Opus has sent us a special treat… a few pictures taken while he was visiting China. The photos are full of energy and bright, bold colour and I can’t help but think that it must have been very special to see this art with people who understand its true value. Thanks so much for sharing, Opus.
Pictures from Lijiang in southern China. I visited with a couple of fabric artists who wanted to see the work done by local women. We were not disappointed! The woman with the elaborately embroidered headwear is Naxi, best I can remember. Lijiang is on an ancient trade route, the Tea-Horse road, which was used to trade tea from southern China for Tibetan horses.
©Opus, all rights reserved
©Opus, all rights reserved
©Opus, all rights reserved
I so badly want one of those fish bags now! I can’t really judge the size so I don’t know if they’d work as a purse, but I’d make it work.
I must say those fish-purses or bags or whatever are amazing.
I wonder if the scales on the fish bags work as pockets? They’re a lot of fun, a great way of using up scraps quickly.
Gorgeous!
But I swear the kid’s got an owl bag in the fish bag style as a “handmade gift from Greece”
I love the intricate patterns and the colours! The fancy headwear is just wow. I’m trying to figure out how I feel about the pheasant hat.
I also want a fish bag. An owl bag would be neat, too, made in Greece or no!
Oh, I adore the fish bags! Those are so cool! I might have to think about making one.
The pheasant hat… I used to raise that type of pheasant, they are called the Lady Amherst pheasant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Amherst%27s_pheasant They are native to southwestern China and northern Myanmar. It is now a very widely kept aviary bird, and the birds themselves can be quite tame, even tamer than a chicken. Now, of course I have no idea where those particular feathers came from… but in fact the birds molt every year and the feathers can be very easily picked up, especially if people are raising them in an aviary. This **could** be a hide though. The head does not look right to me, it looks like fake plastic, but I suppose it could be real. The good news is the birds are not endangered in any way -- they live in dense dark forests and are really hard to see, as hard as it might be to believe when you see the bewildering array of color the males sport.