Ki-mono Reconstruction

I am very fond of boro.  The month my father died, I was studying with Yoshiko Wada, in a workshop with an intense focus on boro textiles, history, philosophy and technique.  Slowly, this sensibility is beginning to creep back into my work; and oddly enough, conceptually, seeds of ideas, past fits and starts, and half made projects along with others that are in need of mending all begin to come into play.  The concept of value and sustainability together and the inherent beauty of each stitch.

Boro textiles were made in the late 19th and early 20th century by impoverished Japanese people from reused and recycled indigo-dyed, cotton rags. What we see in these examples are typical—patched and sewn, piece-by-piece, and handed down from generation-to-generation, where the tradition continued. These textiles are generational storybooks, lovingly repaired and patched with what fabric was available. Never intended to be viewed as a thing of beauty, these textiles today take on qualities of collage, objects of history, and objects with life and soul.

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