#cherry blossom

Pagoda in Spring

by Keisui

Hayashi Waichi, Cherry Blossoms at Night (1980)

Japanese Blue
In this 18K yellow gold Art Deco ring from 1930, an openwork frame of 34 brilliant cut diamonds set in a platinum Oriental ornamental pattern centres a marvellous oval cut sapphire. The gold base with little leaflet engravings makes you imagine yourself to be cherished by your darling among the cherry blossoms of a secret and secluded Japanese garden.

Sakura Top

My favorite plants

“Bunny Blossom”
digital, 2005

The second image in our “Seasons of the Rabbit” series.  This image popped into Dan’s head as a follow up to “Uprisings” once it was apparent that people really liked that image. Unlike “Uprisings” which a very direct homage to a specific work by a specific artist, “Bunny Blossom” was more just evocative of a classic type of Japanese image common in woodblock print, featuring some flowering branches in an interesting composition (often the ukiyo-e masters would include birds on the branches, but Dan decided not do so in this piece). Dan continued the theme of turning one natural element (this time the cherry blossoms) into rabbits.

One thing of note is that this piece was originally made longer for the long sold out archival limited edition print, but in order to make the poster a similar spect ratio to the “Uprisings” poster we cropped the bottom off the image for the poster release (which can be purchased HERE).

I think it’s really courageous to go after the life you want to live! Even if it takes effort and hard work, I think it’s always worth it to fight for what you truly want.

I’ll be at the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown this weekend 4/16 and 4/17! I’ll post my table location on my Instagram Stories tomorrow- feel free to stop by if you’re in the area!

Chibird store|Positive pin club|Webtoon

Glorious sanpogi* with romantic fuji (wisteria) pattern, paired with a sakura/cherry blossoms and botan/peony in a basket obi in matching tones.

*Sanpogi (lit. ”stroll outfit”) are beautiful kimono featuring all over paterns (much like komon) + mirror designs details on skirt flaps. Those fashionable day dress were briefly in fashion in Kansai pre wwii. They are amazing kimono and I need this fashion back so much!

Antique sanpogi* with all over sakura (cherry blossoms) with just the best use of color details for skirt pattern. OP paired it with an antique obi depicting tachibana (citrus) with auspicious patterns, and a minimalist haori with huge sakura petals.

*Sanpogi (lit. ”stroll outfit”) are beautiful kimono featuring all over paterns (much like komon) + mirror designs details on skirt flaps. Those fashionable day dress were briefly in fashion in Kansai pre wwii. They are amazing kimono and I need this fashion back so much!

New post on Gastronomista.com: my recipe for a Cherry Blossom Highball, a perfect spring whiskey cocktail inspired by my recent trip to Japan.  Enjoy!

http://www.gastronomista.com/2017/03/cherry-blossom-highball.html

2017.04.27

2017.04.25

adventuresofalgy:

On Easter Monday - as though they were in Scotland and not on the magical Easter Island - the Easter bunny invited Algy to indulge in a wee spot of pace egging, but as they didn’t have a sloping hillside handy, they had to roll their eggs on the flat grass…

When indulging in the activity of pace egging it is traditional to sing an old folk song, and indeed to beg for some money, eggs, or beer, but as neither Algy nor the Easter bunny have very good singing voices, and they don’t much care for beer, they decided to leave the singing to those better qualified…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dY1zbmVsCg

Here’s one two three jolly lads all in one mind,
We have come a pace egging and we hope you’ll prove kind;
And we hope you’ll prove kind, with your eggs and strong beer,
And we’ll come no more nigh you until the next year.

Happy Spring and Happy Easter to you all

[Note: the word pace in this context has nothing to do with speed, but is an old English version of the Latin word for Easter - Pascha]

While Algy was chatting with the little green dragon among the Easter cherry blossom, he told his odd wee friend many stories of his adventures on the mysterious Easter Island, where he had found himself this time last year, and it occurred to him that perhaps some of his new friends might like to see what he had got up to last Easter Monday in that magical faraway place.

It was Easter time at last, and spring was advancing with its magical, unstoppable force, even in the wild west Highlands of Scotland. The weather was uncomfortably cool, wet and windy, but the more it rained, the faster spring leaped forward, and Algy observed that his assistants’ garden was bursting into life at a remarkably rapid rate.

Algy’s strange wee friend, the little green dragon, had never seen a spectacle of this kind before and was glowing at a varying speed in perplexity, while Algy himself - who had witnessed the same miracle each year - found that he was astonished and thrilled anew by the incredible transformation. Of all the blossom and flowers in April he especially loved the beautiful white cherries, which despite the inhospitable climate rarely failed to bloom in all their glory.

So from his perch in a windswept cherry tree, Algy wishes you all a very Happy Easter, and hopes that whether you are twenty or seventy, or fifteen or fifty or ninety-five, you will pause and take time to “look at things in bloom” and delight in the wonderful blossoming of spring:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

[Algy is quoting the poem Loveliest of trees from the collection A Shropshire Lad by the late 19th century/early 20th century English poet and classical scholar A E Housman.]