yesterday was my first class at the itami craft center, part of the
museum of arts and crafts in itami, hyogo prefecture, japan. it's a really cool combination of museum, teaching facility, gallery spaces, and even a little shop. all in a compound of buildings that include traditional japanese shophouses-some of which are open just to walk through and see, and some are used as the shop space, where teachers and students at the craft school have work for sale.
i dont know very much about the
city of itami itself, (it's not included in my japan lonely planet) but wikipedia tells us that it was the only city in japan built within a castle (which was since torn down). from my architectural preservation friends, i know that itami also is an example of townscape preservation, which means that historic areas were preserved instead of just isolated buildings. and from my firsthand experience, there are good maps/signage including clear pedestrian access through the city.
the craft center offers a stunning array of craft classes: jewelry-making, spinning and dyeing, feltmaking, etc. i would love to take a spinning class, and one of their seminars about using natural dyes... this is one of the reasons i am excited to take a class there, as it seems like an excellent place to find out about all sorts of crafts and crafty things happening throughout the region. but first, i was excited to get back into ceramics, something i did back in high school, and then also when i was in japan last time (three years ago in yokohama).
the ceramics class was fun, very mellow and laid back, with a distinctive community class feel. there were about 10 students total, a couple other younger people, but mostly middle aged/retirees. the woman across from me was there with her elderly mother, i think they have been enjoying classes there for a while, and they also know the woman next to me, who was hilarious. she was probably in her 50s, and very chatty, with a thick kansai accent. constantly talking about how whatever she was doing wasn't good, and that she didn't want the teacher to see it, but in a totally light-hearted and funny way. there were a couple of older gentlemen, with their aprons (as this is japan, most people had smocks or aprons-one grandpa had a christmas teddybear apron on, which was quite cute) who were quietly making pots. everyone was mostly coil-building on small handwheels. a couple of the older men also were obviously not novices, as one used all his 2 kilos of clay to make a huge vessel, and another threw a piece on the electric wheel. the teacher did a demo of the wheel, and encouraged people to use it for trimming/finishing their coil work. i've done wheel work before, and i'd like to get back into that, but i want to wait a few weeks and not be demanding!
the teacher was really nice, very positive and interesting, and has been to walla walla, washington, as part of some kind of sister city program. there was a moment when i was explaining my situation (i.e., what is the white girl doing in this class, and where is she from?) when everyone was listening, and some discussion of seattle included me having to look up a japanese word that i didn't know, which turned out to be 'slug.' which was funny, because in the guessing game of what it might be, i had guessed 'is it food?' based on the explanation that 'you put salt on it'. but anyway, apparently there's a rumor that there are slugs in seattle that are the size of tiny dogs (!)
a few months ago i started taking a pottery class, which i love. the teacher is great, and she has a tiny studio/shop/classroom which happens to be on my block! today i threw a few pots on the wheel for the first time in years, and although i am very much out of practice, it was wonderful.
i finally wrote about the great cooking lesson i had last month at uzuki over on felt cafe japan.
you can read the full version and see more photos here: http://www.feltcafejapan.com/japanese-cooking/
as i am packing up my belongings, winter is definitely over. the plum trees have been blooming for a few weeks now, and then the peach trees, and if i am lucky, i might see a few cherry blossoms before i leave at the end of march.
last weekend i wound up near aizen kobo an indigo dye workshop/studio/store in an old townhouse in the nishijin textile area of kyoto.
the gobaishi galls 
boiled for an hour in a mesh bag, they turned mushy
into the pot with iron added
the outcome.
last month i did a weaving workshop in kyoto with my mom and my crafty friend rebecca. the nishijin area of kyoto is the textile district, and also the name of a traditional weaving style.
our teacher. 
the workshop was at orinasu-kan, which is housed in a traditional japanese shop house. they have a textile display section, a workshop space, and next door is a working textile factory. unfortunately, you can't take pictures in the factory section, but it was very cool to see how they are using the traditional looms, but updated with electrical and computer technology. (although they showed us a 3.5 floppy disk during the explanation about technology, so i'm not sure how cutting edge it is;-)
a traditional spinning wheel on display in the museum.
we starting by picking colors of silk to use as our weft.
the looms were already warped, so we tried to match the colors.
weaving...
weaving...
woven.
our finished work. it took 2 hours, and i think we all felt like we had just gotten the hang of tossing the shuttle with the right motion/speed when our time was up.
aerial view of our placemats with a baby for scale.
and this one's just for cuteness.
this is the view of ohara kobo, a plant dye workshop in ohara, which is a small town an hour north of kyoto. i was really excited to try their dye course. we stayed overnight at a traditional japanese onsen ryokan, and went here on sunday morning. it was great. the guy spoke some english, and gave us lots of information (more so when we kept asking detailed questions!).
this is the view from their back porch, with dyed cotton hanging.
inside the shop/example area of the workshop, showing all the scarves and colors available.
in the dyeing shed, with the proprietor at the stove. he was a very entertaining fellow.
yarn dyed with loquat, or japanese medlar, or 'biwa' in japanese
madder plant (grown very very locally). in japanese 'akane'.
traditional cotton spinning wheel in use. they grow a small amount of their own cotton.
this is the japanese indigo plant, or polygonum. in japanese, it's called tadeai. ai is indigo as in 'aizome' means indigo dyeing.
this is what it looks like dried. the leaves can be used directly to dye, but this is not really ever done. 
tadeai is fermented in a big bucket. it's really a huge bucket, the size of an oil drum.
and goes into this vat, which is 1 meter deep.
dyeing a silk scarf using oxidation to get a deeper color: one minute in the dye, one minute in the air. *repeat.*
silk scarf
on saturday, i went to pick up my pottery from the class i took earlier this year.
this bowl is my favorite.
but i like these two wee cups too.
it's walkable from the kyoto train station, 15 minutes due west.
when you get to this pedestrian overpass, you are half way there. take the stairs that veer to the right, and when you go down on the other side of the street, walk to right of the school and continue west.
here's a view from the inside of the kyoto train station, looking down on the mister donuts and cafe du monde open air food court. i was on my way up to the excellent tourist info center on the 9th floor. i was doing research about what kinds of traditional craft classes i can try out with my mom when she comes to visit in june. and there are tons! i'm very excited (and i hope mom is too) to try indigo dying, traditional weaving, and wax resist printing, just to name a few.
then, i walked past this shop, sisam, which has fair trade products, including these cool felt cushions.
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