I received an e-mail last week from someone interested in what specific inspiration I used to make the samurai armor for my son, and I thought it would be cool to share some of the images we looked at while working on the project. First we looked at examples of samurai armor on the websites of museums that have actual armor in their collections, trying to see as much detail as possible.

Another cool source of inspiration was Edo-era photography of living samurai with their weapons and armor. It was really fortunate that camera technology arrived in Japan just as the era of the medieval warrior was ending there (1850s-1870s) and several photographers working in Japan at this time (including Baron Raimund von Stillfried, Felice Beato, Kusakabe Kimbei, and others) managed to capture some truly amazing images of actual samurai in their armor. There's just something about seeing this armor worn by the men it was built for that you just don't get from seeing it in a museum:

 

[top three images from the amazing Japanese photo collection of Tom Burnett] That third one might be a kabuki actor though and not an actual samurai]

I really love this one of the Japanese antique dealer with his collection of samurai armor and weapons.

There must have been a real glut of that stuff before it was all scooped up by rich American tourists.

Of course, we had the most fun looking at dozens of colorful action-filled prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) that we found in a book (as well as on the web):

Most of those prints come from Utagawa Kuniyoshi's set of warrior prints Taiheiki eiyu den (Heroic Biographies from the Tale of Great Pacification).

Previous Inspiration
 

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

On our recent trip south we were looking for a place to stay near Lexington, Kentucky and just before booking a hotel we remembered that a friend had recently stayed at (and loved) a place called Shaker Village just a few miles southwest of town. The village was built during the western expansion of the New England Shaker community at the turn of the nineteenth century and remained active until 1910. The village was abandoned for half a century, a few buildings were lost, but remarkable preservation efforts began in 1961 and today thirty four of the original 19th-century buildings have been restored and 2,800 acres are available for visitors to explore. Costumed interpreters work looms and carpentry tools. There is a working farm and livestock. There is also a full-service restaurant and nearly all of the historic buildings have rooms that are available to rent for the night. As if tempting the wrath of the pious spirits who once dwelt here, the restaurant serves bourbon and you are allowed to sleep in the same bed as your spouse.

At this time of year, we were able to book a suite for the same day and when we arrived we were the only people staying in the stately 202-year-old stone building comfortably furnished in the Shaker style. Later we realized there were guests in staying in some of the other old buildings, but we had ours to ourselves.

Arriving just before sunset with kids restless after many hours in the car, we had the run of the place. There were some wonderfully awkward parenting moments trying to explain celibacy and the separation of the sexes (that resulted in the lovely symmetry of Shaker architecture). To be completely honest, I had always written off the Shaker style as too Martha Stewarty for me to care much about, but being completely by ourselves without any other tourists (who swarm the place during the warmer seasons) I came to appreciate the clean simplicity of it all. Or maybe it's just a sign that I'm becoming a middle aged woman.

Beautiful, right? To think we almost stayed at the Sheraton. 

Previous Inspiration

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

Previous Inspiration
 

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

I really enjoy images of artisans photographed in the context of their work space. I could just stare and stare at all the vernacular details in this photo of an Italian shoemaker/leather worker. I have been making a lot of leather bags and wallets lately and I love seeing traditional leather work spaces like this. When we were walking around the Pantheon last summer I spied a more modern version of such a shop and I just stared for a long time at all his tools and his beautiful products (I just looked for it on google and it turns out luxury-porn blogger Michael Williams did a nice little feature on the same shop, and the Roman craftsman's name was Federico Polidori). 

Here is what the outside of the shop in Sorano (pictured above) looked like:

These photographs are from architect Norman F. Carver Jr.'s excellent book Italian Hilltowns (Carver is a well-known architect in my hometown of Kalamazoo and like the recently-deceased Balthazar Korab, a damn fine photographer). My parents gave me a copy of Italian Hilltowns before last summer and I highly recommend it to anyone planning a trip.

Previous Inspiration
 

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

Whenever I set out to make something, I always start by collecting reference photos to see how other people have made the same thing. When possible, I like to use really old photos from a time when there was less standardization in manufacturing and objects like toys were made by individual craftspeople. When my daughter told me her Christmas wish was "a toy pony she could sit on that wasn't skinny" I looked for old pictures of kids with toy horses that were sort of sculptural. Toy horses were popular props for early cabinet-style photographers so there were a ton of images out there. Ultimately these pictures helped me design the horse I made her for Christmas. 

[these photos come from various sources, including the Library of Congress prints and photographs collection, my personal collection, eBay, and Victoria Randall's book A Pony in the Picture.] 

Previous Inspiration
 

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.