Friday, April 16, 2004

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What would Kitty do?

Friday, April 16, 2004 in Conferences, Personal Miscellany by vernica | 1 comment

When I spotted the Hello Kitty posters while walking through Harvard Yard today, I knew that they could only mean trouble. I avoided reading them for this reason. Sadly, my attempts at avoidance were futile…Cynthia Rockwell just revealed the awful truth on her weblog, and now, I am faced with a real dilemma. Conference on kawaii culture versus conference on blogging–which should I choose?

HPAIR and the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies are sponsoring a one day conference on kawaii culture tomorrow, April 17. This was the type of conference that I wanted Harvard to hold five years ago when I was a full-time graduate student in East Asian studies and everyone laughed at me (and generally, failed to take me seriously) because of my research interests. Things change, I guess.
(Hmmm…I checked with Hello Kitty at Sanrio’s fortune corner, hoping to get more guidance on this dilemma. Kitty was vague in her characteristic way: “Lacking motivation? Get up early and exercise! Go jogging or do some stretches.” And, apparently, my lucky item this month is a glass craft kit…the one craft kit that I do not own…)

Print-on-demand chiyogami

Friday, April 16, 2004 in Bookmarks by | No comments

Occasionally, reckless use of a search engine uncovers something interesting. If you ever have a paper craft emergency and desperately need chiyogami when all of your local suppliers are closed or out of stock, look no further than Canon’s bubble jet printer Creative Park. The origami page features twenty-eight traditional chiyogami patterns, with each pattern in multiple colors. Just open the pdf files and print. And, as an educational bonus, each pattern page includes a little blurb about the history and symbolism of the selected motif.I printed about twenty 8.5 x 11 sheets, simply because the idea of print-on-demand chiyogami tickled me. Some of the designs are quite pleasing, and I can imagine using them for various projects, particularly when I do not want to use my precious stock of $20+ sheets. I do not think, however, that anyone would mistake one of these sheets for actual chiyogami, even if it was printed on washi paper with a high-quality printer.

I wonder if I should mention this in my thesis? Although I doubt that many people make use of print-on-demand chiyogami, in theory, with a computer, a printer, and a stack of paper, anyone can be a surishi. Surely, this must fit somewhere in my study on the influence of technology on decorative paper design and production in Japan…or then again, maybe not…