Category: Kumiko

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part8: Jigs for Lamp Frames

    I was content with the overall design of the small lamp. However, I felt that making the frame took way too much time and delicate manual work. The lamp frames were supposed to be a canvas for Kumiko patterns. I didn’t want to spend 80% of my time producing them. I wondered if, given the…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 7: Small Lamp

    Kumiko Unfolding – Part 7: Small Lamp

    After stumbling my way through a first lamp I realized that I wanted to continue exploring new patterns and that lamps can be a good canvas to hold the patterns as I make them while creating something beautiful and useful (I am not drawn to Kumiko patterns hanging on a wall as a decoration). I…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 6: Andon Lamp as a Canvas

    Kumiko Unfolding – Part 6: Andon Lamp as a Canvas

    Satisfied with the experiment of the first asa-no-ha pattern I wanted to continue. I wanted to get more practice under my belt. But just making more asa-no-ha patterns didn’t feel appealing. I wanted to make something that would include the asa-no-ha pattern. Of all the Kumiko examples I’ve seen, Andon lamps were most appealing to…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 5: Asa-no-ha

    Kumiko Unfolding – Part 5: Asa-no-ha

    Once I had workable kumiko strips I gladly turned to making an asa-no-ha pattern. I spoiled two sets of kumiko strips before I got the marking and cutting decently done. As I was doing this I felt that I had developed an attachment to the kumiko strips. They were difficult to create and felt like…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 4: Jigs & Milling Kumiko Strips

    I am an autodidact and I prefer learning through doing (I get very drowsy very quickly in most frontal, spoken learning configurations). Before moving to Romania most of that learning took place in mindy discplines … like learning to code. In Romania that changed when making & learning moved out of the virtual world and…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 3: Hand Tools, Table, Lights

    Kumiko Unfolding – Part 3: Hand Tools, Table, Lights

    About 10 days after placing the tools order (Romanian courier services are … difficult!) the tools arrived … and it was time to get to work on the table. I started with getting acquainted with hand tools. I initially avoided hand-tools: they were as expensive as power tools and they seemed to require much more…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 2: Table Yes, Floor No

    Most projects at Bhudeva reach beyond my horizon of perception. Their time-line is unknown, they require much physical work, much figuring out, new tools, new skills and a lot of trial and error. They also require a lot of preparation … so much so … that some “preparations” become separate projects. This often results in…

  • Kumiko Unfolding – Part 1: I Want This

    For the past few years I’ve been trying to make myself available to initiatives and projects that felt meaningful and that resonated with me. I’ve tried to merge skills from my past (software design) with my skills in the present … peaceful, gradual, sensitive unfolding!? These efforts, for the most part, have not worked out…