Kubota tsujigahana kimonos

Today after church I drove down to Canton to see an exhibit of "Kimono As Art" at their art museum. I got a tad lost en route there, going west instead of east and ending up in Massillon as a result, but after stopping at a gas station to ask directions, I realized my error and was able to find the place quickly enough. Well, when I bought my ticket to the exhibit, it was one of those "timed" ones where you have to go in with others in your same time group. I'd really rather see an exhibit at my own leisure, which is why I hurried down to the museum in the first place because today is the final day of the exhibition. But oh, well, the museum staff urged us to see a short video in their auditorium beforehand and it was good that I did, because it gave a lot of background into the style of kimono art on exhibit, "tsujigahana", which was popular in Japan several centuries ago, but died out, and the artist whose work was on display, Ichiko Kubota, spent years researching it and trying to recreate it. After several decades of experimentation, he was ultimately successful and created these fabulous kimono-as-art pieces that are stunning and will take your breath away. Some are individual pieces but there is one set called "Symphony of Light" which are a set of kimonos that are one big work of art that go from piece to piece continuously showing the changing of the seasons. Stunning. Amazing. Absolutely gorgeous. I wish I'd had more time to view them, but given the large crowds there today to see the final day of the exhibit, it was hard to spend any real time looking at the work and reading the description of the art without holding up the line behind me. Still, I did get a good long look at the work and found it to be absolutely amazing, like nothing I've ever seen. I so adore beautiful things and things that are connected to nature (it's the Taurus in me!) and these kimonos that were inspired by scenes of nature spoke to me and awed me with their stunning designs. Pictures do no real justice to these works - you have to see them up close and in person to fully appreciate the complexity of tsujigahana. It's a mind bogglingly complex process to create each kimono and apparently Master Kubota took a year to create each work. He'd hoped to live long enough to finish his "Symphony of Light", which he says in the film would take until he's 100 years old to complete and he's fully confident that he'll live long enough to see it finished, but sadly, Kubota died on April 26, 2003 at age 85. His son and artistic heir, Satoshi, hopes to have the work finished eventually. I look forward to seeing future Kubota works someday. Maybe they will come back to these shores and be put back on exhibit someplace where I can see them locally. Until then, I guess I can try to imagine what they will look like.

SOMETHING ELSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND
I often find myself frustrated by how little I know about a whole lot of stuff. And this past week found me struggling to understand why people take their own lives. What prompted this was the tragic suicide of a 16 year old from a family I knew in my youth from Catholic school. Then I found out yesterday that someone I knew from work - not well, but well enough to chat with on occasion when I'd see her - also ended her life the day after the 16 year old. She had apparently suffered from severe depression over the death of her son from cancer a few years ago and never really quite recovered from that. What I fail to understand is what causes people to feel so depressed that they feel that they've got no other choice but to end it. There is counseling, there's medication, there are support groups for various types of grief and depression....there are plenty of resources, so I struggle to understand why people either don't take advantage of what's available or, if they do, find it not to be useful for the type of situation in which they find themselves. I mean, the way I see things, there's always another day when things will get better. No matter how bad things have ever gotten for me, I can see ahead to when things will get better, because I refuse to be down for too long. I haven't got the time or the emotional energy for that to happen. But that's my approach to life. There's so much to live for that I cannot possibly imagine ever wanting to end my life by my own hand. Even simple things like a sunny day improve my mood considerably. But again, that's me. I guess why some people do end their lives is that they are in such pain that they can no longer bear to go on, not even one more day. But given the resources out there to deal with suicidal feelings, I just wonder to myself - did those folks take advantage of what's out there, or did they just decide to forgo that and end it without trying to find ways to get past their feelings of despair? I just wish I understood all this. It saddens me so much that people end their lives when there are resources to help them to heal from their pain and live full and happy lives.