Takayama

I just remembered that I started a blog over a year ago. I've made many BibaBoxes in the meantime and forgot to post photos of those as well. However, here are a few recent ones that I want to share with my readers. These boxes are currently on display and available for purchase at Cafe Selmarie.

Recently, Mr. H. who restores precious asian screens and scrolls, gave me some of the scraps of silk brocades that he no longer needs. He travels to Japan frequently to purchase supplies and the kind of silk that he uses for his restorations are very expensive - you can't just get them at the local Joanne Fabrics. So when he offered me a shopping bag full of about a dozen different patterns, I felt as if I had won the lottery. These richly textured and colored fabrics are delicate yet strong and Mr. H. mounts the fabrics onto white rice paper which gives them great structure. This makes it very easy for me to cut them into pieces to fit exactly  into the interior of the drawers and the result is neat and very elegant. You will love keeping your own beloved small treasures in such beautiful surroundings.

I am now running dangerously low on the round ring style door handles that I like to use on the smaller drawers. I see a trip to Japan in spring perhaps. Any excuse to go to the country I love so much. A few years ago when Joe and I visited, we spent a few days in Takayama, a beautiful mountainous area in Gifu Prefecture. It was only early October but already much colder there than in Anjo, our hometown near Nagoya. Everywhere we went, I kept my eyes open for the small black iron hardware handles that I needed for my boxes but hadn't found back in Nagoya. Then, one evening as we were walking quickly on our way to a well known sukiyaki restaurant, huddled together against the cold wind blowing through our inadequate jackets, we passed  a small shop with old sliding glass doors set in wood frames that rattled in that familiar way that all sliding glass doors do in Japan. There was no sign in front and I could see an assortment of stuff - clothes lines, tools, boxes of detergents, shelves lining the narrow aisles. We had stumbled upon the japanese version of an old country True Value hardware store! The kind where there is an old man left running it, whose kids are gone and working at a career, and for sure there is a dog somewhere in the back. We went in and Joe explained what I was looking for. The portable gas stove set on the stone floor gave off a warm orange glow and I held my frozen gloveless hands close to the top.  My hopes of finding my door handles here dwindled moment by moment because the old shopkeeper was very quiet, terse, not so friendly and not interested at all in the foreign lady in his shop. Apparently his attitude was more annoyance than appreciation of a potential sale. However, before Joe had finished describing what we wanted, the old gentleman had already moved to a section behind the dusty wooden counter, opened a long wooden drawer in an ancient cabinet and offered exactly the kind of door handles I was searching for. He had several varieties in varying sizes. I could not believe it; it was like seeing the rubies and pearls spill out of a treasure chest in a fairy tale, and furthermore, the price was incredibly cheap, like in any other small, out-of-the-way, fading-in-the-sunset hardware store here in the states. When I bought over a hundred dollars' worth of hardware weighing about 8 lbs., the man's attitude thawed a bit and finally he seemed a little satisfied that at the end of a long day, his cash register was a little fuller. We went to dinner and strategically placed the paper wrapped bundle on an empty chair, on top of my jacket, so that we would not forget it, and over the best sukiyaki dinner I have ever had, we talked and laughed about our good luck in Takayama.