Where I find inspiration. Floribunda scroll.

Not every stencil I cut is traditional Japanese in origin. I was inspired recently to use a wreath design from a woven coverlet. Here is the image. It required some alteration and simplification and editing as I cut to permit a stencil design.  The surrounding detail would have been tricky to cut and it was the wreath I really liked.   

Cutting was easier than you might expect, using an image printed on two sheets of 11x17 tracing paper and a little spray adhesive on this big stencil. Hollow punches of three sizes allowed me to create the center star. 

I chose a dainty Japanese border design stencil to make the finished scroll, dyed with soy based pigment paints on Japanese ramie. The result is fresh, springlike and a little Japanese inspired. I am happy.

 

I think it is time to revive this blog. My life in katazome has continued to develop in the ten years since I moved on. I will gladly share that as time goes on. But what has gotten me thinking is the realization that I need to organize my collection of old indigo textiles for donation or sale. The impetus for this was a recent class with Carol Ann Grotrian organized by the Columbia Fiber Arts Guild in Portland Oregon (at my request initially). She makes quilts with lovely indigo shibori, hand stitched with variations of  boro mending techniques.

Boro was used to create and repair garments and futon covers from every bit of useable fabric at a time when Japan was not a wealthy country. I purchased several old examples from Ichiroya, an online flea market. Boro examples, like the Gees Bend quilts, have become popular and are sometimes exhibited as abstract art. Here is my futon cover with a lot of old katazome fabrics. The delicate mends are remarkably moving to me. 

I have a couple of garments as well that are really astonishing in their virtuosity The first is a short under kimono with shibori sleeves and amazing katazome fabric in the body. This stencil depicts the shadows of samurai warriors falling on shapes with imitation shibori patterns. Imitating shibori was a fairly common katazome technique to save the labor of actual shibori. But the imagination and skill of this stencil is in a whole different category. 

The final example is a vest, a folk garment but not work wear. Whoever combined the katazome outer layer with the kasuri (ikat) inner layer used stitches so fine that the garment appears to be woven. It boggles my mind. This is the most significant purchase I ever made and I hope to find a museum  collection for it someday. 

The last photo is the start of the project from the recent class. It is a sampler of sorts but it uses a small collection of tidbits salvaged from the inner linings etc. of the kimonos I dismantled to resell to quilters. I saved all of them, mends and all, because discarding them did not respect the intent of the makers.