kasuri

Design Vision…Knowing Your Own Mind

As a follow-up to my Provenance column on kasuri over at Cloth & Kind, I want to show more photos of one of the featured spaces, the apartment of a friend here in Tokyo who has an incredibly clear personal decorating vision. Eclecticism and constant change are the reigning monarchs of the design world, so every now and then it is nice to have a very different vision – in this case a specific and coherent viewpoint, a vintage Japanese lens so to speak – to compare with. Many people don’t have the rigor to be this consistent – I know I certainly don’t – but there is a peacefulness that comes with it.

I’ve shopped with and for this friend and I always know what will appeal to her. Authenticity and patina, along with a certain roughness of finish and a palette of browns, ochres, and greys, with variety picked out in texture. The photo below was meant to feature the homespun kasuri futon cover (purchased at Kawagoe), but it also highlights a very few pieces of an enormous collection of modern Japanese pottery, much of it bought up in Mashiko, the famous pottery village. Much to my chagrin, I didn’t think to photograph the insides of her cupboards – that may have to wait for some other post. Most everything else was accumulated at shrine sales around Tokyo and she is unabashed when I pick something up and say “this has your name on it!” She knows her own mind.

Heading back out to the entry way to start the tour properly, the tone is set for the entire space as you walk in. Everything shows its age, from the vintage silkworm basket hanging on the wall, to the abacus and sake jug on the rustic cabinet. And here we see the beginning of one of the motifs in this space – the juxtaposition of squares and rectangles with circles, which the owner uses over and over again to great effect.

As I was there to photograph the kasuri futon cover, the rest of the photo shoot was a bit ad hoc, so excuse wires and everyday items that would normally be put away or out of sight. The truth is, seeing spaces as they are really used is more authentic anyway.

The television wall has a great collection of Japanese baskets including a big old rectangular silkworm tray. I continue to think big baskets are a great trick for TV walls – they balance the large dark expanse of the equipment while posing no heavy threat to it. The owner is an insatiable collector of baskets, second only perhaps to pottery – she cannot resist them – adoring their texture and lightness. The use of baskets throughout the apartment is another constant motif.

A corner of the living room gives pride of place to a beat up old tansu and a beautiful still life of finely woven basket mounted with a single branch. The limited color palette, augmented only by bits of natural green and a little blue, with texture for interest, is yet a third motif in the space.

Another vignette repeats the patterns, small cabinet, fine baskets and branches and a sweet bird print tucked into a silver leafed cherry wood frame.

This arrangement on the kitchen counter has lots of my favorites, including a glass senbei canister, a vintage sieve, some old signage and more pottery.

It’s not only in Japan that the owner is so consistent. Not at all surprising to discover that she has a historically accurate and incredibly well-preserved 1830s home in Connecticut. From the outside you would never guess that parts of the house are an addition as they worked to keep a natural roofline, the kind that develops with additions over the years. The interiors blend the old and the new by using antique flooring and antique beams salvaged from an old barn found elsewhere in Connecticut. The old part of the house has all the original wide board flooring, beams, and horse hair plaster walls. The house itself is filled with Americana of the period, antique cupboards, dry sinks, blanket chests, quilts, crocks, and yes – pottery – lots and lots of pottery, but in this case classic American redware and yellowware.

Adore this winter photo but I am looking forward to seeing it this summer! And whenever it is that she moves back, I’m even more interested in seeing the dialogue between the old Japanese and American pieces. I think it will be a lively conversation.

Mar 25, 2013 By tokyojinja in Design Motif, Expat Life, Interior Design, Porcelain and Pottery, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets, Textiles Tags: baskets, japanese antiques, Japanese pottery, kasuri, Mashiko, patina, pottery, texture

Provenance…My New Guest Column on Cloth & Kind

prov-e-nance ˈpräv-nən(t)s, ˈprä-və-ˌnän(t)s
noun. the place of origin or earliest known history of something.

I am so excited to announce my new gig as a monthly guest columnist on Krista Nye Schwartz‘s blog Cloth & Kind. I’ll be penning the Provenance column and it’s a match made in heaven. Krista and I had long been admiring each others aesthetic – she describes herself as a “self-diagnosed textile addict” – and I basically stopped bothering to Pin once I discovered her Textile Files on Pinterest. I’ll be joining forces with two other talented bloggers, Tami Ramsay, an interior and floral designer from Athens, GA and Bonnie Berry, a wedding and food photographer from Austin, TX, who will also be writing new columns on art, flowers and you guessed it, food! Although the internet knows no geographic boundaries, I often toil away here in Japan feeling a little bit isolated, so I am so thrilled to have a team of great women to work with.

My post this week is on the origins and techniques of Japanese kasuri. For my readers, it would mean the world to me if you would head over to Cloth & Kind and read the post and leave a comment to show you’d been there – here’s the link straight to it. I know it’s just the kind of post you would like. For those coming to my blog via Cloth & Kind, welcome! I think you’ll find lots of content here to enjoy and I’d love to hear from you. I have category tabs down the right side of the blog and I use tags pretty freely as well. Search away!

One photo that didn’t make it into the post is these kasuri work pants. I am constantly tempted to buy some of these old work clothes with an eye towards wearing them and then the voice of my 13, soon to be 14-year-old daughter pops into my head. So unfortunately (perhaps fortunately), I left these as the market last week.

In addition to Krista herself and her content on Cloth & Kind, I just adore the physical design of her blog. She takes such care with the art direction and this has confirmed for me what I have long known and talked about before. I need to get out of my standard blog platform and move to a design that matches the quality of my content. So if you know of any great graphic designers with wordpress.org skill (or are one yourself), please let me know. And if you want, instead of the usual currency, there is the opportunity to be paid in antique textiles, porcelain or whatever else!

It truly has been an indigo trifecta over the last week or so, with the long-awaited post on the amazing Amy Katoh and her treasure filled shop Blue & White. The giveaway for the LuRu Home pillow was a huge success with 83 entrant spaces. I am excited to announce that Loi Thai, proprietor of Tone on Tone Antiques in Bethesda, MD is the winner. Loi also writes a beautiful blog, he’s a dear and his taste is impeccable so I can’t wait to see what he does with the pillow as it is a little bit outside of his usual palette.

Once I knew he had won I made a bet with myself – I was sure he’d choose the pillow in Babyteeth – and he did!

Please join me over at Cloth & Kind today!

Mar 21, 2013 By tokyojinja in Color, Guest Posts, Provenance Columns, Textiles Tags: Bonnie Berry, Cloth & Kind, kasuri, Krista Nye Schwartz, Provenance, Tami Ramsay

The ASIJ Quilt…Carpe Triem

So I’ve been making lots of teasing comments about koi and kasuri lately, with a very good reason. This year, our annual quilt for The American School in Japan Gala fundraiser is a deep indigo pool made of kasuri, with three charming carp frolicking in the rain. Koi are the beloved ornamental varieties of common carp that are kept as pets in ponds and the word koi is itself a homophone for another Japanese word that means “affection” or “love”; koi are therefore symbols of love and friendship in Japan. The name of the quilt, Carpe “Triem”, reminds us to seize the day (or seize the quilt!) and is a play on our trio of friends. Inspiration came in many forms, from modern woodblock prints, like this one, ‘Pillow Talk” by Daniel Kelly…

…to ‘Whisper whisper 7’ amongst others from Kaneko Kunio.

Koinobori, meaning ‘carp streamer’ in Japanese, are carp-shaped wind socks traditionally flown to celebrate Boy’s Day (now called Children’s Day), which falls on May 5th every year. The carp has become the symbol of Boys’ Day because the Japanese consider it the most spirited of fish—so full of energy and power that it can fight its way up swift-running streams and cascades. Because of its strength and determination to overcome all obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals.

We also had high goals for ourselves as quilters, wanting to create a very individual and special quilt while at the same time longing to do another boro (rag) background quilt, featuring vintage indigo textiles, a bit reminiscent of the beloved Dragon quilt of 2007. I was lucky enough to come across a few great pieces of kasuri, the Japanese form of ikat, in which the thread is dyed prior to weaving. Kendra had some other gorgeous pieces in her stash and we were easily able to assemble the patchwork background from a myriad of pieces and patterns.

Using some photos of real koi, Julie drew our koi on graph paper free hand – she is so amazing!

I figured once we were using such gorgeous fabric for the background, there was no chance modern fabric could hold up its head against it. So back out to the shrine sales I went, in search of antique and vintage shibori (Japanese tie-dye), brocades and other silks. While the fabric would be gorgeous I knew the quilters would be hating me a bit as silks are so hard to work with.

The patterns in the shibori was perfect in giving almost a literal effect of scales. And the bold colors – oranges, yellows and golds – against the deep indigo was spectacular. Just trying it out by draping a fish shape had us all excited.

As we started late this year and the Gala was a week earlier than normal and we planned for the koi to exuberantly overlap the borders, we had to work a bit out-of-order this year and put the borders on early.

Julie’s husband enlisted the local copy shop to blow up the hand sketched koi, one graph paper square to one inch and we were able to use them as patterns.

The day we spent cutting the fabrics to create the fish was my favorite quilt day in all nine years I have been working on the ASIJ quilts.

With each fabric we tried to bring out its innate nature…

…and have the details suggest the very details found on the fish.

We used iron-on stabilizer to give the pieces some weight and make them opaque.

We basted the quilt top to a simply patterned dark blue background and placed the fish into their new home in the pond.

As we loved the echo quilting we did last year, we decided to do it again – this time as raindrops on the pond. Here you can see the circles marked out at one inch intervals. If you look closely you can also see the detailed quilting in the fish fins.

I just love this detail shot with the shibori circles reading as fish scales and the rain drops quilted into the kasuri.

The crowning touch was finding a perfect silky orange binding – I don’t know how we got so lucky! Not a perfect frontal photo, but the slight angle brings out the details of the echo quilted raindrops.

This quilt, with its evocative design and meticulous craftsmanship, masterfully captures and conveys our long-lasting affection for Japan.

More in-progress details can be found over at My Quilt Diary and A Quilter By Night.

Feb 26, 2013 By tokyojinja in Artist Spotlight, Design Motif, Expat Life, Textiles Tags: ASIJ gala quilt, carp, Julie Fukuda, kasuri, koi, koinobori, quilting, quilts, shibori

Color Study…Kyoto in Instagrams

I just got back from two quick but wonderful days in Kyoto, traveling with two dear like-minded friends. We were worried it would be bare in winter, but in the absence of cherry blossoms or fall foliage, Kyoto was a study in green.

Green moss in gardens…

…and temples everywhere.

We were utterly and completely captivated by our subway car which felt straight out of the 1940s. Mint green walls and deeper green velvet upholstery…

…and even the silvery fretwork on the vents below. How long would this fabric last in New York City?

Day two changed hues as we spent most of it exploring the Fushimi Inari shrine and its thousands upon thousand of orange torii gates, each donated by Japanese businesses.

Walking through the roughly two miles of gates was an extraordinary experience and the jolt of color against the winter landscape was intense.

Later in the day green and orange joined together in some fretwork at Kiyomizu-dera, perched majestically at the edge of the mountains.

Good luck offerings were everywhere, from the traditional kitsune (fox) messengers a the Inari shrine…

…to garlands of rainbow origami cranes.

Our hotel was most conveniently located in Gion, right along Shinmonzen Street, the main antiques drag of Kyoto. Imagine that?! As we shopped, our color palette turned to blue from all the porcelain we were seeing, particularly at a shop I believe is called Akando, run by a darling older couple…

…the proprietor having his likeness on their adorable business card.

My friend almost bought these amazing Nabeshima dishes, but when we did the math they were well over $400.

The other shop we spent serious time in I recall from my last trip. R. Kita Old Imari & Kutani has been in its location for over 70 years. They had me at the sign alone.

In the window was this amazing 19th century Seto porcelain ice bucket, clearly made for the export market. It was the only Seto piece to be had amidst all the Old Imari & Kutani and I really wanted it. Unfortunately, it was a cool 1000 bucks.

In general all the porcelain and other antiques were extremely expensive. Prices were way higher than in Tokyo and way way way higher than at the shrine sales. That is exactly what I remembered from previous visits.

So once again, I looked – in this case instagrammed – and didn’t really buy.

We did better in the soft goods department and my friend Maja of Alegria Design bought some lovely pieces of indigo kasuri to make bolster pillows. I’ve got kasuri on the brain these days, and you’ll see why quite soon as the ASIJ Gala quilt is almost complete!

I managed to pick up a very unusually colored plum piece of kasuri. I am nothing if not predictable! And at a year and a half out, it is starting to seem as if I will never be getting my lampshades from the custom vendor I ordered them from, so perhaps I might use this in another attempt elsewhere or a DIY!

Gold was also one of the colors of the trip, as you can see from this lucky sun shot in the late afternoon at Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion. A piece of Kyoto advice – always go there late in the day so that the sun is setting in front of the building if you want the lighting to be just right.

One hidden gem we hit was the house and garden Murin-an near Nanzen-ji. Built just before the turn of the century it had that wonderful Anglo-Japan mix that I adore. The wall murals painted in the sitting room were just divine and the garden was a perfect oasis of peace and quiet in the bustling city.

The Hotel Mume where we stayed was charming, in particular the sudare canopied bed area.

The vending machines were particularly creative in Kyoto – Cup of Noodles anyone?

That reminded me of the really interesting exhibit currently running in the Frederick Harris Gallery at the Tokyo American Club. A riff on Hokusai’s Thirty-Six View of Mt. Fuji, Peter MacMillan’s witty prints are well worth a viewing. If you are in Tokyo, it runs until February 24. If you are not, more of them can be found in my Instagram stream.

And finally to wind down, a bit of black and white. It is quite common for ordinary folk to go to Kyoto and rent kimono for the day along with hair and make-up services. These girls were not geisha (or maiko and geiko as they are called in Kyoto) but instead just having fun. You’d think they would look better in color, but it took away from their expressions.