scarce to be counted, filling the darkess with order and light

More than a year ago I was working on a smocking project.  I then abandoned it as I prepared (ever so slowly) to leave Japan.  I didn't finish it till I was back in the States, but it turned out quite nicely. Here's the finished product.

I mentioned that this scarf was as close to a sampler as I get, meaning it was a practice run at smocking for a future project.  I used smocking for a dress interpretation of Mucha's The Moon for the Shimane JET's "Japan Through Foreign Eyes" art exhibit. I have to admit, stars are a common theme for me in this show. The year prior I featured a painting expressing the magic of swimming at night among bioluminescent plankton, an experience I will never forget.

The reason I chose to do a portrayal of one of Mucha's star paintings was because I wanted to share on of my favorite things in my town, the starry sky at night.  The theme for the exhibit is always "Japan through foreign eyes" and even being a rural New England native, I've never seen a brighter sky than the summer sky in Misato.  On warm summer evenings I'd walk out on the river path behind the school and lay down in the middle of it.  The pavement was always warm from 

 soaking up the sun during the day. So laying down with my back warmed, listening to the river flowing in the blackness, I could stare up at the sky and see the hazy river of the Milky Way running across the sky, and always a few shooting stars burning up as they enter the atmosphere.  


Seeing such a beautiful sky always took my breath away. It always made me feel incredibly insignificant, such a tiny life on a tiny rock, but it also made me feel so connected to see the Universe we're a part of.  And always so humbled, that such a tiny life on a tiny rock is known and loved by the God who created it all. Living in Japan was an incredible experience, but it was sometimes a little lonely. Stargazing was an experience I would have loved to share with someone, but it's probably best I didn't as I usually ended up humming or singing Stars from Les Miserables which would have become annoying very quickly as I didn't know all the words and sort of looped through it again and again.

smocked torso of underdress

So I made a dress to try to share that experience. It was actually two pieces, first an underdress made of navy knit jersey, smocked to be form fitting. The second piece was an aquamarine shell embroidered with circles of stars that buttons to the underdress.

Making the dressed turned out to be easier than displaying it. I bought a cheap wig and styrofoam head from the 100 yen store that I styled to resemble the painting.  The best part was making the display dress form. I took some newspaper, taped it together to make it larger, then cut a hole in the center and put it over my head. Then I had two friends wrap me up in more than two rolls of black duct tape.  They then carefully cut me out of the duct tape form. We repaired the cuts, covered the bottom and filled it with crumpled newspaper, lastly inserting and taping in the foam head. Even made of just tape and paper, it was pretty heavy. In order to hang it I taped in some bent wire but the weight of the form kept wanting to pull out the wire, so I had to keep checking to make sure it wouldn't fall.