Finished courses and unfinished business II

Once again another quarter of a year is over, as are the two courses I took for the time.

I did not get the work ready now either, but this time I can at least say for my own defense, that I was the fastest of the class at least when it came to the 'Raden' course, the mother-of-pearl inlay.

For that course we had to use two different techniques.
We were to make one practice board with thick mother-of-pearl inlay after a set design everybody had to do. We only had a little choice in the question of what kind of semi-precious stones we wanted to use beside the mother-of-pearl, or if to use any. I wanted to have a simple black and white as to remind of a traditional Japanese family crest, so I choose not to include anything else apart from the shell.

The work went pretty well I think. We used a jeweler's saw and needle files to shape the about 2mm thick shell, so from my work in Lahti I was used to those tools and the work went well and fast. Then we had to cut the shape of those pieces of mother-of-pearl into the urushi board which was a harder task. I made holes and scratches in some places, but in the end I think also that went alright. My teachers liked what they saw, so I think I did ok. The shell is in place, I'm done with filling the holes in the urushi surface and have painted one of the final layers of black urushi. Now I need to peel off the urushi on top of the shell and then sand a bit and see if I need another layer of urushi to get the surface into a good condition or can go on to do the final polish.

 peeling off urushi from on top of the mother-of-pearl

The second work involved thin shell as well as fine silver with is only glued onto the surface. For this work we could chose the theme freely and, thinking of home right then, decided to make one of the Aurora Borealis, called Fox Fire in Finnish (Revontulet) after the legend that the phenomenon is caused by a fox running through snowdrifts and with its tail sweeping up snow crystals into the sky. I had a hard time with the form of the fox, since I wanted it to look not like a real fox, but more like a more ethereal version of one so I didn't use a reference. The anatomy might be a little off but I think the eventual form looks quite good as it is. The silver for the outlines of the Aurora is in place as well, but the very small pieces of shell for the color of the curtain as well as white lines under the fox in Maki-e still have to be added so this work will still take a little more time. 

 Revontulet, Fox Fire

The other course I took for the last three months was a jewelry course. It was kind of nostalgically comfortable to be doing that kind of work again after more than half a year. The task was to make a copy of an excisting jewelry or of an object we liked and make it into jewelry. For some time I wanted to use origami cranes for jewelry. My friend and roommate Tia (her Finnish blog) tried casting them into silver back in Lahti, but it didn't work out very well, at least not with the casting equipment we have there. Also, I love the version of the crane where the wings are opened wide, and silver might eventually have turned out to heavy for that version, anyway. But when I heard that urushi can be used on almost any kind of material, I saw my chance and when this course came along, I knew pretty well what I wanted to do.

My family in Germany supplied me with a special kind of paper, thick and extremely well absorbing, that is usually used to soak up surplus ink from writing with an fountain pen. That paper worked perfectly for soaking up the urushi, making it sturdy and, eventually, when all layers are applied, as durable as any normal jewelry in that size. I'm making a few very basic pieces of jewelry, a pendant, some earrings. Then one ear cuff, a kind of 'funny' piece. My main work and goal though, is a collar in the style of a kimono's collar, set on one side with 15 cranes in different sizes, from shoulder to chest, big to small. 

 The 'ear cuff', still unfinished as well

I have been pretty unsure about this piece, because it is so very, very obvious Japanese themed. But then of course, this whole year is my Japan so I kind of needed to get it into a physical form. The cranes are like small representation of wishes I had and have for this year, never mind if fulfilled or not. That of course derives from the story that if one folds a thousand cranes, they will be granted a wish. For me every single of all the cranes I have folded here in Japan (which aren't only those few for the jewelry but about 230 so far) are a part of this, the 15 for the necklace just representations. At the start I wanted to fold one crane for every single day here, alas, that didn't work out. But I did fold some. Sometimes more than one a day, sometimes none for a week, but they're always somehow on my mind. I simply like them and the way they kind of lose their form and change into a ornamental pattern of you put many of them together. It felt natural to make something off that theme.

On 12^th of December the teacher of this course, by the way with the name Peltonen-sensei, a woman with a Finnish husband, plans to make a little exhibition with all the works from this course. Even going to Tokyo next weekend I should be ready in time with all the pieces I think.

What gave me that most problems was the final surface. With a little crane of about 2,5cm wing span it is pretty much impossible to sand and polish the surface as that of a normal urushi object. Leaving just the finish of painting would have been another possibility, but the surface of this thick paper is one that tends to come through in any case, also, if finishing an object with just the painted finish one needs to be extremely skilled to get no dust whatsoever onto the urushi while painting it. I am simply not skilled enough for that. Also the normal painted surface looks very hard, and with straight lines and folds as in this form, it turns somehow cold, almost metallic. Not really what I had in mind for my cranes. But then I saw my table neighbour, Hama-chan, use a certain surface technique when making chopsticks and liked that very much. Finely ground, sieved charcoal is put onto the urushi surface and then covered with one more layer of urushi to give the object a just slightly irregular, matte finish. So that's what my cranes will end up to look like. We'll see how they turn out next week.

The cranes with their fresh charcoal layer, red is the final color for the neck piece, the color is too bright in this picture though

 the collar, gray on the underside, light side up

Otherwise... we had a small 'Urushi festival' on monday. A celebration with lots of good food, among other German, Finnish and Korean food for the Urushi exchange students, all prepared by 3^rd grade Urushi students and of course under the guidance of Takahashi-sensei. We celebrated in the school's lunch room where they had even build up a little shrine and a Shinto priest came to pray and bless all the Urushi students and teachers. That involved saying out everybody's name which made for a quite some difficulties in the case of my own. Quite some grins crossed the room there.

It was nice though. Even though I don't believe in Shinto any more than in the Christian view of the world, the idea of many, many gods ruling over many different, big and small aspects of life is kind of charming and seeing the rituals is very interesting, being part of it even more so. I enjoyed it, and the food was great too. The sausages (as German food) really were quite good (back to the meat, yes.) but the real soul food for me where the Finnish Karjalanpiirakka, some kind of rice or potato filled piroshki. They were a little too hard with a little too less salt but all in all, considering the Japanese had prepared a food so very foreign to them, they were great actually.

 An improvised shrine

As for the weather: it has been getting colder and most of the autumn colors have passed, though a few later trees still remain red. It also has been raining more again, which means the huminidy has been going way up, making these temperatures feel way colder than they actually are. One day I wanted to dry some mushrooms that had gotten a littel shriveled already in the fridge and put them out onto the kitchen shelf onto a layer of paper towels over night. When I came down in the morning though, they were fresh and squishy as if they had just been picked. The humidity had been so high that they hadn't dried but instead taken up the water from the air. So much for that...

Temperatures right now are around 10-15 degrees, though we have had one or two days with 7. I am inclined to start believing the Japanese that winter will not be nice. They have told me about lots of snow, most of it melting into a nice, squishy, cold mess which will make it pretty much impossible to use a bike and when walking, get anywhere with dry feet. We'll see. Now it definitely does not feel like the end of November.

 The Japanese maple in front of Senshinen, still red

Friday night I will be off to Tokio to visit Tia, Sini and Annika who had been here for the school festival. Having spend the last two weeks almost constantly at school – from 10am to 10pm on weekdays, 10am to 5pm on weekends – I definitely look forward to a little holiday. I am absolutely amazed by my Japanese fellow students who are now doing their graduation work, who have been doing that kind of work load for 4 months now, or even longer. It is good work though, it is very satisfying to see these things grow oh so slowly, how you can follow in detail how they emerge a little more from day to day.

As it looks now I will spend my Christmas like that, in school with my classmates, with almost none of them having time to leave school to spend Christmas as they usually do. Not that Christmas is that important a celebration in Japan anyway. For me it will be good to have something to do, so I don't have to think so much about my family in Germany under our Christmas Tree or my friends in a Finland that may be under a cover of nice, not-melting snow.

While my Tokioter Finns will be returning home on 12^th next month I have about another 2 ½ months to go. It will be hard then to leave. But I do miss home and I think after 10 months I will be ready to return. Such a long time to learn so much new and get used to all the strange things that are normal here. The migrating birds for example. Where in Finland and Germany the geese and cranes leave in winter to return with the spring, here in Toyama the geese have arrived on the rivers this month to winter here where it's warmer.

They will leave in spring to return to the north, and then, will take me with them.