I am a sincere Japanophile and have been for most of my adult life– from Zen (which I briefly practiced but stopped because I felt like a phony during the group meditations) to wabi-sabi (my all-time favorite spiritual aesthetic concept) to Japanese package design to zakka to the food, architecture…even that Scarlett Johansson scene in Lost in Translation in which she wanders around from temple to cherry-blossom to eatery doing just about everything I’d like to do.
I just absolutely love Pink Penguin, Ayumi Mills’ blog. The tender, quirky spirit of her aesthetic is really nice. I love the things she sews. Ayumi is Japanese and she just posted pictures on her blog of her recent trip back home.
The photographs above are of a few of the quilts Ayumi saw at the Tokyo Quilt Festival. They embody the best of Japanese craft. Look at the detail, the supreme attendance to nature above all else, the wabi-sabi spirit of honoring and noticing the tenderness of this moment as it is passing. Flowers opening and flying to the wind. Seasons changing. Witnessing life…and treating it so lightly with humor, cuteness and craft…yet underneath that surface is an honorific prayer to the holiness of it all.
I too have a love for all things Japanese. Pink Penguin is among them 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
awww what a sweet post! It made me so happy that I had to have my husband read this post too. We both really enjoyed it!