by Barbara
Matthews
Katazome Today: Migrations of a Japanese Art
showing at the Whatcom County Lightcatcher Museum in Bellingham, WA now through
June 11, 2023
Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth showing at
the Seattle Art Museum now through May, 2023
Katazome Today curated by Seiko Purdue, Professor of
Fiber/Fabrics at Western Washington University and Amy Chaloupka, Whatcom
Museum curator brings together nine artists plus Seiko’s work of students at Western
Washington University. Panels of the student’s creation greet the
visitor and you know immediately from the quality that you are in for a treat.
Both wall and wearable art is featured. Traditional Katazome using indigo and natural
dyes and classical themes stand next to current day interpretation and
uses. Cheryl Lawrence’s Snowstorm
demonstrates the mixture of both—snow geese applied with alternating resist and
dyeing swoop around a resist spiral she created through tsutsugaki a
method of applying the paste through a ‘cake decorating’ type bag. She innovated the process by allowing the bag
of the liquid rice paste to swing above the piece. Cheryl also produces
limestone tiles with the Katazome process.
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| Snowstorm by Cheryl Lawrence |
Mika Toba of Japan has two pieces in the show with
contemporary views of Vietnam. A film features
her work on a large, commissioned project showing the Katazome process. The multi-step process starts with making the
katagomi stencil to applying the paste to dyeing the fabric. She was also instrumental in saving a 400
year old factory, now a father/son business in Japan that makes a fresh batch
of rice paste each day beginning at 3AM. Basically the Katazome process
involves spreading the thick rice paste over a stencil laid on the fabric and
several iterations of applying soy milk sizing, drying, dyeing, applying
mordant, steaming, and washing the fabric free of the resist.
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| The Other Side of the Scarf, 2005, Mika Toba |
Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth
This exhibit in the Seattle Art Museum truly represents the migration of this technique that originated in Indonesian
and as kasari in Japan to other parts of the world. The Japanese method dates back to the 12th
or 13th centuries. The exhibit includes cloth made in New Guinea,
Nigeria, Peru, Sumatra, Uzbekistan, Iran, Viet Nam, and Sumatra, among other
countries.
At the entrance to the exhibit entitled Zurashi/Slipped
you walk through 6,000 vertical lengths of indigo resist dyed warp that hangs from the ceiling to nearly the floor. Chinami and Roland Rickets who cultivate an
indigo farm in Bloomington, Indiana created his exhibit, which took over a
year’s time to produce.
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| Zurashi/Slipped by Chinami and Rowland Ricketts |
Ikat an Indonesian word translates as cord, thread, knot, or bundle. Ikat has three
methods – 1) tying the warp yarn to introduce a resist, then dyeing of the warp, 2) the
same tying for resist of the weft and 3) the method on both the warp and weft. Although the blurriness of the design is
prized and quite beautiful, some of the pieces shown, for example the Japanese and
Iranian examples shown here, had an exactness that could be achieved through a
careful design and resist dyeing of both warp and weft.
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| Japanese Cloth double dyed warp and weft |
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| Cushion Cover and Prayer Cloth in collection of David and Marita Paly |
Typically silk and cotton fibers provided the warp and weft.
Uzbek women produced their own silk raising silkworms and harvesting the silk
from the cocoons that they use for both warp and weft. In the example shown
here, a Munisak or robe, the silk warp is treated and woven with a cotton weft.
Two hundred yards of silk were required to create the velvet effect.
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| Munisak (Woman's Robe) |
