Wabi Sabi and Another Workshop

 STILLNESS, 10"x10" collage by Donna Watson

A NEW WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT:   BORO/WABI SABI:  The Japanese Spirit of Collage.

A 2 day course March 2-3 2015.  At the Sheraton Airport Hotel in Portland OR.   For more information about the workshop, supply list and how to register go to Art and Soul Retreat

www.artandsoulretreat.com  

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic... an appreciation of the beauty of things imperfect, incomplete and impermanent - rustic, earthy, simple, subdued, textured and organic.  It shows how the passage of time affects everything.  Boro embodies the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi - tattered rags used to describe patched clothing.  Instead of fabric we will learn how to hand paint Japanese washi papers.  On the second day, artists will learn simple compositions and design elements and principles based on the Zen tenets of balance and harmony.  Artists will recreate this "boro" effect by placing their own hand painted papers quilt like onto their own supports (paper, board, canvas) to create their own collages.

TO BREATHE,  8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

"I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said,  "That is a waste of time.  If you really understand Zen, you can use any book.  You could use the Bible.  You could use Alice in Wonderland.  You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation."

--- Alan Watts, Whiskey River

TO WHISPER,  8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

"Wabi Sabi is a broken earthenware cup in contrast to a Ming vase, a branch of autumn leaves in contrast to a dozen roses, a lined and bent old woman in contrast to a model, a mature love as opposed to an infatuation, a bare wall in contrast to a wall hung with beautiful paintings.

As Leonard Koren says:  the closer things get to non-existence, the more exquisite and evocative they become.

--- Crispin Sartwell,  Six Names of Beauty

Cloth Paper Scissors

Boro series: old Japanese envelopes, hand painted rice papers

piece of vintage Boro fabric, Srithreads.com

Decades ago, impoverished farmers and fishermen in Japan and their families stitched and layered scraps of fabric for their survival. Boro (rags and tatters) was the shape of survival in their poverty and inhospitable land. The beauty and sheer compositional skill of these boro creations have become national treasures in Japan. Today, there are many artists working with fabric and cloth in similar ways.

Yuko Kimura: Boro no. 4, intaglio, old Japanese book page, on handmade paper, thread

Yuko Kimura is a California artist working with fabric, paper and thread. She has worked on a series titled Boro. Website here.

Yuko Kimura: Paper Window series: etching on old book pages and handmade paper, thread

"My working process is about mending and patching by reusing or recycling old paper or fabric from Japan. I am particularly interested in the beauty of translucency and imperfect uneven edges in homemade paper." -- Yuko Kimura

Matthew Harris: dyed, cut and handstitched cloth

Matthew Harris is a working artist with cloth, paper, thread in the United Kingdom. He makes work that employs dying, cutting and hand stitching. He is concerned with abstract imagery and the translation of drawn marks into cloth. Website here.

Michael Harris: mixed media on paper, waxed thread

"The musicality in Harris' work is clear. We can recognize the complex structural elements of composition... The progressive form of the [musical] score graphically represents the linear unfolding of time..." Paul Harper, Trace Elements

Lisa Hochstein:  salvaged paper

Lisa Hochstein spent several years living in Barcelona Spain and now lives in California.  She works with both salvaged papers and recycled fabric.  Website here.  

Lisa Hochstein:  hand stitching on salvaged fabric

"Each collage is a layered physical record of its own making,  as well as an encounter with the impermanence of objects we at one time hold dear and then later cease to value.  The finished works range from precise geometric constructions to more fluid, painterly compositions.  They resonate with my own intermittent pangs of nostalgia and fuel my curiosity about individual and collective histories."  -- Lisa Hochstein

Dorothy Caldwell:  fabric, stitching

Dorothy Caldwell is a Canadian textile artist.  She maintains an active international exhibition and teaching schedule from her studio in Hastings, Ontario.  Working with paper and cloth, her works examine different kinds of marks including stitching, resist and batik, drawn and painted marks and mending.  Her works address different aspects of movement and gesture that through time and repetition evolve into richly activated surfaces.  Website here.  

The art of the inner work, which unlike the outer
does not forsake the artist, which he does not "do"
and can only "be," springs from the depths of which
the day knows nothing. --Eugene Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery

Art from Necessity

The above collage is the beginning of my Enso series. Enso represents the Japanese circle, and my search for completeness. There are also aspects of the placement of handmade papers (like setting stones in a Japanese garden) and Boro. My interpretation of Boro in my work involves hand-painted rice papers placed in a quilt-like fashion using my sense of balance, contrast and unity.

Recently, the Japanese Gardens in Portland Oregon hosted a show of Boro. They called the show MOTTAINAI which means 'waste nothing' in Japan. Many years ago, the very poorest people in Japan saved every scrap of cloth, thread, paper and patched or quilted 2nd hand cotton garments from city dwellers who traded for rice or vegetables. Two of the biggest collectors of Boro in the world sent samples of their Boro collection to the Portland exhibit.

One of the biggest collectors of Boro in the world has a gallery and showroom/shop in Kyoto on Teramachi Street. Her name is Kei Kawasaki and you can find her website here.

These very poor Japanese people in pre-industrial Japan would patch together bits of cloth out of necessity. Every small patch was like treasure to them.

the hands know,
the materials too,
quite apart from your imaginings,
less is more than your intentions -
following the pattern that emerges,
the story as it tells.
--- Jane Whitely

The other collector of Boro is Stephen Szczepanek, who also participated in the Portland exhibit.
This is his showroom in Brooklyn, NY. You can find his blog here. His website is called Sri and he is very well known in the Boro and Japanese Textile world.

In his showroom above, a workcoat called boro noragi, is patched with pieces of cloth as small as a postage stamp.

Here you can see an example of the intricate stitching used in Boro patching.

The Japanese people created these quilted clothing out of necessity. Of course they did not know that someday their old, patched and quilted items would become treasured and exhibited in galleries, showrooms and museum exhibits.

Above is some indigo dye... I read that the Japanese used indigo... especially firemen and their work jackets... because indigo fabric will not burn.

And finally, Sibella Court has a new book: NOMAD, A global approach to interior style. I have received my copy and it is wonderful with a beautiful chapter on Japan. The book is available at Amazon.com and Anthropologie.com.

There is nothing like returning
to a place that remains unchanged
to find ways in which
you yourself have altered.

--- Nelson Mandela

Art by Accident or by Design

Boro is a Japanese word meaning "tattered rags" - used to describe patched clothes and bedding.
Because the clothing has been patched over and over, they look like wearable quilts. For a long time they were an embarrassment, due to the extreme poverty of the country people who created them. Now they are considered National treasures.

The book BORO: Rags and Tatters from the Far North of Japan by Yukiko Koida and Kyoichi Tsuzuki is based on the tireless search by Chuzaburo Tanaka for these cultural folk craft. He trekked over mountains and seacoast for 40 years collecting these Boro pieces. You can find this book for a reasonable price at the Trocadero website here.

Without Tanaka's efforts we would never have known of the art and beauty of Boro. For the people who created them, each small scrap of cloth and thread was precious. You can find actual Boro items at Kimono Boy, srithreads, and Shibui Home.

Below is one of my paintings in which I used hand-painted rice papers as collage. My hope in creating these hand painted papers was to make them resemble pieces of fabric in the style of Boro. The title is Asian Quilt.

Between 1741 and 1760, more than 4000 babies were left at the Foundling Hospital in London, England. When these impoverished mothers left their babies, they also left a small token, which was usually a piece of fabric. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child's clothing by nurses.

This piece of fabric was attached to registration forms and bound up in ledgers, in order to 'identify' the baby and keep identifying records. The hope by both the mothers and the nurses was that they would be able to reclaim their baby when their lives improved.

These pieces of fabric represent the sad moments of parting. Below, the piece of fabric has been cut into the shape of a heart. These pieces of fabric also form the largest collection of every day textiles serving Britain from the 18th century. Earlier this year, the Foundling Museum in London showcased an exhibit called Threads of Feeling. You can find out more about this exhibit at the Foundling Museum website here.

Between his age of 80 to 95, for 15 years until his death, Kouzaki Hiromu spent his days creating small simple 'works of paper'. When asked, he would say that he was making envelopes. He cut up, folded and pasted pieces of found papers.

His granddaughter, Fujii Sakuko, put over 100 of these envelopes into a book simply titled
GRANDFATHER'S ENVELOPES.

In his work, Hiromu created simple edge, line and surface texture.

Isn't it interesting how art imitates life, and life imitates art. Over time, these objects today take on qualities of collage, objects of history, and objects with life and soul.

Envelopes I found at a temple flea market in Kyoto in 2009.

Boro: rags and tatters

new work, 2010, acrylic and collage rice papers

BORO: Rags and Tatters from the Far North of Japan. ed. Yukiko Koide and Kyoichi Tsuzuki.
The Boro shown in this book is the sum of 40 years of field work by researcher Chuzaburo Tanaka. A few decades ago, Tokoku and Aomori, the northern part of Japan (snow country), meant 'dire poverty' to most Japanese. These dirt poor farmers, out of desperate necessity, created an astonishing textile out of boro- mere rags. Boro became 'survival' and any scraps of old cloth were coveted. The smallest snippets were saved and re-used over and over until the rags finally turned to ash and returned to the soil. Work jackets to bedding, were stitched, layered and repaired over and over. This cultural heritage survived and is now revered.

Things wabi-sabi are expressions of time frozen. They are made of materials that are visibly vulnerable to the effects of weathering and human treatment. They record the sun, wind, rain, heat, and cold in a language of discoloration, rust, tarnish, stain, warping, shrinking, shriveling, and cracking...they still possess an undiminished poise and strength of character. Leonard Koren, WABI-SABI, for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

Things wabi-sabi are usually small, quiet and inward-oriented. They beckon: get close, touch, relate.

Things wabi-sabi may exhibit the effects of accident, like a broken bowl glued back together again. Or they may show the result of just letting things happen by chance.

India, who lives in Australia, makes felt using wool and water and woven textile fabrics, and dyes cloth using plants and water. You can find her very entertaining blog, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, here and her beautiful website here.

Regina lives on Caribbean island called Netherlands Antilles. She works with paper and fabric, and her beautiful blog, Mostly Turquoise, can be found here.

For this piece titled BRANCHING OUT, Lorraine at Creative Daily used photographs of branches and bare trees, which she digital manipulated, printed the images on fabric and then pieced them together for this journal cover. You can find her wonderful blog here.

QUILTS by Nikki Giovanni

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm
And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers