Natural Textiles From Forest and Field

8 Jul 2008 Category: Craftwork, Japan, Nature

Grasses, roots, flowers, and barks, all taken from the wilds of her own backyard are what make up Tsuru Watanabe’s dyes. Tsuru has been dyeing and weaving textiles for over forty years, and her trade has taken her on travels all over the world. With a philosophy based on the Folk Art Movement, she makes her all-natural textiles without any chemicals.

Interview by Takafumi Suzuki
Translation by Claire Tanaka

Please tell me how you originally got into textile work.

Since my father was a lawyer, when I was in high school I thought I would become a lawyer too. But my father got really angry. “I can’t allow a woman to become a lawyer!” he said. So I said, “In that case, you can let me do whatever I want.” And I entered the textiles program at Joshibi University of Art and Design. I had always loved drawing and making things ever since I was a child, but I had an acquaintance who was a textile artist, so that was what got me into it.

Was the actual textile world different than how you had imagined it?

Well, it was so interesting when I started doing it that I got pulled further and further into the world of textiles. I really took advantage of my time at school. In addition, I traveled all over Japan visiting textile artisans. I traveled the whole country. I went walking around the Tohoku region looking for a loom, and I walked around Okinawa and I was really influenced by the people doing work there, their techniques and their feelings. I really had trouble, though, finding school accommodation which had space for my loom. (laughs) There aren’t many tenants like me, so I imagine my landlord must have been in a fix as well.

What aspect had a particular pull for you?

My professor was Yoshitaka Yanagi, nephew of the founder of the Folk Art Movement, Soetsu Yanagi, so I think I received a lot of influence from the Folk Art Movement. This is why I began to get interested in the beauty of objects made for daily use rather than objects made as decorations. When you study about it, you start to see the good in things that are made for a clear, specific purpose, and it’s interesting how those things grow more beautiful the more they are used. I knew from the start that I just wanted to weave a bunch of different things. That was how I felt.

At that time, was it natural for someone to work in dyeing and weaving?

Not at all. (laughs) At that time, materials like nylon were being used for everything, and it was a period when there was a real push for mass produced, man-made textiles. Not many people even worked at home anymore. That’s why when I went independent, a lot of people asked me, “What is it that makes you want to go against the current so much with your textile work?”

You went independent as a textile artisan in Sendai, isn’t that right?

Yes. I was in Tokyo for five years all told. Four years at university, and one year where I forcibly imposed myself on Rikizo Munehiro, a pongee weaver who was a designated national living treasure. After that, I went back to Sendai as part of my original plan. After I got back, I went to work right away. At that time in Sendai there were several instructors who were like amateurs; it was as if they were afraid of someone who had actually gone to university and studied textiles properly. But there were also plenty of people who took me seriously, so it was pretty easy to set up shop. I had lots of support by word of mouth from those people.

You’ve also gone overseas quite a bit to study about materials and making textiles, haven’t you?

I’ve walked all over China, Laos, Vietnam, all over Asia visiting minority tribes. The different kinds of dyeing, batik and so forth, techniques which are used in Japan are almost all originally from those places. The difference is that Japanese people are very fastidious and precise, and do very detailed work with the techniques. In other parts of Asia, the flow of the development of those techniques has been interrupted. But wherever you go, artisans can communicate with their hearts. Even if they can’t use words, just using the loom brings a sense of a common bond. It doesn’t work with merchants. You’ve got to meet the people who use their hands to make the wares. Those people have never given me trouble.

What country has left the biggest impression with you?

I’ve been going to Thailand for over forty years now. At first, I was asked by the Association for Connecting with Women in Thai Agricultural Villages through Hand-weaving to go to a town during a water festival where lots of people gathered, in order to give a demonstration about textiles. Since then, I’ve been going there every two years or so. I go to support the independence of women and the preservation of the Thai handicraft tradition. At that time, a lot of the women’s husbands were addicted to drugs, or just plain gone; they had lots of problems. So we would go, without bringing any materials with us from Japan, and help the women become independent by making things out of local materials. I went around teaching at about fifteen different villages. We’d all plant mulberry together and harvest silk threads. I’d spend about two months over there. At first, the women couldn’t read and write, but when I went back ten years later I saw them taking notes by themselves and I cried and thought to myself, “I’m so glad I did this.”

Previously on PingMag MAKE