Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

Art in the Making: The Beauty of Japanese Katagami Stencils

May 7, 2024 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm PDT

Explore 500 years of Japanese textile art with Oregon artist Karen Miller. Discover the history and craft of kimono-making using traditional stencils.

Japanese kimono and domestic textiles have been produced with paper stencils for five hundred years. Oregon artist Karen Miller has been studying, collecting, making, and using them for 25 years. She will discuss their history, the tools and techniques used to make them, and the varied ways they have been employed, as well as connecting traditional stencil processes with her own work, sharing examples of historic and modern textiles as well as many examples of these beautiful stencils. The virtuosity and creativity of the Japanese stencil carvers were recognized once Japan opened to the West and influenced European art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Katagami (pattern paper) are made from layers of kozo (paper mulberry) laminated with kakishibu and smoked. Kakishibu is the tannic fermented juice of green persimmons, used in Japan for paper lamination, waterproofing, as a wood preservative, and a dye. The resultant fragrant paper, when soaked in water before use, becomes leathery, flexible, and tough. Despite their apparent fragility, stencils are a durable tool which can be used many times to apply rice paste resist to fabric before dyeing it. The nature of the resist paste is such that unbelievably fine stenciled dots and lines still give clearly defined designs on fabric. Once the dyeing is completed, the resist is easily removed in warm water. Stencils are cut with knives, punches, and other specialized tools. They can be used directly for small patterns. Larger patterns with more open designs are too fragile to be used directly, so they are reinforced with silk threads or mesh. Some of them are works of art in themselves.

Artist’s Biography – Karen Illman Miller

Karen Miller was born in Oakland, CA. She was a marine biologist before becoming an expert on katazome, the art of Japanese stencil dyeing. Using her own hand-cut stencils to apply a resist paste, she produces fabric for art quilts, as well as silk garments, linen hangings, and indigo-dyed cottons. Her work has been exhibited twice in Japan, is in numerous private and public collections, and was hung in the Washington D.C. office of Jane Lubchenco, the head of NOAA in the first Obama administration. She has taught katazome nationally and internationally and has published several articles. She was featured on Oregon Art Beat, OPB TV in October 2007.




Details

Date:
May 7, 2024
Time:
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Cost:
Free
Event Category:
Event Registration:
eventbrite.com/e/art-in-the-making-the-beauty-of-japanese-katagami-stencils-tickets-890460319787?aff=oddtdtcreator

Organized By

Textile Hive
Organizer Website
textilehive.com

Venue

Textile Hive
133 Southwest 2nd Avenue Suite 203,
Portland, OR 97204 United States
+ Google Map

Support Our Community Programs

In just over 4 years, Portland TextileX Month (PTXM) has turned from an ambitious idea into an engaged community movement. This transformation highlights the power of our mission to foster collaboration, cross-pollination, cultural dialogue, and intergenerational exchange among the Portland textile community and beyond.

This year we’ve organized the PTXM festival with over 40 events and directly sponsored a multitude of FREE programs including exhibits, workshops, artist talks, community events, and more—representing a diverse range of textile interests and practices. This year’s PTXM Regeneration Festival has brought together makers, businesses, teachers, students, institutions, and organizations to gather around shared interests and knowledge-sharing. PTXM would not have been possible without the dedication of event organizers, paid contributors, paid interns, amazing volunteers and the receptiveness of the textile community.

We hope to continue building PTXM and TextileX website as sustainable resources that serve the textile community for years to come, and that’s where you come in.

If you feel a connection to the PTXM mission and what we can accomplish together, please consider making a direct contribution programming. As a direct contributor, your funds will go directly toward programming, lean administrative expenses, and providing paid internships. We appreciate any contribution you can make and your continued support.

Click to Make Your Contribution to PTXM.