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Embroiderer Gail Rogers embraces centuries-old Japanese tradition
Embroiderer Gail Rogers embraces centuries-old Japanese needlework tradition
By Tiffany Griffith
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The deeper meaning and historical significance of needlework is probably not a subject most people consider. But it’s an artform that Gail Rogers says she never stops thinking about.
“It was the female way of expressing herself over the centuries,” Rogers said. “Women didn’t have other ways to express themselves. I remember seeing the embroidery of Mary Queen of Scots at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She used it to send coded messages to people when she was in prison. I mean, it’s all so fascinating.”
Rogers has her own history with needlework. Growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, her hobbies included sewing her own clothes. But after graduate school and entering the workforce as a Cobb County librarian, life got too busy for her favorite pastime.
That’s until she retired and discovered nihon shishu, the centuries-old Japanese art of embroidery. Rogers said her professional life and creative life have a lot in common.
“Librarians are interested in all kinds of different things,” Rogers said. “And the innate abilities and skills that you have, like being detail-oriented, apply in both cases.”
Nihon shishu got its start in China, and later became a tradition in Japan. Religious icons were sewn onto kimonos and broad sashes, known as obis. That style of the craft would remain isolated from the world for more than 1,600 years.
By 1970, the practice gained more attention when master embroiderer Iwao Saito founded the Kurenai-kai in Japan. The school only accepted students who were dedicated to becoming professional stitchers. They learned through an appreciation of technique and gardening.
After nearly 20 years as Saito’s apprentice, Shuji Tamura broke tradition and shared Japanese embroidery with the world in 1989. He chose Sandy Springs as the home for the first international embroidery center. The Atlantaarea center has drawn students from as far away as Europe, South Africa and Australia. “If I don’t come to the United States and to share, maybe another thousand years no one may not share, and it stays in Japan,” Tamura said.
Rogers, who took classes at the Sandy Springs center, had retired already by the time she developed her passion for Japanese embroidery. Retirement gave her time to pick up a needle and get creative for the first time in nearly 30 years.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” Rogers said.
From a distant glance, an embroidered piece can look like a detailed painting. But it’s the months, and even years, of patience, introspection, and precise needlework that produces such vibrant silk images.
The pieces are complicated, but colorful. Rogers likes to work with blue and purple silk patterns. Her teachers also have instructed Rogers about the cultural significance behind each color.
“Eastern and Western color sensibilities are somewhat different,” said Rogers. “The Japanese use a lot of orange and red. In the West, we’re not that crazy about orange. They use those colors a lot in their designs of trees and flowers and birds.”
In Japan, orange is said to denote love, happiness, civilization and knowledge. While red can mean strength, passion, selfsacrifice and blood.
Rogers has dedicated nearly 15 years to perfecting her technique. She still gets frustrated and jokes that she’s not a naturally patient person. But concentrating on her embroidery takes her away from the troubles of the outside world.
“I don’t think I could have survived the pandemic without having this to do,” Rogers said.
GAIL ROGERS
Rogers is a resident of Canterbury Court in Atlanta, where she lives among many talented seniors, including professional painters and photographers. She said Japanese embroidery helped find her inner artist and bond with people from around the world who are passionate about needlework. “I don’t have any other innate artistic abilities. I can’t paint. I can’t draw. I can’t do any of that stuff,” said Rogers. “So, this gives me an ability to tap into my artistic side I didn’t know I had. It’s a way to express myself artistically.” Rogers said she would recommend that others take up Japanese embroidery because it’s very fulfilling. “But I’d tell them to beware, because it’s very addictive,” said Rogers. “Once you get it, it’s hard to get out of. You’ll just want to keep going.”
To learn more, visit japaneseembroidery.com.
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