August 8, 2008

The first year of high school is looming  for my reluctant 14 year old son, and I too will be going back to school, though joyfully and  just for brief workshops. In October I'm flying out to Coupeville, Washington, to take Advanced Stencil Carving / Katazome with John Marshall. My husband calls this "Advanced Hanging Out with John Marshall," but every time I study with John I come away with new ideas and improved techniques. Plus, John's irreverent (yet reverent) approach to all things Japanese makes for  a very entertaining time. 

Ironically, while going through the boxes of stuff that are still not unpacked since our move  last fall, I came across the printout of an email I wrote to John in 1998, when I was just beginning to dye fabric. I'd found John through the Internet, and I wrote to ask him if he knew of anyone in the Northeast who taught katazome. He didn't, so  I signed up to take John's class in California in 1999, then had to cancel when my mother became terribly ill. A year later, I did get out there, and have  managed to travel West a total of three times so far for workshops with John. And now, ten years later -- and here's the ironic part  -- the person teaching a class on katazome in the Northeast seems to be ME.

Teaching  "Japanese Stencil Dyeing 101,"  is  an event for which I've been preparing for months. The amount of equipment and materials I need for eight students is  daunting, and I've had to invent some makeshift devices so that everyone will have stretching equipment. Shinshi, thin splits of bamboo with sharp pins inserted into each end, have been particularly hard to come by --  the three suppliers I know of in the US and Canada are all out of the length I need, so my husband split a bunch of bamboo for me, and I've been sanding the splits down so as not to torture my students with splinters. Our task this weekend is to get those pins inserted into each end. My husband seems confident, as he is about such things, while my son and I are dubious. No matter what, my husband gets an "A" for effort and for optimism.

Here's another story with a foot in the past and a foot in the present:  Exactly  a year ago  (August 10, 2007, to be precise) I wondered in this blog if we'd be seeing the Perseid showers from this new house in 2008.  Well, we will, if the skies ever clear.  And a few days ago,  there was a preview: on a rare clear night, while I lay on our bed looking out at a heavenly sky, I saw two falling stars.