It is Saturday at home, and Sunday here in Japan
as I write to you from my hotel in Narita. I've just spent 3 days in Tokyo at
the Quilt Festival, and now I'm chillin' at an airport hotel, waiting for my
flight tomorrow night.
One of the things I am doing is editing my photos so they include the name of
the quilter one way or the other. Some of the Japanese quilters' names have
been given a transliteration from a Kanji character to Roman letters (known as Romaji) …and
some have not. For the quilts whose makers names cannot be spelled out, I am
using Photoshop to copy and paste the names/characters on the namecards, into
the quilt photos. Whew!
I've been coming to this show for many years now, and I do see more Westerners
here every year. I also see more blogs with photos from the show but no artist
names. I am hoping that the Tokyo Quilt Festival organizers will put the
transliteration of all the quiltmakers' names on the name cards next year, but
in the meantime everyone who goes to the show needs to think twice about
posting photos without names.
Anyway, the first batch of quilt images is up, along with the photos I took on my daytrip to Nagano to see the Snow Monkeys.
I am still going over all the photos from the Tokyo show, but one of my first
impressions is that there are less taupe and indigo quilts this year. The only
piece I noticed with blatant machine quilting (instead of the usual Japanese
hand-quilting) was a handbag. The only reason I noticed was because there was a
group of ladies standing over this handbag in animated discussion, and the only
two words I understood were "machine quilting".
This year I was deeply honored to receive a ticket to the opening ceremonies.
Security is very high because the Emperor's daughter-in-law (Kiko-San)
presides, plus the Finnish ambassador and his wife attended, and the cultural
attach? from the US Embassy was among the speakers and honored guests. It was
VERY formal, and "very Japanese" according to my translator.
The big special exhibit this year was a large group of pictorial quilts, based
on the illustrations of Finnish illustrator/artist Tove Jansson. I had never
heard of her, but her characters and books are wildly popular here. The exhibit
curated by Yoko Saito was mobbed while I was there. The artists who created
special quilts for this event were wildly creative, and it makes me want to go
out and get one of Tove's books!
I'll be sharing detail shots from this show for several weeks, so be sure and
watch for my midweek Creative Nudge newsletters!
We are finalizing details for me to lead a group on a Polar
Bear tour to Churchill Canada, Oct 14-19 this year. I will post more info
in a newsletter next week, but you can also contact Customer Service to be
emailed right away when details are set.
****************
Check out our 120 videos from
international quilt festivals, Quilting Arts TV and Quilters Newsletter TV on
our eQuilter Video Page.
********
Upcoming Quilty Travel:
Mar 24 Quilting Arts TV
May 1-4 SAQA Conference Wash DC
Oct 1 Quilt Exhibit, Rome
Oct 14-19 Polar
Bear Tour, Churchill
Check out our eQuilter Facebook page!
(Sneak peeks of new collections throughout the week)
Share Post:
