A life less origami


After Hiroshima winged art
Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ.
Managed to find an honest builder thanks to Carman, who I do karate with. Her boyfriend quoted us half the amount the Capricorn gave us. This means our hall and stairs will finally get its make-over it deserves. Bit of quiet one for Friday evening with Celeb BB in the background. Glad to see Mr Barrymore didn’t win. Whilst putting up with the Big Bro I flicked through the new Argos catalogue to find out they now sell wheelchairs and stairlifts!

Saturday day started off with an Oriental theme. We booked a place on an origami workshop through the Millais gallery in Southampton. It was to support the ‘After Hiroshima’ exhibition. Before we arrived I guessed at the potential other attendees: Poncey art students up for a freebie; Old arts and crafts women who are retired teachers; primary school child families who vote Green. Those who did turned up were...drum roll please….Ta-dar! One art student (although a bit too ‘Miss Selfridge’), two retired teachers that enjoyed arts and crafts, one Green party voter with origami expert child (how annoying) and an ex-art student wearing a Moroccan outfit who probably voted Green. Not the biggest turn-out but at least we weren’t on our own.

Before we got stuck in with the origami we looked around the gallery at the Hiroshima art and photos. For the size of the place it was a bit sparse and slightly disappointing especially after seeing the real thing last year. Didn’t have the patience to see all the film but it did highlight that the Americans didn’t help the Japanese doctors with leukaemia in any way.

Anyway back to the paper folding where the exhibition curator introduced herself and the concept behind the workshop. We were to practise creating origami cranes. The story goes that a little girl tried to make 1000 cranes after receiving radiation from the bomb but died shortly after and had only completed 650. Legend has it that cranes live for 1000 years and have life-partners. Sweet story and we saw the evidence last year where trails of paper cranes are sent to Hiroshima every August to mark the anniversary. Our own paper folding contribution would be sent to Japan as the exhibition toured the UK! So, two hours later we were crane experts and found a new party trick.

That night we went to the Leisure Shed for the Odeon to see Memoirs of a Geisha. Bit of a girly one I know but Kerry had read the book and we’d seen clips to show a few places we’d been in Japan. The film itself was okay and would have scored more if it wasn’t the crap seats that sloped forward, numbing your arse so you couldn’t feel your waist down. Visually very nice and there were a couple of scenes from Kyoto (Fushimi and the oldest Zen Garden) used. The biggest surprise though was spotting some of the garden scenes were shot in San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Gardens which we saw back in 2003!

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