Hiroshige goes again!

Well here we are again, and for those of you who have read my blog or know me you must be aware of my love for all things Japanese! It is with a happy heart that I turn to our forthcoming show, but don't take my word for it. The wonderful blog The Dabbler is excitedly waiting for Emily Allchurch's series Tokyo Story.

To interject money at this point, as it is the last week of BIG BANGS BIG BUCKS I must say that The 1p Book Review is genius. My most recent 1p book from Amazon was by the wonderful Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto and her debut novel 'Kitchen'. On New Years Day I had the chance to peruse the library of a poet friend of mine who had a whole shelf dedicated to Japanese literature. I seized upon Yoshimoto's work and read the first page (a sure fire way to see if I am going to enjoy it) and ordered it the same day. I have had less luck ordering 'Asleep' from my local library, but will surely mention it when I have. So back to all things Japanese: another expectant voice came from The Sunday Times Magazine who also featured her work in the Spectrum Images section. They have displayed the original Hiroshige woodblock images alongside Emily's contemporary interpretations. Rather than going into the finer points of the series now I ask you to just look closely at her work and respond to it. The finer points of Hiroshige's 'One Hundred Views of Edo' are described in the press release which will be posted on my website later this week. There are so many elements involved in this work that I feel there will be many posts during this show, elaborating on her work as well as Japanese culture and visual aesthetics. The complex imaginings that can come from a simple piece of paper in the case of the fashion designer, Issey Miyake whose recent collection has be a huge hit on the catwalks. I have posted earlier Miyake images here (as the new images are all on Vogue's catwalk section in the Autumn/Winter 2011/12ready to wear) that geometrically and structurally compliment the other photo's selected for this blog. And of course because they are inspired and beautiful.

One last thing... The cherry blossom branches have small pieces of paper (omikuji) tied around them. These are tied after reading; either to make the good fortune come true or to avoid the predicted bad fortune. If you were to tie a bad fortune to a tree so that it would go away what would it be?