Like A Chinese Painting
Like A Chinese Painting
The slivery moon.
Adventures in iPhone 14 land. I decided to test the largest sensor which is 48 MB and yields a basic file of 75MB. Snapseed was not happy so I moved it directly from storage to OnOne.
That worked. OnOne is located on my main machine and it could handle a large basic file size.
For some reason the file looked like it had little strings in it. I could not repair it using every…
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fiber art adventures in egypt
I recently got back from a trip to Egypt & finally got around to organizing some pictures to share. One of the things I was most excited about was seeing what I could find on fiber arts and textiles.
Dropping everything under a read more, 'cause this will be a long post haha
first visit: the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC)
At the time of visiting, they had a special textiles exhibit. It covered Pharonic Egypt all the way up to modern times, although I only had time to check out the dynastic & a bit of the Coptic portion of the exhibit (which was what I was really hoping to see anyways)
Was super excited to see this diorama in person. I knew about it but had never seen good pictures of it. From the little I've seen of ancient Egyptian spinning, spinning with two spindles seems to be the norm rather than a master technique? It also shows up in tomb art, which the exhibit also shared:
They also used a different fiber preparation (splicing to create a rove of fiber, no traditional drafting to my understanding) so that probably made a difference? Regardless I really want to see if I can replicate the technique, especially because their spindles look so similar to modern spindles??
I took so many pictures of spindles, guys, and I fully intend to either have a few replicas made or to learn to make some myself. Also, although they were unlabeled... I'm pretty sure those are beaters for weaving? That was a bit of a trend with this trip, so much stuff was unlabeled :( I would've killed to at least get some date estimates for some of the stuff they had on display. I was nerding out in here though, and my family took a few pictures of how excited I was getting. A bit embarrassing, but eh haha
The exhibit also had a section on natural dyes used with a fun visual;
There was several diagrams specifically describing each dye source, but in the interest of not overloading on pictures I'll just list them out. For blues; woad, Yellows; turmeric, safflower, saffron, or yellow ochre; reds; madder, henna, pomegranate, and kermes. I originally thought kermes was another way to say cochineal, but it only seems to be distantly related.
next visit: Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center
A small art center dedicated to hand-weaving wool and cotton tapestries. All of their work was museum quality & awe inspiring!!
Was even invited to their back rooms to watch a few of their weavers working; no I don't have room to put a room-sized loom anywhere but heck do I want one now
Our guide that took us through talked a bit about the natural dyes they use (all of their dyes are dyed in house with what they grow in their dye garden!!!) and got excited to hear I was also interested in natural dyes! He seemed a bit disappointed I'd never worked with indigo and. while indigo scares me, I'll take it as a sign that maybe I should try some time this year haha.
final visit; the Egyptian Museum
we really had to rush through this one which was a huge shame because it's packed full of artifacts. Also, the lighting in there is atrocious, so apologies for the not great pictures ahead.
They had a fascinating display of textile tools, more than what the NMEC had;
(Hand for size reference) I want all of these spindles! So badly! But a few of them look so much like a few of the spindles I own already?? A few of them had a spiraling notch, that's so cool? But also, what's going on with the one with two whorls? I have no idea. I'm fascinated.
Look at these whorls!! Although again, I'm a bit confused; the lack of labeling strikes again. Unsure why some of these "whorls" have two holes, or what the metal object with the wooden handle is. The display implies sewing needles, and some of them do look like it, but others.... really don't look like sewing needles. I'm absolutely enchanted by this little whorl though. I think it has birds on it?
More objects that I'm baffled by- the signage doesn't really indicate what some of this stuff is, if it's even known. Also confused by the object wrapped in white string in the right pic; it looks like a distaff but to the best of my knowledge the (ancient at least) Egyptians didn't use distaffs. It probably popped up in later times and was put in this display since it was still relevant, but I'm still not sure.
I have so many more pictures & thoughts but I'll save those for more specific future projects. I've been doing research outside this trip on ancient Egyptian spinning techniques and desperately want to go deeper into that, this trip just solidified how excited it makes me. If you made it all the way through this, many thanks for reading!
Bonus; look at this ancient linen 🥺
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thinking about "you have a life" / "i don't know what i have" + "what do you want, dana?" / "i want everything that i should want at this time of my life" + the perceived shame in scully's loss of normalcy... "unlike you, mulder, i would like to have a life" + "do you believe in the afterlife?" / "i'd settle for a life in this one" + "don't you ever want to just stop? get out of the damn car? settle down and live something approaching a normal life?"
her friend ellen saying, "well, first you have to get a life." tara, pregnant with their christmas gift, saying that life before one grew inside her was "somehow...less, just a prelude," while barren dana cries in the kitchen. "i know you and dad were...disappointed...that i chose the path that i'm on."
thinking about how mulder said, "this is a normal life," and how she smiled. (he doesn't know any different). how, in the end, he said, "hey, scully? i know it's not your normal life, but thanks for coming out there with me."
(christmas before quantico, "i guess i'm afraid of making a big mistake. dad thinks i am." and missy's response: "it's not his life, dana.")
her application to adopt emily was rejected: "you're a single woman who's never been married or had a long-term relationship. you're in a high stress, time intensive, and dangerous occupation."
bill's reaction: "sounds like something your partner would say. this isn't about any little girl, dana. this is about you. it's about some...void, some emptiness inside you that you're trying to fill."
and mulder to the judge: "the fact that she can adopt this child, her own flesh and blood, is something i don't feel i have the right to question, and i don't believe anyone has the right to stand in the way of."
(that last christmas with missy before everything: "there is no right or wrong. life is just a path...just don't mistake the path for what is really important in life. the people you're going to meet along the way. you don't know who you're going to meet when you join the FBI. you don't know how your life is going to change, or how you're going to change the life of others.")
and ultimately, it all leads to a leather couch. and after contemplating that sacrifice of normalcy, what she should want, the decisions she could have made, she says, "i once considered spending my whole life with this man...what i would have missed."
she could've been a doctor, like her father wanted. she could've settled down, married waterston, had a normal life, like her friends and brother wanted. but what would she have missed?
"what if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong?" / "and all the...choices would then lead to this very moment. one wrong turn, and...we wouldn't be sitting here together."
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