JAN KIRSTEIN RIGOR

“Night of the Soul”

The kimono represents a window of a culture undergoing fundamental changes, inclusion, and individualization.  I began the creation of these mixed-media collage Kimono pieces during the Winter Solstice, a time of deep inner reflection, or a “Night of the Soul.” The Winter Solstice is when one reaches into the darkness to travel to an Epiphany or enlightenment.  Our world culture has gone through a similar kind of epiphany through darkness, leading to cultural changes that will soon render today’s world unrecognizable.

Evolution of the Kimono as Inclusive and Individualistic

The Kimono format of my art pieces is inspired by the form and evolution of the kimono that arose during the Edo era in Japan, spanning the period between 1603 and 1868, also serving as a window into a culture just before fundamental change.  This cloak was called a kosode, a visibly unifying cultural marker in Japanese society between 1603 and 1868. 

Every Japanese person wore a kimono during this time, regardless of age, gender, or socio-economic position. On those rare occasions when a Japanese person came into contact with people from other places, one visible distinction was that those of other cultures did not wear the kimono. 

The kimono represents inclusion as well as individualization. Everyone wore the kimono in the Endo Culture, yet every person’s kimono was an individual design, expressing the individual’s own personal and family aspects

Narratives of the Challenges of Aging

As I began working with these kimono images,  I found my textures, paintings, and drawings that emerged often served as narratives of the challenges and wisdom found through aging. As a female almost 70, I notice the realizations occurring with individuals coping with our culture’s preoccupation with revering youth and beauty above all else. Women especially feel a constriction under the pressures inherent in these cultural biases.

Discover Your Fortitude Through the Aging Process

These kimonos reflect an attitude of embracing and acceptance of the changes that emerge as one gains wisdom in the years through the aging process. The textures and colors imply a reference to the unsmooth surfaces and forms as they appear. Images of caverns reflect an inner change and growing awareness. The images referring to a kind of outer space context present a growth in cosmic awareness that occurs through the trials, challenges, and fortitude discovered through the aging process.

And now I invite you to share your own personal experiences with aging. What has surprised you the most about your aging experience? What is a benefit you have discovered about the aging process? What are some of the biggest changes and challenges you have experienced about aging so far?

Please add to the comments below. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Welcome to our art exhibit at the Jasper Art Center in Indiana. Sculptor Brandon Smith and Mixed-Media artist Jan Kirstein Rigor are showing recent work in this exhibition.

Brandon and I share a vision involving the interplay of light, color, texture, shape, and form, all presented in abstract form for viewing. I just wanted to share pictures of our opening, talk, and work in this extraordinary space. Thanks so much to Brandon Smith for exhibiting with me. What an honor! I just want to load all his pieces into my car at the end of our exhibition and take them home with me! I love every one of them. We didn’t know one another before the exhibition, so the work of one another is a complete surprise and astoundingly compatible in this elegant space.

Sculptor Brandon Smith and Painter Jan Kirstein Rigor gave a Gallery Talk for the opening on Feb. 1.

This is one of my Kimono pieces created with paint on the fabric along with glitter and paint sticks. I find the Kimono a relevant article of clothing relevant to today’s world due to the Japanese kimono’s ability to provide a decorative cover for each and everyone in their society, no matter the social class, as well as embrace the individuality of every wearer. The sculpture is by Brandon Smith. Painting on paper on the far right is mine.

This is another Kimono piece by me. This is also painted on poly fiber and is meant to hang either away from the wall or next to the wall.