Dancing Elephants Press Prompt week 43 of 52 — The color of my life
Out of all the colors surrounding me, which color dominates my vision? Blue, by far!
When I look up, the vast sky is filled with blue. When I look down the cliff, the calm water surface of the sea is filled with blue color.
For me, blue is the color that best depicts my life. It’s the most soothing color, which gives me balance, happiness, joy, and hope. For me, blue is the color that I wish to fill my life with as much as possible!
Yes, the burning orange of the sunset is beautiful, but we appreciate that color because it fills our vision only for a short moment. Imagine how different the world would look like if the sky and the ocean were filled with bloody red all the time.
Since this color is so dominant in our living environment, what good would it be if all living creatures were depressed or adversely affected by this dominant color?
I believe that I was born to love blue. I believe I’ve been programmed to feel good when I look at this color as a living creature.
Several days after we visited Katsuyama-san’s studio, I paid a visit to Rakufulin’s office in the center of Kyoto. Reiko-san greeted me with a warm smile and led me to the tatami-mat room where some of Rakufulin’s Obi were displayed and many more stacked.
She first told me a story about her family business, then began spreading Obi one by one.
Many of the Obi designs were traces of the fabrics that Reiko-san’s father and grandfather gathered from all over the world, especially in central Asia. Aiko-san, Reiko-san’s younger sister and the chief design officer of Rakufulin, adds her own interpretation to the original designs and creates new Obi.
Let me share with you some photos I took!
Below are examples of color magic. The two Obi shown side-by-side are the same design. By applying different colors, each Obi gives you quite different impressions.
The following two Obi employ the fukure ori ふくれ織 technique. The flower part is a little puffier than the rest, giving you a three-dimensional impression.
Aiko-san also designed these Obi. Her color selection reflects the contemporary trend.
Among more than 30 Obi that Reiko-san showed me on that day, this one was my favorite.
The orange flower looks like Dahlia, is it? Is the flower with the purple outline Iris? How about the bluish flower with five petals? You can’t make out which flowers exactly, but each gives you a whimsical impression. Various shapes of leaves and vines are dancing all over. And the background has also various patterns including large horizontal stripes and smaller vertical stripes.
How many colors are used in total? So many. Each color is inviting, looking so sweet. I almost want to put it in my mouth like candy. I can’t find any dominant color or pattern, but this Obi definitely gives you a sophisticated, overall harmony.
The problem I had, however, was I couldn’t think of any of my kimono that would match this Obi.
You know, Obi is only one component for dressing. It’s rather an accent. You need the main foundation, which is Kimono. What kind of Kimono will have enough significance that can treat this Obi as a mere accent? I couldn’t find any in my humble Kimono collection. A big sigh.
After spreading the Obi to show it to me, Reiko-san kept laying one on top of the other. By the time she showed me close to thirty, the pile of Obi fabrics formed a beautiful pyramid. At Rakufulin, even how Obi are shown on the tatami-mat floor becomes artistic!
I was intrigued by Reiko-san, the CEO of Rakufulin. For me, “Nishijin” was equivalent to “tradition.” My image of CEO of a Nishijin Obi company was a serious-looking, older man. Reiko-san is far from it, must be at least 15 or 20 years younger than I am. Why is such a young, beautiful woman running a Nishijin company?
Here is her family history that Reiko-san told me when I visited the Rakufulin office for the first time. It started with her grandfather.
Reiko-san’s grandfather, Takeshi Horie, was born in 1907 in Fukui Prefecture, which borders Kyoto to its south and faces the Japan Sea. Horie-san’s family was a kimono retailer, so it was a natural career path for him to be apprenticed to a prominent Obi maker in Kyoto when young.
He was well-trained there, and when he became independent in 1952, he named his own company Rakufulin 洛風林. His former employer as well as his mentor had a nickname Rakuen-o 洛園翁, and allowed Takeshi-san to use one of the characters for his new company name.
When he started Rakufulin, Takeshi-san introduced two unique aspects to his business.
First was his Obi designs.
When very few Japanese traveled abroad, Takeshi-san visited so many countries, especially Asian countries such as Iran and Afghanistan, retracing the ancient Silk Road. He collected various old textiles made in those regions. Inspired by the patterns of those ancient textiles, he created new designs for Obi.
Takeshi-san was also involved in the Mingei Movement with people like Kawai Kanjiro and Yanagi Soetsu. The Mingei Movement found beauty in ordinary crafts and functional utensils.
Most Nishijin Obi makers in those days had constant orders from the Imperial Court and other upper-class customers for traditional designs. Although Takeshi-san was considered an outlier in Nishijin, he never hesitated to pursue new designs. His motto was “A truly beautiful thing is always new.”
Second was how he collaborated with weavers.
Takeshi-san chose not to hire weavers as his employees, but carefully selected a handful of weavers with different skills, and formed a team of what he called Dojin 同人.
Takeshi-san played a role of a designer and a producer. Depending on the Obi design, he collaborated with the weaver on a certain technique that would best fit that particular design.
Takeshi-san as a producer and the weavers were equals. This horizontal relationship made it easier for both parties to bounce off their ideas and create new things.
When Tetsuo-san, Takeshi-san’s son and Reiko-san’s father, took over Rakufulin, he founded a private museum called Orient 織園都 to archive all the textiles that both his father and himself collected over time.
When her father’s health deteriorated and passed, Reiko-san succeeded as CEO. Her younger sister, Aiko-san, also joined the family business as a designer. The middle sister, Mayuko-san, takes care of the back office including accounting.
The three sisters take pride in keeping the business philosophy of Rakufulin, “a truly beautiful thing is always new.”
Katsuyama-san’s van left his studio in Shuzan 周山, the countryside of the northern part of Kyoto City. Those questions were answered at the next destination, a little closer to the city center.
A man whose name was Saito-san, with a large apron, greeted us with a big smile. Saito-san’s workplace was a low desk. He sat in front of the desk, and we sat on the other side as he started working.
At first, Saito-san placed a sheet of red washi paper made from Oriental paper bush, on the desk. On the washi paper, he spreadurushievenly. He seemed to have already got immune to urushi, because he was not wearing gloves.
Then he opened a package covered with white paper. Inside there were sheets of square, ultrathin gold film. He picked up one sheet using a tong made of bamboo and held it up in the light. The film was so thin that you could almost see through it.
Saito-san spreads Urushi on washi paper – Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
Saito-san swiftly placed the gold film at the edge of the red paper. He pressed it evenly, picked up another gold film, placed it right next to the first one, pressed it evenly, picked up another one, placed it right next to the second one, pressed it evenly, picked up another one…
While answering our random questions, he continued his work. Five sheets in one row, and five rows on one sheet of paper. In total, he placed twenty-five sheets of ultra-thin gold film onto washi paper so effortlessly. There was no gap in-between the films, nor any overlap.
After he finished placing the gold film, he rubbed the surface with a special tool, creating a rustic look.
“The task is quite simple. What makes our work different from those of amateurs is the speed and consistency. After repeating it so many times, I can do it quickly, yet there is very little difference in how each sheet looks. That’s the work of a craftsman like me,” said Saito-san.
He showed us the sheet cut into thin thread, with sample of red fabric that was woven together with the gold thread. (See the first photo above.)
“How many people are working for you?” I asked.
Saito-san said, “Are you kidding me? No young people want to do such tedious work. When I retire, there is nobody that would take over my job here. I’m more than sixty years old. I will try to continue as long as I can.”
I hope Saito-san is not the only hikihaku (引箔) craftsman in Kyoto, but he is the only one whose work Katsuyama-san can fully trust.
In this quiet countryside surrounded by rice fields, Katsuyama-san’s father, the fourth-generation Obi maker, opened this hand-weaving studio about 50 years ago. While machine weaving became mainstream even in Nishijin, the father’s move seemed against the tide.
In the studio, several veteran weavers were working. The studio had a hardwood floor, but directly underneath the loom where the weaver sat and worked, the earth was exposed. When asked, one of the Obi weavers explained to me that having enough humidity coming from the earth helps maintain a favorable silk condition when weaving.
The punctual sound of the loom’s movement was soothing.
One of the weavers opened a flat sheet of paper. Inside were gold threads, ready to be woven into the Obi. How can these thin threads be made into Obi fabrics, I wondered.
Back in the Tatami-mat room, Reiko-san showed me several Obi woven by those ladies. These Obi were all designed by Katsuyama-san. Some of Shimura-san’s silk yarn was brought here from Nagano to be made into Obi. The gold threads were meticulously woven together with the silk weft, one by one.
The jasmine vine in my backyard shows healthy growth in the summer. Too healthy that it almost overwhelms the spiderwort flowers blossoming nearby. One of my summer garden chores, therefore, is to trim the excessively long jasmine vines once in a while.
The vines don’t go to the compost bin right away. They are usually parked in one of my bamboo basket containers for a week or two.
This bamboo container has a small round opening on the top and a rectangular bottom. The handle is rather long, with two rods twisted into one. Meticulously hand-woven, this bamboo basket container is a regular that accompanies my jasmine vines every summer.
Inspired by the impeccably woven surface of the container, I try to weave the jasmine vines on and around the basket. Sometimes I successfully create beautiful curved lines that look like they are almost floating. Sometimes the lines end up sloppily dangling from the basket.
I try to replicate the most successful curved lines I can remember, but none of the vines are exactly the same. That’s the wonder of nature, and I have no choice but to accept the different lines each time.
So here is the Ikebana arrangement I did this summer. I accompanied lisianthus and lysimachia flowers, both of which have graceful curved lines. Hopefully the jasmine vines are happy with the company.
In response to Dancing Elephants Press Prompt week 40 of 52 — Love
My mother turned 85, and my cousin’s family celebrated her birthday while I was sound asleep.
That’s because I live Ocean’s away from my mom and there is 16 hours of time difference between us.
My cousin chose a day when everybody in her family (her husband, her children, and her son-in-law) was free from work. Before taking my mother to dinner, she and her family decorated their living room with balloons.
It has become customary for my cousin to take my mother for lunch or dinner once a month, so my mother had no second thoughts when my cousin suggested they stop by my cousin’s house for tea after the meal.
Then my mother saw the sea of balloons, even the number “85” displayed in the living room!
It was my mother’s first surprise birthday party.
I had never celebrated my mother’s birthday before. The only thing I could do in the last 29 years since I moved to the US was to call her on the phone or send her a short text message.
My cousin lives only a 15-minute drive away from my mother. Everyone in her family loves my mother and treats her as their own mother. Maybe 100 times more love than my love for my mother.
All I can do is fill my heart with gratitude and lots of love for my cousin and her family.
The first batch (photo above) was all hand-woven in Nagano, where Shimura-san lives and works, then brought here.
Ancient Japanese used to describe an extremely soft and light fabric as “Tennyo no Hagoromo 天女の羽衣,” as if a nymph would wear it. Their lightness and softness… These fabrics reminded me of this expression.
Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa
The second group in a sample size (photo above) was housed in smaller boxes. They were also made from Shiomayu (salted cocoon) silk. The difference from the first group was: they were machine-woven, and they had woven patterns.
Reiko-san let me look at, touch, and feel all the fabrics, even allowing me to drape them over my shoulders as if I were wearing them.
As much as I wished to feel like a nymph by wearing the first group, I selected the second group. Why?
My utmost purpose of having my own kimono made, was to wear it at the tea gathering scheduled in Kyoto.
On November 19 every year, Urasenke, the headquarters of our tea ceremony group, holds a gathering commemorating the passing of the third-generation grandmaster Sotan 宗旦 (1578 – 1658). Following this event, one of the Urasenke overseas groups has the privilege to participate in a full day of special training sessions taught by master teachers in Kyoto. In 2016, it was the Urasenke Seattle group’s turn. Such an opportunity would come maybe once in a decade at most.
If the tea ceremony training sessions were like garden parties, the first group of kimono fabric would have been ideal.
The reality is far from it. All day long, you stand up, walk, sit down, and keep sitting on your knees for minutes – and you repeat them again and again. You may also kneel forward or backward, depending on how large the tea room is.
For my tea training sessions, I also needed durability as well as beauty, and the second group’s fabrics were more suitable. Also, the woven pattern hides possible spots or stains better.
Photo: Property of Author Akemi Sagawa
Out of many colors, my natural choice was, Matcha green!
Photo: Author in Shiomayu Kimono, in front of Kabuto-mon. Property of Author Akemi Sagawa
The training session was an unforgettable experience. Ever since then, this kimono has accompanied me in various special occasions, such as the New Year’s tea gathering this year.
On a sunny day in February, at the rotary of a train station in Kyoto, I met Katsuyama-san, a fifth-generation Obi maker in Nishijin, and Reiko-san, for the first time. Marusugi-san, the person who introduced me to Katsuyama-san, also showed up. We all got in a van and drove off.
Marusugi-san is a third-generation kimono and silk fabric retailer. She had traveled to Seattle in the previous year in an attempt to promote their new product lines that use ultra-thin silk fabric and gold film. I had helped her host a series of trunk shows in several places in Seattle. We agreed to meet again on my next trip to Japan, hence this reunion in Kyoto.
Katsuyama-san’s van headed north. Kyoto is bordered on three sides by mountains, so the further we went, the road became narrower and more winding.
The conversation in the van was mainly me talking.
“You know, the fabric you (I meant both Marusugi-san and Katsuyama-san) are selling is too expensive for clothing,” I said. “Why don’t you position the fabric as art? Why don’t you frame it and sell it through interior designers? American homes are large and they’ve got huge walls, which they have to decorate anyway.”
“Why stick to only kimono and obi? If you want to expand the market outside of Japan, expand the category. Wealthy Americans spend far more money than Japanese for their home decoration. I’ve seen so many Americans hanging vintage kimono or obi as a tapestry on the wall.”
Katsuyama-san nodded but didn’t say much.
The van stopped in front of a one-story building in the middle of a rice field. We all got out of the van and followed Katsuyama-san into the building. On the left there was a tatami-mat room, maybe twelve tatami mats in total. On one side of the room there were wall-to-wall shelves and drawers. On the other side of the room, there were stacks of flat boxes.
Katsuyama-san took out two bundles of thread and let me touch both. The first one was softer and less shiny, but depending upon the angle, it reflected the light differently. It felt ideal in my palm. The threads of the second bundle looked all even, but didn’t have that rich texture.
The woman in the black jacket was introduced to me as Reiko Horie, CEO of Rakufulin洛風林, the company that sells Katsuyama-san’s obi.
While I was still enjoying the softer texture of the first bundle of silk threads, Reiko-san (I use her first name because we are now good friends) started to explain what I was touching. It was the silk thread made by Katsuyama-san’s company based in Nagano Prefecture. In 2003 Katsuyama-san obtained property there and started growing mulberry trees to raise silkworms.
Katsuyama-san used to use imported silk (the bundle I liked less). One day he was asked by a national museum to work on the restoration of the fabric made in the fifteenth century. The silk fabric was nothing like he had ever seen before. Soft, light, graceful — ever since then he couldn’t forget that fabric.
When he visited Milan, Katsuyama-san encountered the same type of silk fabric in a men’s handkerchief. Quite impressed, he asked the shopkeeper where the fabric was made. Not in Italy, but it was made in Japan, was the answer.
Katsuyama-san did further research and found the person who made the handkerchief fabric, Shimura-san. After a lot of persuading, Katsuyama-san successfully invited Shimura-san to be the co-founder of his silk farm. Shimura-san moved from Okinawa to Nagano.
What is the difference between Katsuyama-san and Shimura-san’s silk and other silk? It’s in the kind of mulberry they grow. In their farm they grow two kinds of mulberry trees. They feed the silkworms only the younger, softer leaves. Shimura-san found through his years of research that it helps silkworms to produce thinner but stronger silk.
Once the silkworms create cocoons, their lives end before they come out of the cocoons. Today’s main method of taking the lives of silkworms in the cocoons is to blow extremely hot air into the cocoons. The hot air eliminates humidity, making it easy to store the cocoons. The silk’s natural texture, however, is somewhat lost.
Shimura-san found a more natural and time-tested alternative: to salt the cocoons. Shimura-san places cocoons in a wooden barrel and salts them for two weeks. This way the silk’s natural texture and strength is maintained.
Making silk yarn as well as dissolving the sericin is done by hand at their farm.
In the same farm where they grow mulberry and silk cocoons, they make silk yarn and weave the kimono fabric. Shimura-san uses mostly natural dyes extracted from local plants. The main reason Shimura-san decided to join Katsuyama-san in Nagano is because he can be involved in the whole process in one place, giving him complete quality control of his products.
Katsuyama-san quietly said, “I’m making fabric that is to be worn.” I felt ashamed of what I had said in the van.
