Folky Friday

Good morning. After an interview yesterday for a job I'd really like to do, this weeks Folksy Friday is a ring collection ... because I am expecting their call today. I'm hoping, against reason, that the news will be good! In the meantime I can peep at these lovely things.

'The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources'

What I have to blog about, jewellery wise, are my ideas, plans and mental wanderings. Like many I've let promotion get in the way of making, and that, fellow makers, has not worked for me. Stock making, flexing of hands and squinting of eyes are now the order of the day. Eventually I'll get it all balanced, along with a rewarding job, and shine, a crafting beacon. Of which there are a number, and greatly admired by me, especially when they are good enough to share their knowledge and experience, like Haptree.

My ideas are penciled into my sketch pad which sits on my desk or by my bed. I wish it's thick creamy paper could be covered by someone with skill and with whole pictures so that it could exist to it's full potential. To assuage my guilt I have just started using my Inkscape software to doodle in vectors. Having built stocks of beads, lovely, lovely beads, I've decided that my usp (humour me?) will be wire. Not Eni Oken style wire wrapping and art, but just using different guage wires to create shapes and patterns with differing finishes and textures. Like

With Einsteins (see post title) words playing on my mind, I wasn't sure whether or not to post about my current designs. I realise there is vanity here. After all, I am not a great or well promoted (ahem) talent , so any worries of my designs suddenly appearing in shops or catwalks are a tad indulgent. However, I support the ideal that a designer should enjoy producing their own designs, and if they desire, licensing the right to copy. Even tiny, beginner makers like me. I hoped to gain the wisdom of others, but, pushed to think for myself * brain grinds away *: reckon they're only mine, no big shakes, and hey, the blog is dated with my logo on the pics...Plus i find it interesting reading other people's blogs setting out their creative process -  Diomoglass, Averilpam and amyorangejuice to name but three
.
I'd also love to hear what you think. Would you consider wearing any of them of them yourself (probably not the boys)?

From the top and left to right:
Kuromatsu as it is based on the shapes of the Japanese pine. Brass or copper wire with maybe some green coated copper wire to weave through one 'head' or to wrap round the bottom of all components. Probably oxidised (with eggs!)
Plumage (?) based on 'song' but with longer 'scales'. Mix of copper and brass wire, with some oxidised and /or hammered
Mirror (?) Silver wire, repeated shape, textured but left satin or shiny. Possibly using some wee mirrors I have.
Tori - based on a Japanese print (from Pattern Sourcebook, Japanese style) and the kanji for 'bird', which shows a little beak pointed right up in the air. Probably in silver and brass, with or without a branch. Not sure yet.
Pod (?) Lovely simple geometric shapes in brass, some hammered flat, some hammered with texture and using some beads to unbalance the piece a little more. Started on this one.
Grid (?) Simple and inspired simply by wire properties - it's lengths and plasticity. Hammer flat wire bent at 90 and wrapped once round any other tracks. May use silver, with one 'track' of brass and maybe one of copper. Ends will be bent over for comfort...

Kumo - little Japanese cloud with 5 raindrops / blue sky and a shaft of sun. I've changed the design in making it, as I expect to do with the others. A simple design, but not too similar to other clouds - i checked having make the cloud shaped, so hope I'm right and not stepping on toes.
Gan - means wild geese in Japanese. Will use fine chain to link the bottom two birds. not sure which wire yet - are they in daylight, or catching the setting sunlight...?
Maze - simple large, bold spiral. Nothing else. Probably in copper - and will make today. hurrah. Probably hanging from simple copper chain.

I have components or proto-components of all, but can't wait to get making and tweaking and deciding what to hang them from - chain, cord or handmade chain like Greenfinch? Planning in Inskscape has helped me work out proportion and placing, and how and where the components might be connected.

To finish, some other quotes on creativity:

In the spirit of a recent thread on Folksy - on worry and perfectionism:

“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.”

Oscar Wilde

 

Something, maybe, for the banking and investment institutions and those in power who perpetuate the myth.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

Einstein

Cough ... stepping down from my soap box,

“The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.”

Frank Barron - a civil engineer, i think.

 

A prod for me to get making...

“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.”

Rita Mae Brown, writer

Cat

Folksy Friday 23rd April 2010

Hello, Just a quick post to say Folksy Friday is all done for this week and is ready to view on the Folksy Friday page. This week my First Anniversary is on my mind, and I've found 9 gorgeous things that make me think of my top notch husband, who is a marvel.

Cat

Kung Fu Dancin: Part 2. Physicality, Space and Stickiness

Hello. Following the first exciting installment, Centre, Circularity and Awareness, this is my second go at responding to Christopher Littlefairs brilliant post, Martial arts, movement and dance, in his blog, Diary of a Martial Artist. Go there, it is good.

Physicality, Space and Stickiness

Physicality is a term used in dance critique and theory, and means freeing of the body to communicate without the constraint of traditional norms, and refers to the link between body and mind. For me it means using  the body honestly and to it's fullest and when I'm practicing karate, to allow myself to let go and to trust my body to do what my sensei asks of me, even if it feels odd at first. Here is a gif of Jasmine Simhalan practicing Kalarippayattu, a Keralan martial arts form. In the second part, I think she shows real physicality. Beautiful.

The practice of karate, and other martial arts, transmits tested and efficient ways of doing things from master to sensei to student over time.It is not appropriate to improvise (to explore bunkai, or henka-waza (technique variations)) until you have built up experience, knowledge and ways of moving. Although dance is a freer artform, the same, I think, can be said. One really has to know one's body and how it moves, especially within a style, before letting loose the crazy dancing.
A.L.Recke, by M.E.Weigert

Both dancers and martial artists - any physical performer - builds up muscle memory through correct repetition so that they can eventually move without the mind interrupting. For martial artists it is important that we trust our mind to be quiet, and our body to act almost instinctively. I say almost, as I think that much of what we do happens through long term mental and physical conditioning. Flinching is instinctive, stepping in with a block and strike isn't.

If your own power of insight is strong, the state of affairs of everything will be visible to you. Once you have attained complete independent mastery of martial arts, you will be able to figure out the minds of opponents ans thus find many ways to win. This demands work.  
Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

Although experienced and gifted martial artists show awesome knowledge of their body mechanics, beginners like me often have much, much less. Whilst karateka generally explore dynamics of moving later in training, dancers are encouraged to experiment and understand dynamics from the start as a means of communicating content or emotion. While martial artists should show content clearly, in kata for example, emotion is maybe less relevant for us, as we do not seek to influence those outside the sphere of confrontation. Except in competition.

On concentrating on the where and why, we (martial artists), sometimes skip past the how: 

'OK, that's my pelvis ...wiggle, shimmy ... and that's how it feels to tilt it. Ahaaa.'

A good kata has changes in pace, as my Shotokan sensei keeps reminding me! Running through kata or sparring combinations first with lyrical movement, then with full tension helps me to locate all my body parts and find a better dynamic for the application.

Karateka want to go here                           but not here...

Gigo funakoshi                                                                  Student at Colorado University

... although it really can help.

When a body is moving it is not only important where, but when and how. Movement through space gives meaning - we read how fast, how big, how linear, how high, how low, how much space between. Stillness defines what went before, and what is to come. It gives the chance to regroup and redirect. Movement and changes in it help us to read purpose - in dance and when martial arts.

The Nineteenth of Gichin Funakoshi's Twenty Guiding Principles states:

'Do not forget the employment or withdrawal of power, the extension or contraction of the body, the swift or leisurely application of technique'

The energy of kumite is in the negative or empty time and space. Participants and spectators monitor the space between just as carefully as the two bodies, and pay attention to the pauses , or stillness, between actions.
 Shintaido Bokuto, by Pierre Quettier

Projecting kiai, extending zanchin and kime interact or fill space. As a fighter disables one attacker, and moves to face another (at least in kata!) we may feel the negative space left behind for a moment.



Physicality is also about how our bodies interact with others. This picture shows a contact improvisation session, an important part of contemporary dance training

 Davidonet from Wiki Commons

In these exercises it is important to stick to your partner, to

'recognise emptiness and fullness in others and themselves', Sun Tzu in The Art of War,

to be passive and active at the right moments to influence the other. Maybe judoka or aikidoka would recognise some of the lifting techniques in this picture? Dance training also teaches you how to lift, and be lifted.

I confess that I have little experience or knowledge of sticking hands - I want to learn - but have been taught to lean into a block or lock in order to influence the opponent, and to 'read' them and their intentions. I remember the same feeling when doing contact improvisation.

The first of these two clips is contact improvisation in dance, and the second, sticking hands:





I think there are similarities between them - and the first may also ring some capoeira bells.I'd also not heard of Ba Gua Zhang before, but would like to learn more, one day, based on this (YouTube) clip


I was interested to read in Fist in the Frost's blog that whilst teaching kata he experienced a 'beautiful synchronicity in class'. So, finally I'd like to ask if you can see or read the space, synchronicity, dynamics and stickiness in these three groups?

Suri Castle, byNakasone Genwa 1938, Merce Cunningham Company, Pacific Islanders team, Tonyrandell, 

Thank you for reading. Again, I must stress that it is very early in my study of martial arts. I've taken out many 'I think's and 'possibly's as there are plenty words in this post, but be assured I'm not certain I'm right, and I'd love to be gently corrected, or directed down a new path of thought.

Cat