Leaves are beginning to drift down from the maple trees in my back yard. Before long, they will begin to decompose—a fascinating process as the membranes disintegrate into transparency until only the outline of their skeletons remain.
Kay Sekimachi, now 97 years old, is a well-known and admired textile artist, who has spent years creating interesting and original textile designs, such as the one pictured above.
It was in a Japanese internment camp in Topaz, Utah (where she was sent at the age of 16 with her widowed mother and sisters) that she had her first art lessons. Interned artists trying to create culture and meaning in terrible times founded The Topaz Art School in the Topaz Internment Camp, which is where Sekimachi took that class. (To read my earlier post on gardens in Japanese internment camps, click here). Later, while enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Sekimachi became fascinated with weaving, bought a double loom with her last $150, and took another step in her artistic career.
Left: Hornets' Nest Bowl, hornets' nest, kozo paper, Kay Sekimachi, 1992; Right: Flax Bowl, flax, kozo paper, linen, thread, Kay Sekimachi, 1992.
In addition to her work on the weaving loom, advice she once received from a tutor, "try to make something with the simplest of means,” has inspired her to create bowls from various natural materials such as hornets' nest paper, shells, grass, linen, and leaf skeletons.
I find the leaf bowls made from these leaf skeletons particularly intriguing and lovely. In these designs, she turns something delicate, into a lasting work of art that preserves the intricate details of the decaying leaf and imbues it with strength enough for it to last. Although the leaf bowls are surprisingly sturdy, they maintain the sense of the ephemeral nature of a leaf.
For those who have picked up a particularly vibrant autumn leaf and attempted to somehow preserve it (such as ironing it between wax paper!), Sekimachi's achievement is stunning. Her leaf vessels highlight the beautiful skeletal structure of the leaves. The woody and strong lines of the veins run parallel from the midrib, creating spaces within which the smaller lines of the capillaries curl into fascinating swirls and cul-de-sacs. The lines become observable and accentuated in Sekimachi's leaf bowls.
Sekimachi's bowls become partially transparent through her artistic process, so that when light shines through them, the patterns of the darker lines stand out. When first starting to experiment with leaves, a friend gave her some bright-colored leaves, but, as her work has developed, she has gravitated toward more neutral colors.
It is the structure that is the emphasis in her work with the leaf bowls, and the more neutral colors focus attention on the structure that is the scaffold of the leaves. The process her leaves undergo involves the removal of the chlorophyll, the source of the colors in leaves that often grab people's attention.
To form the leaf bowls, Sekimachi creates paper leaf patterns (usually two) which she applies to a mold for her bowl. After the paper has dried, she removes the paper leaves from the mold. In the meantime, she soaks the leaves she will be using in water for several hours, which makes them pliable enough to work with. She applies paste to the leaves and layers them over the paper bowl base she has created. She wraps the leaves tightly over the paper bowl and lets it the bowls dry overnight. Because the veins are wood, they are surprisingly strong and long-lasting.
I think having our attention drawn to the intricacy of any part of creation helps tutor us toward an attitude of attentiveness and awe in how we approach creation. What helps you to give attention to the details of creation around you?
Repeating an Invitation to Our Readers
In my last post, I invited readers to send in brief stories and pictures of your own experience with gardens that can be shared with other readers. How has a personal or community garden built bonds between you, other people, and other creatures? In your experience, how have you seen land, food, and place create community connections in your life? Send in your picture and/or brief story (100 words or less) by October 1 and we will include them in a special "readers share" post.
Feel free to leave a comment below (you can sign in through your email) or contact me directly at louise.conner@circlewood.online.
Louise
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