Ayako Miyawaki Crab

Photo Credits: Catalog Published by the Asahi Shimbun and the National Museum of Women in the Arts for the 1991 exhibition:  "Ayako Miyawaki-- The Art of Japanese Applique"

Ayako Miyawaki: Sea Creatures and Cicada on fans

Photo credits: Catalog published by the Asahi Shimbun and the National Museum of Women in the Arts for the 1991 exhibition: "Ayako Miyawaki, the Art of Japanese Applique"

Ayako Miyawaki Applique and Medieval Italian Ironwork

Two images which have been on my mind lately-- applique done in 1986 by the artist Ayako Miyawaki, and ironwork from the 14th c Tomb of Cansigniorio, Verona.
The similarity is in the shapes.  I don't know the inspiration for the ironwork, but the Miyawaki is called "Burdocks", which is a thistle of many varieties that grows wild in Japan and, as it turns out, here in Texas as well. In fact, they take over the pastures behind our house every spring, growing as tall as 4'.  Even though it's everywhere, I had no idea what the plant was called until I looked it up for this post.
No coincidence that I'm attracted to the familiarity of a form I see every day-- even when it appears in two such diverse works of art.

















































I love, love the detail of the Miyawaki-- the overlapping shapes and patterns, and the irregular stitching on the stem...... and of course the color.
The ironwork has a rough, flat, uneven quality which is charming, and how about those little ladders in the center of each clover? Possibly a reference to death, transcendence, heaven, what-will- happen-to-my-soul? Very medieval Christianity.  In any case, I find them whimsical, which may not exactly have been the intention.

Ayako Miyawaki: Radishes+ onions = state of mind?

When I saw these images they immediately seemed familiar, in that they characterize different ways ideas formulate in my mind. The radishes (top) spring from a single point, branching into dendrites upward and outward. The onions are made of complex patterns contained within a whole. The co-existence of these two ways of thinking resonates strongly for me, not only in my mind, but also in the actual physical environment of my daily life:

http://kdokosart.blogspot.com/2009/01/room-of-ones-own.html

These textiles are by a Japanese artist named Ayako Miyawaki. They are from a catalog of an exhibition of her work in 1991 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.

The first work is "Hinona Radishes" 1978, the second is called "Purple Onions" 1966.