Quarantine Kanzashi II

Now that summer is here I thought it would be a good time to start working on tsumami-zaiku pieces with summery motifs. I have always loved the summer time - the sun, the heat, and cooling off in the water.

I don't live anywhere near the beach now, being in mid-west Canada, but we do have lakes here. Although the summer is short it's usually packed with festivals, concerts and outdoor activities to take advantage of the summer while it lasts. Of course, most - if not all - of those activities have been cancelled due to the pandemic, but I've still be trying to take advantage of the good weather by going for walks and starting a small window garden.

Summer in Japan is nothing like summer here. It's far more humid and includes a distinct rainy season, complete with typhoons. In the summer, many people will carry uchiwa - round paper fans - with them at festivals to help keep cool.

So of course, uchiwa ended up becoming a popular motif for summer kanzashi. I have always admired the large uchiwa kanzashi with fish that I've seen maiko wearing in photographs, and have always wanted to make one myself. I never like to make exact replicas, so I gave this one some unique twists - a stream made from holographic film and resin, and wirework backed with flat silk fabric for the fins of the goldfish instead of folded silk pieces. I also designed the handle of the fan myself, and cut it using my Silhouette Curio machine.

If this Fancy Goldfish Uchiwa is a traditional motif with a few small twists, then the piece up next is a big twist with a traditional feel.

When developing concepts for my work I always strive to balance a love and respect for traditional Japanese themes and motifs with my own personal experiences and innovative modern touches. I feel this Koi and Wave Tiara is a prime example of that drive to innovate.

Our area has a strong eastern European presence, and I have always admired Russian and Ukranian traditional headdresses - I keep reference photos from the 1903 Romanov Costume Ball in my morgue file - so when I started doing sketches for this piece I brought a bit of that influence into the overall shape of this tiara. I also wanted to take a very traditional motif - water and koi - and use both modern and traditional materials and techniques to bring it to life.

I hand formed the wave using foiled glitter ware, backed it with both holographic film and iridescent organza, then flooded the film with UV resin to create the glass-like effect.

I have a tendency to do projects in waves (pun intended - sorry!) and after finishing both the uchiwa and wave pieces I decided to bring my fancy fish festival to a close by creating a piece of tsumami-zaiku art - or tsumami-ga.

I don't consider myself to be a strong painter. It's probably been a year or so since I've actually done any water color painting, and after I finished painting the background stream for this piece I wasn't sure I liked it. I very nearly tossed it and started a new one, but instead I decided to let it dry over night and see how I felt in the morning.

I'm glad that I didn't throw this water color out. Sometimes when I'm tired or having a rough mental health day I struggle with negative feelings about my art, but after having a rest and some separation from it those feelings dissipate and I can see it more clearly - and I think in this case it actually turned out well.

It's hard to see in the photos, but I used a bit of pearlescent stoneground water color for some of the darker parts of the stream. It has a lovely, faintly glittery, sheen to it in person.