Mother's Wisdom: "To slash cloth, you are slashing your own flesh." By the time I got married, my mother had already been retired from working around a house. She had made a living with a tiny amount of allowance. Compared to my older brothers and sisters' marriages when she was still able to offer a lot, she was not able to offer me enough and had blamed herself and lamented for not being able to do the same for me. "My dear son, Chuzaburo, I got nothing in my hands to cerebrate your marriage. I had wish, at least, I could make you a futon with the little benefit money I have saved. I only can give you two sashiko kimonos (quilted robes) I loomed for your father. one is worn out, but the other is still new. Take these as a remembrance of me and your father." My mother said as tears ran down her cheeks. I had always remembered my mother as a strong tough woman, but now she stood before her youngest son, crying. Now I look at those two sashiko kimonos she left me with genuine sincerity. I see the many stitches that bind two separate cloths to create a single quilted cloth, known as "sashiko" . My mother took up the painful and time consuming task to create these for her husband, with her whole heart and soul. Even though my mother has already left this world, I can still feel the living heart and soul she had sewn into the sashiko kimonos. They continue to live, continuously telling of their pains. tears, and their precious stories. I recall my grandmother's words telling me as a child, when she found me playing with scissors, cutting cloth. "Realize that you are just now cutting your own flesh!" My grandmother. a woman who also cherished fabrics, taught me that cloth and clothing cannot be replaced with anything in our human life. There is a life dwelling it; the endless will and wishes of humans are delicately woven into each cloth.

This is from a set I did in similar style to an earlier photograph I did using a 4x5 camera and my Wiss scissors. This, in turn, was done in a similar style to a photograph by Ansel Adams that inspired me to make the first one. I'm not particularly happy with how this set turned out. In comparing it to my original 4x5 photo, I wish I had used a heavier thread, such as upholstery thread. This one is a little too thin, and a little too short. I am left handed, and I have always hated left-handed scissors. The ones I used in grade school were terrible, had these green plastic dipped handles that stuck to my fingers, and were generally awful things to use. My mother was a hard core Fiskars user, so I tried left-handed Fiskars. Unfortunately many sewing scissors are sized for a female hand, and Fiskars are heavily contoured. This combination made it so my fingers never fit into them. I learned to sew using my grandmother's Wiss scissors, similar in construction to Ghingers, if a little smaller. When I saw the Ghingers in the sewing store, I knew the time had come to try left-handed scissors again. I'm glad I did. I'll never go back.