Skip to main content

Japanese Nostalgia

With the news of the unfolding and escalating disaster in Japan dominating the media, our thoughts are with  our friends, especially our previous exchange daughters and their families in Japan. Thankfully they are all safe, but we can't help feeling sad for the magnitude of loss of life and environmental destruction. This morning, I looked around our home and found all kinds of  little reminders of happy times we have had with them. Most are beautiful gifts the girls or their families have given us or made themselves ... a thousand cranes, paper cuts, dolls and fabrics.

I even found small gifts from my host families when I was in Japan over 40 years ago,
and a little handbag I made a few years ago and this reminds me so much of our girls. We are thinking postive thoughts for you all.



Not to forget a small but very special event this week - Happy 3rd  Birthday William. May you always be protected from disaster.

Comments

  1. Wow,that's what I made! Origami cranes!
    I can't believe that I folded a thousand cranes on my own. So happy that they are still on the wall in your house!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Miki
    Lots of visitors to our house still comment on the thousand cranes you made - a really wonderful gift from you to remember happy times. thank you
    love Jim & Wilma

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks ....  The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and  message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or  my husband or from off cuts gifted to us  from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks.   Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt  or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

29 Faces

"29 Faces " is an online art challenge - blog and Facebook . The challenge is to create a face each day of September ( with one day for catch up) .... I decided to take up the challenge to practise drawing faces for my dolls and to practise techniques with coloured pencils.  I received a set of 60 pencils  from my daughter last Christmas so I wanted to be sure I used them before next Christmas! I love making tags so I combined tag making with "29 Faces", so I will also have some unique Christmas gift tags for gift giving  this year. Here are the first 9 faces for the first 9 days of September 

Covid Man and Book Print

  This is my tag for the current theme at Tag Tuesday - Book Print. I like using text as a background for tags and today, I reduced one of my recent  line drawings and printed it on a small book page .... as you can see,  the book's chapter is entitled "Of Holy Living and Dying ( from The Book of Books) .  I thought this was appropriate as this 'Covid man' drawing depicts Nature happily thriving while man appears to be "unravelling " at the edges of body and mind...  Original drawing - Wilma Simmons   Silk screen print on fabric  : Wilma Simmons  Silk screen print on paper : Wilma Simmons  And here are some other tags on book print backgrounds - these are free motion stitched "Nature" portraits done earlier in the year.