Today I paired some canna lilies with dried statice I had hanging around the minka from last summer. The kokeshi is by Shido Shozan who passed away in 1995.
Master Shido Shozan was born in Oita prefecture in 1932, and passed away in 1995. He moved to Tokyo for four to five years, and attended Chuo University. In 1959, he moved to Yonezawa, Yamagata prefecture, where he worked with Sanpei Yamanka, Issetsu Kuribayashi, and Murakami Kenichi. All these artisans were amazing masters of the creative kokeshi movement.
His time in Yonezawa greatly influenced his work designs with his many snow kokeshi. His designs bring out the delicate and beautiful grains of the timber with the use of few other colors. He won numerous awards including the prestigious Prime Minister Award. His kokeshi are among the most popular, and sought by collectors all over the world. These are some of his works, and like others, it is the natural wood grains and delicate features that I love about his work.
This month I planted six new varieties of hydrangeas around the minka. I love them, as they come in so many different colors, have great flowers for cutting, and bloom so generously across the summer. However, I will have to wait one or two years before I can really cut some flower heads from the new ones. I already have a range of blue and purple hydrangeas, so I added a couple of pink varieties, one white with blue centers, a red one, and a white flower edged with deep pink.
The new varieties were: Buttons and Bows, Starlight, Moonlight, Paris, Tokyo Delight, and Macrophylla.