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Ame no michi* Aliki van der Kruijs
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Mr. Noguchi reading the book Travelling Concept #1 — Made by Rain
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*The way of the rain Hi Aliki,
7 juli 2014 15:26
Is there any chance you could come the first two weeks of August? I have a very interesting stencil dyeing program set up. I will be studying as well. Three times a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday for two weeks. On the other days you can work at my house. That is very short notice but it would be a very rare opportunity to study at a very cool place on those days. Bryan 足 Hi Bryan,
7 juli 2014 17:35
Thank you very much for the invite to do a workshop in the two first weeks of August. Yes I am very much interested! Do you have a little bit more information about the stencil dyeing program? I did not book a holiday for the summer, so this would be perfect. best Aliki
Dear Aliki san,
7 juli 2014 18:13
Wow. I just sent that off not expecting you to make it. Some background: There is an 8th generation stencil dyer named Noguchi just four stations from mine. I have known him over 15 years. I know most of the techniques but would like to polish a few up. There are six of us going to his studio from August 4th. We will go on the 6th and 8th and the following week on the 11th 13th and 15th to study how to make the paste and stencil etc. Our projects will be a happi coat and a yukata. He has natural fermenting indigo at his studio. There is no chance to study these techniques in Japan. It is a real chance. Yoroshiku, Bryan
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Mr Noguchi at work. There are dozens of clever, traditional and practical systems and solutions in the worklandscpae. For example a kimono ruler on above.
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Traditional katazome process
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Drying the 6 meter long boards
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Stills out of multiple movies that registrate the process of making rice paste. The basic ingredients are glutinous rice flour, fine rice bran and slaked lime.
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Stencil ‘Seed of Life’ carved for happi coat
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Soy & Sut
At freshly made soymilk, sut is added to get a dark coloured milk. This is used to brush upon the textiles after the stencil paste is dry.
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Pigment mixed with soymilk is used to paint parts of the crests that become the center back piece of a happi.
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Colouring
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Bryan grows indigofera to ferment his own indigo to use for the workshops he gives in his silkfarm house. We helped him to harvest the plants.
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Front and back side of the same piece of textile.
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Harvesting Indigo
After the harvesting, the stems are spread all over the garden and the roof to dry. While drying the green leaves turn blue.
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Shibori Shibori is the Japanese word for a variety of ways of embellishing textiles by shaping cloth and securing it before dyeing. Rather than treating cloth as a two-dimensional surface, with shibori it is given a three-dimensional form by folding, crumpling, stitching, plaiting or plucking and twisting. The special characteristic of shibori resist is a soft- or blurry-edged pattern. The effect is quite different from the sharp-edged resist obtained with stencil, paste, and wax. With shibori the dyer works in concert with the materials, not in an effort to overcome their limitations but to allow them full expression. ≤ Result of shibori studies Pointing out the pleat rhythem ∆
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7 Eleven Shibori How will a shibori pattern become when you use something that is folded by a standard to fit in a system? Cotton shirts form the supermarket 7 Eleven are used to dip in the indigo vat. The final result shows the folds and creases from the packaged shirt.
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Storm shibori How will rain make shibori patterns? Textiles that are digitally prepared with a thin layer of ink are pleated around a pole and wrapped strongly with a string with the shibori form: Storm. This piece is put outside in the rain caused be a typhoon.
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The pleats and the string resisted rainwater touching the fabric to create a storm-like pattern.
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Summer greetings
Flyer exhibition Cool and Breezy, Summer Greetings through Paintings and Ceramics in Nezu Museum Tokyo. — People in Japan wish each other a cool and breezy summer.
≥ Textiles exposed to typhoon rain
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Eco dyeing How to imprint the green environment 1:1? Around the house ferns and mulberry leaves are collected to use for ecodyeing. A second hand silk kimono is decontructed to use as material.
≤ 1:1 sketch with Ginko leaves on 2nd hand kimono.
≤ Every single partof the kimono is wrapped around a pole with a layer of plants in between.
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Reflecting katazome proces How to reflect? Japanese kimonopattern reflect many things including seasons, virtues and the elements. Mr. Noguchi just cut down a big part of his ginko tree. The ginko is a dioecious plant: a tree bears either male or female flowers. The tree has the miracolous quality to be able to transform its gender. The reflection to the garden of Mr. Nogushi is visible on the following pages that show how the ginko leaves are used to make a live-print.
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Ginko leaves are used to resist the paste application on the yukata fabric. The ginko replaced a traditional carved stencilpaper and made it possible to work without repetition on the 13 meter long fabric.
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Gardening I
The garden is the width of a kimonofabric. After the stencilpart, a combination of soymilk+sut is bruched upon the textile to give the indigo deeper shade of blue.
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Indigo vat The indigo vat after a night rest. After steering the vat, a flower comes up in the middle. By this flower Mr. Nogushi condition of the vat.
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Brooming the paste off the cloth
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Gardening II
Drying the textiles in the sun makes the garden a beautiful textile landscape.
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Blue Herbarium
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Abstracts of the result. With compliments of father and son Noguchi for bringing this new perspective to the traditional craft: ‘clever’. Wabi sabi
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Colophon This publication is a result of CONTEXTILE; a work approach of Aliki van der Kruijs that researches colour, context, text & textile.
Travelling Concept #1.1 Ame no michi — Japan Graphic Design: Lena Steinborn & Aliki van der Kruijs Printing: Sil’s Drukwerk Binding: Boekbinderij Hennink All images by Aliki van der Kruijs, *Dillon Perry and Kim Dror.
Thanks to Mr Noguchi and son, Bryan Whithead, Hiro, Kim Dror, Dillon Perry and Minyi Leong for the super great time in Fujino and around.
Financial support by
© Aliki van der Kruijs October 2014, Amsterdam
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