grandmother’s envelopes

(playing with scissors part 3)

Ten or fifteen years ago I stumbled across an exquisite book called ‘Grandfather’s Envelopes’. I purchased it, but do you think I can lay my hands on it now? Sigh.

The story in a nutshell is that Kouzaki Hiromu had retired from his job as a master builder and then spent the rest of his life creating work for himself by transforming used paper into exquisitely crafted envelopes. He was Japanese and I suspect that used packaging is rather prettier over there than the dross that wraps things here in South Australia. He made hundreds of the jolly things. A collection of them was shown after he passed, at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Ireland. I wish I had seen it in person.

I’m quite fond of envelopes myself. I first discovered how tsunokukuro bags were constructed through drawing the seam lines on an old envelope and cutting them open. It was a revelation. Lately I have been using pre-loved envelopes to further explore almost-zero-waste dress forms, using cloth supplied as a tube. Paper doesn’t drape (unlike cloth) but it’s still a good way to examine how forms might work.

When I cut my envelopes down the long side they often become useful pockets in hand-bound notebooks…but if I carefully trim one or both of the shorter ends all sorts of other possibilities come into view. I made a wee video that explains more clearly how the recent dress came about, and goes on to explore some other options.

Now would be a very good time to fetch a cup of tea, and perhaps a biscuit or two (not the kind you serve with gravy, pets, the kind you might dunk).

I had been writing the above when I remembered there was something I needed to do outside, a gate up by our road that needed closing, so off I toddled, torch in hand. Once the gate was closed I thought to turn the torch off as the starlight was so bright. With the torch off, and stepping my way more cautiously, it somehow freed my ears to hear more clearly, to pick up the gentle sounds of magpies…not quardle-waddle-ooodling as they do when they greet the sun, but more of a gentle murmuring in their sleep. It seemed that every tree around me had a magpie or two in it singing lullabies. I stood there looking up and listening when suddenly there was a golden streak across the sky that made me gasp. I haven’t seen a shooting star for years, though I always go and look in hope when it is clear. I was even beginning to wonder if my eyesight had deteriorated to the extent that I might no longer be able to perceive such marvels. It was almost a relief to see this one. In the next five minutes I saw four more, three smaller ones and another big one.

Granny Google tells me that this week the Delta Acquariids meet the Alpha Capricornids for a dance around the sky. Apparently the most dazzling display is expected on Wednesday July 31st, but I was very happy with the preview. I didn’t catch any flyers but the pocket palantir made some surprisingly lovely images of the sky.

Curiously all three images have different colour casts, though they were shot within minutes of each other and (as you can tell by the blurry trees) in the same direction. It’s extraordinary and somewhat humbling to be able to capture such images with a small hand-held device. (That last one looks fabulous on my phone and iPad, less thrilling on the bigger device in the studio, but I’ll leave it there anyway.)

Now back to that video…