Kirigami - Cut Paper Art

Today's topic is Kirigami - the art of cut paper. Unlike Origami, which is primarily folding, Kirigami involves both folding and cutting. There are some really awesome/intricate kirigami designs out there, but here is one really simple (but still cool!) design that I often do with scrap paper when I'm bored! 

It's basically like those snowflakes we all made in elementary school, in that you fold a square diagonally over and over again, and cut designs in it. You can make the lines as big or small as you want, and the smaller you do it, the longer the final product is (I ended up with something from printer paper that hangs about 5ft from my ceiling). The hardest part is gently peeling the layers apart.

Part of my ceiling.. It started as a creative use of my (pink) electricity bill. Haha.
Third one was made using random wavy cuts and unfolding in an interesting way!

Try mixing it up with wavy shapes and such, too! The only rule in this case is that the line must come from one side, and can't touch the other, but you can do S/U-shapes all you like.



Language Notes!~
Kirigami (切り紙）
切る (kiru) - Verb meaning "to cut"
紙 (kami) - Noun meaning "paper"

Origami (折り紙)
折る (oru) - Verb meaning "to fold"
紙 (kami) - Noun meaning "paper"

UH Japanese Club Ramen Party!

Not sure why there are black lines, but anyway! 

Come join us for our ramen party. More information and RSVP here! 

Japanese Rice Field Paintings

Rice field paintings! Leave it to the Japanese to even take their crop-growing to an artistic level. Every year, a group of people in Inakadate, Japan get together to lay out an image design in the field. Then, they spread out various types of rice and wait. There are some pretty neat examples out there, as they've done it several years in a row. 

Here are a couple of my favourites:

Here's a time-lapse video of the rice being planted and growing:

All images and the video were retrieved from pinktentacle.com. They are licensed under Creative Commons 3.0.

Kintsugi - Patching with Gold

Today's Japanese craft is called kintsugi (金継ぎ). The word itself can be broken up like this:

金 - Kin means gold
継ぎ - Tsugi means patch

As the name implies, kintsugi is essentially patching (ceramics) with gold. The concept came around in the 1400s when a nobleman broke a cup and sent it to China to be repaired. It was returned repaired with metal staples, as was standard at the time. However, the owner disliked the appearance of it and hired Japanese craftsmen to take on the task of making it more aesthetically pleasing. They came up kintsugi, which involved sealing the cracks with a lacquer and gold powder mixture. This not only emphasized and beautified the breakage, it often encouraged people to more frequently "accidentally" break their pottery!

Below is a short video about kintsugi craftsmen:

And here is a picture of something I made a couple years back in a ceramics class.. Parts of it were inspired by kintsugi - some legs broke off by accident, some were on purpose, and I thought this would be perfect for it - though I didn't use lacquer. I used metallic acrylic paint, wire, and metal sheets!

Hunting for Japanese Craft Stores

I've been to Japan twice. On my last trip, I made it my goal to seek out craft stores.. I had searched everywhere online for the many tiny/adorable supplies that country has to offer, and had the hardest time finding websites that would ship things to the US without insane fees (but that's mostly because of Japan's terrible shipping cost). SO, this time I was determined to find a craft store or two to visit and buy everything.

Specific shops are kind of hard to find in Japan.. Most stores are kind of like variety shops, plus everything is crowded and hidden in tall/narrow buildings, and none of the Japanese people I know could think of a craft-specific store. I did end up finding a couple of craft places on Google maps, but in the end, the two big places I went to were places that I happened upon from pure luck and exploration.

The first place I went to.. Well, the name escapes me.. But it took up a large portion of the basement in the Kyoto Tower. We discovered this by roaming around the shops in the Kyoto station and wandering down a hallway that had a downstairs (because we were starving and a sign said there were restaurants, which we didn't find).. It wasn't until later that we put together the fact that we were a) in the Kyoto tower basement, and b) that it was connected to the station, which was huuuge..

The pink shows the underground parts of Kyoto station.. A/B is the location of the tower.
It's a lie! This station is even bigger!!

The second place I went to was in Nagoya. This one was called Craft Heart Tokai. Also discovered "by accident," in a hallway of girly shops next to Kanayama station. I ended up going here every day while I was in Nagoya, just to marvel over the things and how much I wish I could have bought. It's amazing how fast they change out the products on a day-to-day basis in Japan!

My fave craft store is here. :]

So now that I've overloaded you with text, I'll show you some pictures from inside that second store that I visited four days in a row. Consider these to be reasons why you should go to a Japanese craft store!

One of the decoden aisles.. Tiny fake sweets, gems, moulds, clays, etc.

Sewing notions as far as the eye can seeeee.. Thin sliding layers to get more things in.

So many cute fat quarters.

Tons of pre-packed crafts for nearly everything they had - beading, sewing, crochet, felting, etc.

Purse/wallet handles..

Some cute felt figures to sew onto things.. And every colour of felt in huge bags that are way cheaper than those in US craft stores..

And of course, cute things with unfortunate names! Yay, Engrish!