Textile embellishment the Japanese way

I’ve received great news over the Christmas break! I’ve been awarded a grant from the Copyright Council Career Fund to undertake a residential workshop with Japanese Textile Workshops in Japan, west of Tokyo, in May. We’ll be dyeing with indigo and covering shibori techniques, sashiko stitching, stencilling and some weaving and silk processing. The tools and looms are authentic, aged Japanese instruments, so it’s going to be a unique opportunity to experience these processes first-hand. You can find the link to the workshop blog here.

In the meantime I’ve had to satisfy my impatience by seeking out other beautiful Japanese things, like the images in this blog of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia. While visiting Adelaide at Christmas I found, by accident, The Power of Pattern: the Ayako Mitsui Collection, showing extraordinarily finely cut stencils for textile prints. The stencils are cut from mulberry paper and treated with persimmon tannin. The detailing is exquisite and incredibly fine. The exhibition runs until March 13. I highly recommend it.

Here is the link to the exhibition.

I’m off on a short one week trip to Japan later this week so will be saturating my senses with art, craft, architecture and culture in preparation for May’s workshop.

I’ll keep you posted!