that sales will cover expenses and give you a profit. I am happy to report that we have paid the gallery after the first two days of the four day show. I define profit rather loosely of course as I doubt the poor economic situation will permit actually selling enough to completely pay for the trip. Still, I am pleased at how people are receiving my work.

Images of all the new work for this show is now uploaded to my web site gallery in the new work category. http://www.nautilus-fiberarts.com It is still minus a few particulars like price and size. We have also added quite a few new indigo patterns.

Here are some pictures of the gallery space. They carefully put lovely autumn flowers in a large apparently unstudied arrangement in the corner.



The gallery looks out on a lovely garden.



Here is everybody's favorite new quilt on the wall, along with two panels dyed with kakishibu, a new dye for me, made from the same persimmon juice used to make the stencil paper I use. Look up http://www.kakishibui.com to find out more about it.



Here we all are after setting up. One day I am going to do a quilt with a row of dainty Japanese dolls and one big American doll, all smiling broadly for the camera. The center of the gallery has a table typically, so potential customers can sit and talk and be offered cups of green tea and little sweets. The quilters group that is helping me quietly takes care of that and keeping track of sales.


This young woman will be my interpreter for a visit next Wednesday to a Kyoto dyers workshop that specializes in Okinawan style katazome, called Bingata, something I am looking forward to very much.