Welcome to Japan – Cherry Blossom Wrap

Textile Artist Ulla Melchiorsen Requested in Japan.

Dear readers you are accordingly invited to be part of the official opening of Cherry Blossom Textile Exhibition in Osaka. If you like to see the invitation or download and print the poster please click this link for details. For those of you who can’t make it to Japan please have a read of this interesting article.

Heading off to Japan for the Cherry Blossom Season I am all excited buying a new suitcase and thought to myself now what to bring for this festive season. Knowing it will still be cool compared to the hot and sometimes humid tropics of Mareeba I thought I better get cracking and make a Cherry Blossom Wrap. My friends have by now high expectations as to what I create especially after some of them spotted an article in a Japanese newspaper about my latest creation the Olga Brolga Wrap not to mention that this very same wrap was featured on the front page of Time. For those of you not quite familiar with Olga Brolga Wrap please click this link.

Springtime in Japan is identical to the arrival of blooms blanketing the nation with various shades of White and Pink. These famous cherry blossoms draw in crowds from all over the world. It is awesome. I love Pink. Pink is my favourite colour together with heaps others. Pink is for the girls. Pink is sweet. Pink is the colour of the heart hanging out for adventure. So here I am off to Japan just in time for some blossom. I also love the Pink Tulip tree they are also called Campbell’s Magnolia. I take time to smell the roses and I just love Pink roses. I saw Pink flamingos in South America up high in the Mountains of the Andes crossing from Chile to Argentina travelling the Atacama Desert. The Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world! It is huge and it is awesome. It is mind boggling how such a place can be so dead! Not an insect on the windscreen. Not one spider poop on your ice cream. Not even one kicking cockroach in my salad like the one at the expensive restaurant in Siem Reap in Cambodia. No life at all. Not even an earthworm and you wonder how this can be! I also like the colour Peach and Salmon coloured underwear. Pink is also called Rose or Rosa in Europe where I come from. How confusing is that!

Amazingly I only just bought the plane ticket on line and booked a hotel room in down town Osaka when I got this phone call from some arty fart society in Japan. A young female voice told me in a rather demanding voice to bring my latest textile inventions as she knew that my work would go just perfectly well with the blossom of the cherry trees. Not every day you get such a phone call!

Imagine this if you can! “The rhubarb season is here please bring you summer bra collection for the longest cat walk in the southern atmosphere. I thought that was funny too! And I made it up myself! For those of you who don’t know the atmosphere I was meant to write hemisphere. I was actually there when the event was unfolding in New Zealand in 2015. New Zealand’s longest Catwalk presented by Schwarzkopf! Now who is that? The event involved a 125 m catwalk 40 models, 44 designers and 300 garments. I wonder what the fashion designers will do when the asparagus are in season!

On the other hand the world’s longest catwalk took place in Hong Kong. It made news in the Guinness World of records. I am not planning on any walk, bush, and cat or dog I just want to make it to Japan with my Cherry Blossom Textile Collection and be happy. I think a catwalk with only one garment and two miles to walk will be rather exhausting and boring at the same time. However the catwalk in Hong Kong was the collaboration between the Danish Fashion Institute (where I was enrolled by my dear Mother (in her dreams that was) in 1975 but I escaped the institute during a dark night of a fierce ice winter) and the Hong Kong Fashion Designer’s Association. 343 models participated and it took them on average 45 minutes to walk the entire length of the bright and you aren’t going to believe this the carpet for the catwalk was Pink!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My installation for Japan is all about Pink and the White colour to balance.

Did you know that any Pink gemstones will fit into any of your pockets no matter how small? I never travel anywhere without Rose Quarts. They guide me, relax, soothe my mind and calm me down in any six lane intersection no matter what country in the world. I loved Grandma’s Pink Rhododendrons. They were so pretty and the bushes so big that it made a perfect hiding place for me in my young days when I was a very much wanted person for all sort of trouble. This is also where I was hiding after my successful escape from the Danish Fashion Institute. My Mother did not know about the Rhododendrons. If she did she would have dragged me out and send me back to the designer school. I left the Rhododendrons early one morning before the fairies went for their morning leak. I decided that working with kids would be my future and so I went for an interview at a child care centre. I started work immediately. I loved the kids they loved me. My best thing was to make up stories at their rest time. The monsters (read kids) never got to have a rest. My stories were like nightmares to them. My stories kept them awake. I did really well and was absolutely popular in particular amongst their parents!

The more you think about Pink the more images will pop into your mind such as Pink Cadillac, Marilyn Monroe, fairies and the Pink edible hibiscus called Cranberry. I love Cranberry it looks so beautiful in a tossed salad. Pink Dahlia and Pink Hyacinth. My grandma had heaps of these flower bulbs in her cupboard over winter and she put them out in the garden when she knew the last frost was gone. I loved the smell of them and also the White lily-of-the-valley. I remember reading somewhere in my Book of Shadows that this plant is deadly. Pink salmon is so nice you should look up a recipe and indulge in the mystery of the deep ocean.

Venus rules Pink stones. They are receptive, packed with loving vibrations. They are calming, soothing and are used to relax the physical body as well as the mind. Pink stones promote peace, happiness, joy and laughter. The energy of Venus is all about harmony, beauty and balance. It is about our feelings and affections, our urge to sympathize and unite with others. It is our desire for pleasure, sensuality, personal possessions, comfort and ease. Venus rules the throat, kidneys, thymus gland, sense of touch and the ovaries.  Venus is the ruling planet of Taurus and Libra. It orbits the Sun in 225 days spending about 18.75 days in each zodiac sign. She is just so awesome and Venus is an inner planet. Plants ruled by Venus bring joy, beauty, artistry, sensitivity and compassion. I just fit in so well with Venus. I better check my horoscope. I asked my friend Maria to model my Cherry Blossom Wrap. Here she is. She is remarkable.

White is all colours in perfect balance and harmony. It is a combination of all the colours of the Rainbow and has the quality of each. It is the colour of the awakened Spirit, the light of perfection, the Divine Light, pure honest and new. Directing white into the aura helps stimulate the person’s own divine nature into healing the self. White is the highest colour, transcending the physical. It is the reflector, the protector. It is strengthening, very cleansing and purifying to the entire energy system. It can awaken creativity. Just have a look at my Cherry Blossom Wrap it has a lot of White.

White makes me think of a snow covered mountain landscape in Norway where I use to go cross country skiing in winter taking time to build a snowman. It also brings up memories of Shell Beach in Western Australia. I think of chalk and see heaps of White peace doves fluttering around. Put your thinking cap on and let your imagination go berserk with the colour of Pink and White.

White is ruled by the Moon and linked with sleep and psychic work. That’s why I was so tired once I finished the wrap. White promotes good fortune. Moon is the feminine aspect. The Moon phrases symbolize immortality and eternity, enlightenment or, conversely, the darker side of nature and soul. It may also reflect the inner knowledge or stages of the man’s life on earth, because it controls the tides, the rain and the seasons.

The energy of the Moon is all about our emotions, unconscious habits, rhythms, memories and moods. It is The Mother, maternal instincts, the urge to nurture.  Moon is about our home, our need for security, the past and early experiences and childhood. Yeah, tell me about it! The Moon rules the stomach, digestive system, female organs and the lymphatic system. Moon is the ruling planet of Cancer and is exalted in Taurus. The Moon orbits the Earth in 27.32 days spending 2.33 days in each sign of the zodiac. She is a busy inner planet. Plants ruled by the Moon affect our subconscious mind and aid in the development of intuition.

The Moon rules White stones. They are receptive and used for sleep and psychic power. Used for protection after dark. Because they contain all colours, they can be charged to act as substitutes for stones of any colour. That is so cool! Guess what!  I just got another phone call from the arty fart society in Japan. I gave them a preview of my installation yesterday and the Japanese government has been contacted and they are going to change the colour of their flag which is officially called Nisshoki, but is commonly known as Hi no maru. Their flag is a rectangular white banner with a crimson red disc at its centre. It embodies the country’s sobriquet: Land of the Rising Sun. They will now change the crimson red disc to – you aren’t going to believe this however have a guess – to a Pink disc symbolising the entire nation’s flowering cherry trees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes and they will have their new flag fluttering in the breeze at Kansai International Airport on my arrival on the 6th April 2018. Now you see why it is so important to be creative and travel the world and make impressions and be impressed yourself by what you experience. I wish you all a happy journey through life whichever path you choose.

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