Beautility

The potter Toyozo Arakawa, in the first part of National Geographic's "Living Treasures of Japan" (1980). Starts at 2 minutes in, but for context you should watch it from the beginning. PBS aired this on an amazing "Japan week" in 1980 and I've never forgotten it. 

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Flight of the Lozenges

In World War I, while the British were busy developing the "Dazzle" and "Splinter" camouflage prints, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians were designing the equally brilliant and crazy "Lozenge" patterns, made up of colorful elongated polygons. Printed on 4 foot wide fabric, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the colors were worked out, except possibly the fancy of the pilots.
The scans above are from Kenneth Munson's Fighters 1914-19 (part of a brilliant series on wartime aircraft, and found in my dad's barn- Happy Father's Day Dad!), When I first saw the illustrations I thought the planes were painted just like that- before I realized that one side was the view above, the other side the view from below. But as it happens, there were the inevitable battle-damage field repairs made, and if the plane's original fabric wasn't around, the pilots would use whatever was at hand, often times creating a wildly patched, boro look (which could be similar to the illustrations). As amazing and revolutionary as the Lozenge (and Dazzle) camouflages were, they were sadly and puzzlingly around only for the First World War. Maybe the lozenge didn't work? Certainly with all the other colors and insignias on the airplanes the lozenge wasn't able to do a fair job, but it did look awesome.

related: a Lozenge hat-tip in the selective facet-filtering of secretive European buildings

An interesting note about the colors- "the greatest [wartime] shortage, incidentally, was of good, red-pigmented materials, and explains why the use of red at this time was such a mark of the 'ace'. Only pilots of particular eminence could command the priority for materials in such short supply."

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Boro Sweet Boro

With a little help from us Urban Outfitters has boro'd the Japanese Boro Jean Quilt project from our book and made it into a cool hippie wall hanging. "Boro" is Japanese for rags, and is most often used in reference to the resourcefully mended, endlessly repaired indigo cotton futon covers of the farmers and fishers of Northern Japan. (See much more info here, and here was our primary source of inspiration during the original project). Our quilt version was made from salvaged old jeans.

Although Urban's is a slightly smaller size quilt it would also make a cool dog bed or a kind of tami mat or boro blankie for a kid.

The plum blossom-y peasant print on the back fabric (above) was also designed by us.
The middle photo is the Urban's sample, on top of our larger original, as it came to us to be okayed. The top photo is a spread from our book, taken near Linda's parents' house Long Island, Maine. The old hippie anthropomorphic shack being a "sweet home" ;-)




Home Sweet Home by Wary Meyers Denim Wall Art at Urban Outfitters

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Textiles

Click to enlarge each of these.

top: From a yard sale last weekend, 6'x5' wool patchwork blanket, backed in wool. The woman told us "a girl made it for my husband back in the 70's". It's in perfect condition- probably taken from the back seat of the Volvo wagon directly into storage. She said she'd take the 4 dollars and buy herself a martini.

Middle: Fantastic 8' Turkish runner from an estate sale. The edges are frayed but they can be trimmed and fringe added back on.

Bottom: From the 30's, an awesome crazy-quilting patchwork of denim and twills, with a few odd-shaped pieces within each square. 

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Beautility

1970's Sweet-Orr jeans from an estate sale in Connecticut a few years ago. Lovingly and Bohemianly embroidered with flowers, a rainbow, "Catherine" (Cat) and the Yes and Chicago logos, all boro-ed on for jean-life-extension. A near perfect object, with personalization, signs of use, and the golden hat trick of  hippie handicraft, typography, and utility. 

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