Inspirations | 106

First published in Inspirations issue #106 in April 2020, written by Ansie van der Walt

'You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one'

— John Lennon

Yoshimasa Takakura, a third-generation kimono maker from Kurume, a small city in southern Japan, dreams of using his craft to create harmony and a world as one.

The Imagine One World Kimono Project was launched in 2014 with the aim to create 206 unique kimonos – one for each country in the world. The idea was born while Takakura-san participated in a fashion show in Paris in 2013. His kimono, fusing images of flowers by 18th century Japanese painter Ito Jakuchu with art-nouveau designs, received praise and positive feedback and he understood the ability of Japanese culture to respect others.

The future of the kimono is under threat. Not only do fewer people wear kimonos today but the experienced artisans and kimono makers are ageing and dying out. Very few young designers are taking up the art of kimono making as the market is declining and they can’t see a future for the craft.

Yoshimasa Takakura wants to reverse this trend.

'I want people to be proud of this heritage that was cultivated in this country. I hope to encourage everyone in Japan to preserve this art, not just now but fifty or even a hundred years in the future.'

Inspired by the last Olympic Games held in Japan in 1964, where women dressed in traditional kimonos performed the medal presentations, Takakura’s ambition is to create kimonos representing each country in the world to be worn during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

In November 2014 Takakura-san held a small show in Tokyo where he introduced the first six kimonos. He presented his idea to people in Japan and overseas ranging from governments and corporations to the public and the media, inviting them to become part of this challenge by contributing funds and other resources. The Imagine One World Kimono Project started gaining momentum.

Senegal

Over the next few years Takakura-san scoured the country to find masters of their craft. Kimono makers, designers, weavers and other artisans offered their services and expertise. One of these was Kisaburo Ogawa, a master of kenjo hataka-ori, a traditional style of silk weaving based on Buddhist principles. It usually includes continuous stripes in only five colours, creating a simple yet luxurious product.

Ogawa-san specialises in making obi sashes and is one of only ten national living treasures. He was commissioned to design an obi for the Canadian kimono. After long deliberations and research, he used the colours of the Canadian flag and included refined designs to represent Niagara Falls and the aurora borealis, or northern lights. ‘I kept the foundation but created something new’ Ogawa-san said.

'I accepted the challenge to move forward. I am really satisfied – it was worth making. To propel culture forward it is important to do things you have never experienced. By taking on something they have never done, artisans give birth to new designs. Stepping up to the challenge also points them in a new direction of styles and skills.'

Yoshimasa Takakura believes that when people of tradition look towards the future, it has deep and important value for everyone involved in the kimono world.

Greece

The Indonesia kimono is a perfect example of how this project breaks new ground in cultural co-operation, skill-transfer and design development. Shigeo Okajima, president of one of the oldest kimono companies in Japan was tasked with creating this masterpiece. Okajimasan is known for his use of kyo-yuzen, a dyeing technique similar to batik but using glue instead of wax for outlining the designs prior to painting. As the glue sits on top of the fabric, this style of dying usually only uses soft colours to prevent ink bleeding.

For this kimono, Okajima-san approached batik master Iman from the town of Pekalongan in Indonesia. Together they created a design incorporating the red and white colours of the Indonesian flag, the multi-island geography of Indonesia and traditional Javanese motifs. Iman and his team applied the wax. It’s usually done on cotton and they had to adapt their technique to work on kimono silk.

'You constantly need to be careful about the condition of the wax when you apply on silk.'

The silk was then sent back to Kyoto to be painted in the Japanese style. Here Okajima-san’s team had their first opportunity to work with rich, dark colours without the fear of ink-bleeding.

Vietnam

This collaboration allowed both artisans to break new ground, to broaden their skill repertoire, and expand their way of thinking about their own traditional craft. As Iman said,

‘this collaboration opened a new world to me. I would like to keep on working with Okajima-san.’

In 2018, four years after they started, the Imagine One World Kimono Project reached their halfway mark with 100 kimonos completed. A big reveal show was held in Tokyo to celebrate their achievement but also to spread the word and gain more support for the second half of the project. It took them four years to reach halfway, but they only had two years left before the deadline of the 2020 Olympics.

Malaysia

As the word spread around the world, more and more designers came forward offering help and a willingness to become involved. They also gained more support from individual countries and businesses that were willing to provide skills, materials and financial support.

The production costs are the same for each kimono regardless of the size of the country, and part of the process of creating each piece is to get confirmation and support on the design from ambassadors of each country.

Yoshimasa Takakura’s message to the models before they went on stage at the halfway celebrations were simple:

‘The world is filled with beautiful things, many of which appear in these kimonos. When you go on stage, I’d like you to hold the wishes and hopes of the people of these countries in your hearts. Joining hands at the end of the show will be the moment the world unites. It is my dream, the goal I am determined to reach.’

At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the world will see 206 kimonos. They will represent each country on earth. They will represent the dream of one man who believes in his craft so dearly that he is willing to change the world to save it. They will also represent artisans, craftspeople, designers and makers from every country in the world, breaking barriers and building bridges, using ancient techniques to create a future.

‘Like sports, I believe that the art world has the power to transcend borders.’

To see more of kimonos, go to http://www.facebook.com/imagineoneworldkimonoproject/

Website: https://piow.jp/

First published in Inspirations issue #106 in April 2020, written by Ansie van der Walt

‘I think the stories of people who are in the shadows of society have more to teach us about our world than the great and the good. People who have had to struggle because of political oppression, mental fragility, poverty or disenfranchisement often have both extraordinary strength and tenderness – the stoicism to survive in physical and emotional hardship and an empathy for those whose journey through life has been difficult. Given the opportunity to visually and texturally express what they have experienced can result in surprisingly poignant textiles.’

Clare Hunter is a community artist, curator and banner maker from Glasgow, Scotland where in 1986, she set up NeedleWorks. Here she works with people from all ages and cultures, using sewing as a way to celebrate local history, document community experiences and share personal concerns through the creation of wall hangings and banners.

Clare’s stitching journey started with her mother who taught her to embroider as a young girl.

‘I loved the rhythm and the feel of it in my hands. Throughout my teenage years I carried on embroidering but also mastered the sewing machine and made most of my clothes from cheap remnants.’

When Clare began working in theatre, she helped to design and make the costumes for these mostly cash-strapped companies. Later, when she started working as a community artist, it just seemed natural to use her needlework skills for projects ranging from puppetry with children to creative workshops with adults. ‘In the 1980s I went to a mass demonstration at Greenham Common Peace Camp and saw there how women were using the fabrics from home – old sheets, tea towels, the cast-off clothing of their children – to create banners that emphasised their role as protectors of family and community and it made me more aware of the potential of sewing as a social and political medium.’

In 1984, when Clare was asked to organise a community project in England to encourage local people to become more involved with their May Day parade, she decided on a banner-making project. “It was the year of the Miners’ Strike and I began, voluntarily, to make banners for the striking miners. I realised that banners offered a portable and powerful form of public art where people, especially those whose voices were rarely heard, could express their concerns, share their histories, celebrate their sense of place and possibility.”

Through NeedleWorks, Clare learned that giving people the opportunity to visually and texturally express what they have experienced can result in surprisingly poignant textiles. ‘One only has to look at the early panels made to commemorate those who died of AIDS in early 1980s America as part of the Names Memorial Project to see how, in the hands of mainly men unused to sewing, arresting and imaginative ways were found to animate loved ones in cloth and thread. Similarly, during Pinochet’s regime in Chile, it was the poorest of women in the shanty towns who recycled fabric to create small sewn documentaries telling of their country’s terror and deprivation. Making patchwork pictures, stitched images of loss, they smuggled it out of their silenced country to alert the world to what was happening.’

Clare’s book Threads of Life – A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, published in 2019 (see review below), is a narrative of the role needlework, sewing, embroidery and textiles have played in political and cultural events around the world and through the ages.

Over the centuries the status and economic value of women’s needlework became demoted until it was seen as something irrelevant to society, merely a form of female decorative diversion. In writing Threads of Life, Clare unearthed many examples, in every century, of people – men as well as women – sewing textiles of social meaning.

‘The rich cultural language expressed through needlework of so many communities – especially those who have been oppressed or enslaved, and the language of women without the means to write down their thoughts and experiences - has been wilfully eroded by those who have chosen to silence them.’

Clare found that in countries which suffered social and political loss, refugees and women lacking social freedom are taking up sewing as a way to make an income and gain a modicum of independence, to have a voice. It is these women who are changing the status of needlework by demonstrating how important it and its traditions can be to a community’s well-being.

‘As people become more conscious of our need to look after our world there is an increasing use of recycled fabrics as a political act, and as people resist the technological push to turn us into algorithms, they are expressing their individuality and ingenuity through crafting clothes and sewn gifts which are unique, which take time to make, which speak of their hearts as well as their heads and hands.’

Banner making is still one of NeedleWorks’ main objectives.

‘It is a collective way of being distinct about who you are and what you stand for. They are proclamations of solidarity and care. Designing a banner is a group affair.’

Clare sits down with a group of people and they talk about how best to encapsulate their collective identity and purpose: how best to capture these in the colours, images and slogans they choose. If the banner is to be taken on rallies, as opposed to hung on a wall, the design has to allow an onlooker to take in its meaning at a glance as the banner passes by. Too much clutter and its message will be lost. Once the group’s identity and concerns have been distilled into a simple visual statement, they gather the materials and start to trace and cut out the lettering and the different images.

‘The good thing about appliqué, the technique I predominantly use, is that even those who have never sewn before or don’t want to sew, can participate in the banner-making because often the most labour-intensive work is in the tracing and cutting out. Once this is done, everything is tacked down by the group and then I, or someone in the group who is good at machine-sewing, sews it together. There might also be more embroidered detail done during or afterwards by the group with individuals taking responsibility for specific pieces. What is important is that the process is sociable and rewarding, accessible and inclusive. When groups see their handiwork being admired by others they are always surprised by their own capabilities and that strengthens their confidence and sense of worth.’

Whether at work as a community artist, or working on her next research project, textiles and needlework are always at the centre of Clare’s life. ‘Sewing is part of who I am. I am not a textile artist, so I don’t exhibit my own work. While I do work to commission the design evolves as a collective act, and with community textiles. I am there as a creative translator to help a community effectively transmit what matters to them in fabric and thread. I would like to think that my book Threads of Life is my artistic contribution to the world of needlework and that, through my creative writing, I have managed to convey the value I put on sewing as a way to voice my own humanity and the humanity of others.’

www.sewingmatters.co.uk

Threads of Life– A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

Clare Hunter | Sceptre 2019 | Soft Cover 306pg

ISBN 978-1-473-68792-9 | RRP $32.99

A needlework book without pictures may seem an unusual and unappealing idea but this engrossing paperback is so richly illustrated with wonderful stories that you will hardly notice.

Clare Hunter has spent much of her life deeply immersed in textiles and her community, helping people express social and political concerns through banners and wall hangings. Recognising the power of stitch to give voice to those who would otherwise be unheard and the value of needlework in recording historical events, both large and small, Clare has gathered a fascinating collection of tales from around the world and across time.

Collected in chapters with titles such as Captivity, Identity, Connection, Protest, Loss and Community, these stories reveal the ways that fabric and stitch can and have been used as a vital tool by individuals and groups to commemorate, celebrate, record, sustain, protect and mourn. Reading through the pages is an emotional journey and Clare provides a unique insight into events, some, with worldwide impact, others extremely intimate and personal, and their human responses. There are the early 20th century banners, richly appliquéd and embroidered, carried by suffragettes rallying to gain the vote for women, the small, white handkerchief embroidered with the seven names of young girls abducted to serve as ‘comfort women’ for Japanese officers during the Second World War, and the billet books containing scraps of fabric and other mementos left with each child by despairing mothers at the London Foundling Hospital in the 18th century.

There is profound sadness and anguish in many of the stories but there are also tales of beauty, success, exquisite skill, dedication and joy, each one carefully and skillfully wrapped in its historical context. All give support to the power of needle and thread and the innate, human need to tell our story, not with the geographical restrictions of words but the universal language of stitch.

This is a fabulous book, well researched and beautifully written, that is an absolute joy to read.

First published in Inspirations issue #106 in April 2020, written by Ansie van der Walt

‘As children, we were good at making our own toys. We made our own dioramas out of cardboard boxes pretending that they were dollhouses. That sort of resourcefulness, using what is available, has been a constant in our work.’

Sydney-based twins and design duo, Maricor and Maricar Manalo were born in the Philippines but have called Australia home since they were two years old. ‘We had this crazy 1970s house, where there was different wallpaper in every room. The carpet was a crazy floral mishmash. We used to look at all the patterns and tried to see different things. It made us visualise things a bit differently – we saw things in patterns.’

They both completed a Visual Communication degree at the University of Technology in Sydney, studying graphic design, animation, photography and illustration. At this stage they had no knowledge or experience of embroidery and had no idea that this would be their future.

It was early in their careers as graphic designers that they had the opportunity to work on a music video for the band Architecture in Helsinki for their new song Like it or not. Their boss at the time suggested that they make an animated video using embroidered graphics. They jumped at the challenge and did a selftaught crash course in embroidery using books and YouTube videos.

‘We learned how to embroider while we were designing the characters! The quick turnaround for the video almost destroyed us and we didn’t pick up a needle and thread for the next three years.’

It was only when the two sisters started their own studio, Maricor/Maricar, that they began focusing on handcrafted and bespoke embroidered designs and illustrations for the publishing and advertising world. They were already exploring lines and patterns in their graphic work and could now combine it with their other interest, lettering and typography, executed in needle and thread.

Their careers started in the digital age, but Maricor and Maricar were the one in the office still playing with the copier, photocopying stuff and ripping things up. ‘We illustrate, we use paintbrush and ink. That is our background – a love of analogue.

Because we were self-taught, we were okay with making mistakes and not following the perfect technique.’

According to Maricor, it is the playfulness of embroidery that first inspired them to work with it; now it is the colour and tactility that motivates them to keep on experimenting and trying out new ideas and designs.

They started experimenting with embroidered typography and lettering, a personal favourite. Their first commercially commissioned work was the words Go Play in their signature patterned style for ESPN Magazine. It captured the sort of joyful energy and whimsy that they like to communicate in their work.

All Maricor and Maricar’s work starts out as sketches and, depending on the style, they will either vectorise it or use watercolours to create the gradient colour mashups. The design is then traced onto the fabric, usually cotton plain weave although they have used linen twill and denim for special projects.

‘Our favourite stage of the process is choosing the matching cotton thread.’

These days, the sisters each work at their own home office, fitting projects and stitching around their young families’ needs. ‘We work remotely but share everything through apps like Google Drive and we are constantly in contact, asking advice and feedback on designs. We typically both provide initial concepts to present to the client. Whoever’s design gets chosen then becomes the lead for the project and will execute the embroidery. For bigger projects with multiple elements, we’ll split the work. Only once or twice have we worked simultaneously on a large piece, but there’s too much risk of rogue needles in the eye!’

Maricor and Maricar have been doing everything together since they were in the womb. They went to the same school, studied the same course at university, and entered the workforce at the same agency. Now they are business and creative partners with their own distinct style of commercial design work. ‘We had each other as cheerleaders when we needed a reminder not to give up,’ Maricar says. ‘In terms of working well together, I think we would have always ended up working side by side. We joke that we’ve been joined at the hip, metaphorical Siamese twins. Our different strengths complement each other but we also have a shorthand way of discussing ideas, we get each other’s references and riff off each other.’

It has been a dream since high school to be book cover designers, so working on these projects as illustrators and embroiderers brings the twins great joy. One of these dream projects was the cover for Clare Hunter’s book Threads of Life (at the end of the page HERE). ‘We were approached by book designer Will Speed to create the cover image. Will gave us a pretty clear brief to work from as he had in mind a globe motif inspired by pieces from our portfolio that are based on patterns and colourful stitches. The idea was to incorporate little icons into the pattern that related to the contents of the book. Will liaised with the author on which icons she would like featured.’

Their commercial clients include, British Council Australia, Hong Kong Airport, TOMS Shoes and magazines, Wired UK, Esquire UK, ESPN and GOOD and they are currently working on a collaboration with a home furnishing brand launched in 2020. When they are not working on commissions, the sisters enjoy working on personal projects, trying out new stitches and techniques and just having fun.

The two little girls who saw imaginary worlds in carpet patterns are now established commercial designers, yet they don’t refer to themselves as illustrators, designers or artists, but rather as makers of things. Just like their childhood dioramas, they used what they had and built a career that can only belong to them.

Website: https://maricormaricar.com/