Lee Rheeza, craftswoman & national treasure

a patchwork ramie Hanbok

unbleached ramie Hanbok

traditional bojagi, wrapping cloth

 

another bojagi (these two look like they were made of silk...i couldn't read the korean labels)

traditional 20th century loom -- even in the stores ~18 in. still seems to be the typical width of a bolt of cloth.

dyed ramie

an antique bojagi, "log cabin" style

Patchwork is another traditional craft in Korea and is typically used to make bojagi, a wrapping cloth used for wrapping gifts, groceries, your stuff, etc.  Lee Rheeza, the Korean equivalent of Oscar de La Renta, has been making Hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing for women, for over forty years and currently has a retrospective at the National Folk Museum of Korea.  In the last ten years, she started experimenting with making Hanbok out of patchwork, combining two great Korean craft traditions that go back over five hundred years.

Jangseung, Korean totem poles

Standing guard at the Korean Folk Museum

 

The lost ent tribe of Tolkien?

 

 

Keeping a wary eye on the stone guy

Lost map to Middle Earth? --- or a village juristiction map from 1878

It always amazes me how much similarity is found in craft and traditions around the world.  Jangseung, or Korean totem poles, were placed at the entrances of villages in hopes of warding off evil spirits (or evil visitors presumably).  They also could be used to delineate boundaries between "townships" and are believed to extend back to prehistoric times.  Maybe the totem pole tradition migrated across the Bering land bridge at the end of the last ice age?

Gyeongbokgung, Palace Greatly Blessed By Heaven, Seoul

경복궁

Heungnyemun gate

 

Danch'eong (Enlightenment)

The brightly painted patterns of danch'eong adorn the ceilings, eaves, support pillars, and walls of all temple buildings. The colors, which are not quite pastels but not quite primary either, symbolized the bright enlightenment of the next world. 

 

 

Geunjeongmun gate

 

 

prior to restoration

  

repainted

 

some Morrisy looking flowers

 

repainted

 

 

a new building

Gyeongbokgung in Seoul, Korea, is the royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty first built in 1394.  It was almost completely destroyed by the Japanese in the 1590s, rebuilt in 1867 (330 buildings and 5,792 rooms), and sadly, again systematically destroyed by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea in the early 20th century (only ten buildings survived).  In 1989, the Korean government began a 40-year project to rebuild the palace restoring the surviving buildings and rebuilding those that were lost.

Gilding the lily with Golden Lily

Rob Bennett for The New York Times

Found this in today's NYTimes Home section -- a spontaneous street project by Finley, a 34-year-old artist that goes by her surname.  I'm not sure exactly what she is trying to say....why can't a dumpster be pretty too?   I like the irony of using that particular Morris pattern/wallpaper.  Finley, please come to my city!

Rob Bennett for The New York Times

Getting down to brass tacks...

 

Between this and last week's post I'm getting a serious case of door envy.  These doors are from two houses built by the architects McKim, Mead, and White (the pictures are from the wonderful book by Samuel White "The Houses of McKim, Mead, and White").  The first door is in the Ross Revillon Winans House in Baltimore (1882-83) and the second is the front door of Ochre Point, in Newport, Rhode Island (1882-84).  This is the same house that inspired my porch shingling here.  The architects used upholstery tacks --- if I was going to do this I'd start by enlarging the pictures and making a template.

My, what nice drawers you have...

 

Bryonie Porter takes old beat-up pieces of furniture and transforms them into works of stunning beauty by application of wallpaper.  She applies the wallpaper with normal wallpaper paste and then applies numerous coats of lacquer to finish.  I'm sure this is way harder than it sounds.  Visit her website to see more of her intriguing work.  I imagine it is just a matter of time before we see a Morris piece!

Can you embroider a human genome?

Science 9 October 2009:
Vol. 326., pp. 289 - 293

This magazine cover showed up in my mailbox a few months ago and my first thought was, wow, wouldn't that make a beautiful embroidered pillow!  or a floor cloth.  or a bedspread.  or any number of things.  It is a Hilbert Curve, a "one-dimensional fractal trajectory that densely fills higher-dimensional space without crossing itself."  It is named after its discoverer David Hilbert, a German mathematician, and contemporary of Morris, "recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries" (sounds kind of like a William Morris of math).  The curve is now being used to describe the three-dimensional architecture of the human genome.  Amazing.

[Image: Leonid A. Mirny and Erez Lieberman-Aiden]

Mughal Empire Florals at the V&A

 floorspread, painted and dyed cotton, late 17th-early18th cent.

 tent hanging, printed painted and dyed cotton, early 18th cent.

 hanging, silk embroidered cotton, c. 1650-1700

tent hanging, velvet stamped with gold paint, 18th cent.

tent hanging, printed painted dyed cotton, late 18th cent.

carpet, wool warp, cotton and silk weft, wool pile, 17th cent.

It is well-known that Morris was inspired by Islamic art (see, for instance, this post).  The above pieces are all from the Islamic Mughal Empire that ruled the Indian subcontinent from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries.  They are also all in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum and featured in their new box set V&A Pattern (these being from the "Indian Florals" volume).  Who knows, maybe Morris had a hand in acquiring these specific pieces?!  According to E.P. Thompson's book William Morris - Romantic to Revolutionary, he was often consulted by the museum curators when they were considering expensive purchases of textiles or tapestries.  Certainly Morris would have studied Mughal textiles.  He was a leading scholar of the decorative arts and felt there could be no division between study and practice--he considered the South Kensingtion Museum (now the V&A) to be his personal playground and once remarked "perhaps I have used it as much as any man living".

Carl Jung and his Big Red Book

A very private press....

 

 

 

 

 

The designs and color (Red) in yesterday's post reminded me of a huge event that recently occurred in the world of books and psychology -- the publication last October of Carl Jung's mythical, long-hidden, self-analytical tour-de-force, the Red Book which he wrote between 1914 and 1930.  Three months later it is in its fifth printing (available from Amazon here).  In the seemingly over-the-top words of the Philemon Foundation, which is dedicated to the publication of the complete works of Jung, "While Jung considered the Red Book, or Liber Novus (New Book) to be the central work in his oeuvre, it has remained unpublished till this day, and unavailable for study and unseen by the public at large. The work can be best described as a work of psychology in a literary and prophetic form. It is possibly the most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology. Its publication is a watershed that inaugurates a new era in the understanding of Jung’s life and work."  

Sounds exciting!  If you want to see the real thing, the Red Book is being exhibited at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan until February 15th, then it travels to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and then goes to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in June.  

I can't help but wonder if Jung was aware of, or inspired by, William Morris and/or his illuminated manuscripts (see this earlier post).

 

The Red Book

A door that makes you never want to leave...

The inside of the entrance door to Red House

It is hard for me to describe how beautiful I find this door (you must click to enlarge).  It is in Red House, a house built and furnished for and by Morris in collaboration with his friend and architect Philip Webb (while they were in their twenties!).  The door captures everything I love about Morris and his art -- how he takes his "formal" wallpaper (in this case Apple) and pairs it with this wacky fun paint job.  Is it medieval? or modern hipster?  It's certainly very cool.  The picture is from a lovely book "William Morris and Red House" by Jan Marsh.