Back in school; more Japanese art. I think I wrote this before: the more I study, the more I realize I haven’t begun to scratch the surface. This time I am taking an intro to J. art. All of my other classes have dealt with specific subjects. I’m hoping this intro will give me a glimpse into some of the stuff I know nothing about. Of course, we begin at the beginning: Japanese artifacts go back to at least 11,000 BCE, and I’ve looked at most of this stuff in other classes. I am anxious to get to recent history, like 1100 CE. I think I’m missing the part between 1100 and 1600 CE.

I’m still working on the book binding and I’m very frustrated. I want to make a quilt-type design for the cover, but the pieces are tiny and my fingers are not cooperating. My hand-eye coordination has not improved with age. I am using a pattern from the Japanese quilting book I bought in New York, and the bits of fabric I got in Japan.
I needed brighter colors so I added some bits of fabric from my stash and finally got to color combinations I liked. Using the pattern is kind of a joke. It is designed for a finished size of 26" x 16". I want a finished size of 6" x 8". Although I reduced the pattern on the computer, most of the pieces are still too large, requiring further reductions and generally rearranging everything. I doubt it will look anything like the picture I started with.

I’m still thinking about that name change. Haven’t found anything that thrills me. Beginning with "Snapshots and…" I’ve considered Stitches, Solecisms, Scrawls. Any thoughts out there?