Memory On Cloth
Shibori Now

Author: Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada
Pages: 212
Page size: 11" x 13"
Publisher: Kodansha International
Cover: Soft
Item Code: 4Q0670
Weight: 3.4lbs.

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MSRP: $80.00

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Back Cover Information

Shibori is infinitely more than the tie-dye that became well known in the late 1960's. Shaped-resist dyeing techniques have been done for centuries in every corner of the world. Yet more than half of the known technqiues- in which cloth is in some way tied, clamped, folded, or held back during dyeing, to keep some areas from taking color- originated in Japan.

Shibori can be used not only to create patterns on cloth but to turn fabric from a two-dimensional into a three-dimensional object. The word is used here to refer to any process that leaves a "memory on cloth"- a permanent record, whether of patterning or texture, of the particular forms of resist done. In additon to traditional methods it encompasses high-tech processes like heat-set on polyester (made famous by Issy Miyake's revolutionary pleated clothing.) melt-off on metallic fabric, the fulliong and felting that make it possible to turn all-natural fabrics into three-dimensional shapes, weaving resist (in which, for instance, a warp thread can be pulled to gather the cloth to resist dye), an devoree, in which just one part of a mixed fabric is dissolved with chemicals.

About the Author

For nearly thirty years, surface-design artist, curator, and textile researcher Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada has been teaching shibori, first in Berkeley, California and then around the world. Many who took her classes went on to become artists and teachers themselves, and thanks to Wada's efforts the field has expanded geometrically over the course or a single generation. In 1983 she also coauthored, with Mary Kellogg Rice and Jane Barton, the definitive book in English, Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped- Resist Dyeing. As Jack Lenor Larsen puts it in his foreword to Memory on Cloth, " Through her first book, Shibori, and through her exhibits, lectures, and personal persuasion in every communication medium, Wada has single-handedly changed our field and its language." Because of her commitment to keeping shibori traditions alive, the work "shibori" has now become universally accepted as the term for shaped-resist processes. Wada continues to travel the world searching for shibori innovations and outstanding artists.

Instruction Page

Makiko Minagawa

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