Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Meditative singing bowls, and Textiles and Tea

This morning I came across a long video of a meditation using singing bowls, which the musician struck with various hammers and forces, resulting in an amazing sound tapestry as the notes interwove and pulsed against each other. 

It was long enough to play while I showered. The only tiny drawback was an omg moment when I heard trickling water  that was not from the shower. 

I peered around the curtain, dreading to find leaking from some part of the plumbing. Then I looked at the screen. He was using a rain stick. Oh. That rain pattering sound, mixed with the shower,  seemed like something ominous. Now that I know, I can resume being calm.

The icy wind kept me home from the Tuesday knitting group today. It quickly saps my energy, and caused some sharp protests from Helen at the prospect of library chairs.  So I bagged it and worked at home on the granny ruggy thing, now with the end approaching.

Textiles and Tea was right up my alley, a young Chinese woman, Lin Qiqing, who spins, dyes and weaves mulberry paper into wall hangings. She's now Brooklyn-based and here's what she's about, great design. 




Details of the top image, "Phoenix"


And these ceramic fortune cookies are a departure!








Detail of the figure higher up. 

These are dyed, spun, or made into a paper collage then cut up and reassembled on an eight shaft loom, as the weft, with a linen thread warp.

She's a very good designer of the human figure, blocky, expressive and interestingly light in weight. Definitely worth a visit to her website. 

This is a second career, since she started as a reporter in Shanghai, but left because the political climate hamstrung reporting. Then, in New York, decided on a big change of work, and got credentials in textile design, before becoming an art weaver.

Happy day, everyone, you do you, when you find out what that is.




8 comments:

  1. I've heard the singing bowls before and they're amazing. Thank you for the reminder to listen again. Sorry about having to miss the group, but at least you had an interesting T&T to entertain you.
    Hah, I would like to do me, but having a problem with what that is at the moment. This, too, shall pass.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, that's the trouble with doing you, first you have to find out who that is!

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  2. The wind keeps us in some days too. It cuts though and requires so much energy!

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  3. Beautiful work on Textiles and Tea! I like singing bowls in the lower registers but the highest-pitched ones go right through my head like a nail, which is not conducive to a true meditative spirit for me. I used to have a rainstick as one of the instruments for my drumming circle back in the day.

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    Replies
    1. I don't like the rain stick sound. I hate the sound of running water, so piercing.

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  4. Replies
    1. Isn't she? Also very modest about her talents.

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