Product Description

Shibori is infinitely more than the tie-dye that became well known in the late 1960s. Shaped-resist dyeing techniques have been done for centuries in every corner of the world. Yet more than half of the known techniques --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 addition to traditional methods it encompasses high-tech processes like heat-set on polyester (made famous by Issey Miyake?s revolutionary pleated clothing), melt-off on metallic fabric, the fulling 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), and dévorée, in which just one part of a mixed fabric is dissolved with chemicals.
Author Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada has been teaching shibori around the world for nearly thirty years, and helped to establish the World Shibori Network and the International Shibori Symposium. She coauthored in 1983 the authoritative Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped-Resist Dyeing, which in turn inspired many artists to add shibori processes to their repertoire.
The range of vibrant modern art covered in Memory on Cloth is remarkable, and includes work by artists from Africa, South America, Europe, India, Japan, China, Korea, the United States, and Australia in more than 325 stunning photos and illustrations. It encompasses fabric design, wearable art and fashion, and textile art or various sculptural forms. The work of more than seventy innovative designers including Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Jurgen Lehl, Jun?ichi Arai, Hélène Soubeyran, Geneviève Dion, Asha Sarabhai, Junco Sato Pollack, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Marian Clayden, and Carter Smith is presented, and each artist shares details on the processes that they themselves have created, making this an invaluable reference for artists in every field. A number of innovative artists who combine shibori techniques with knitting, weaving, or quilting are also included, suggesting new ways to combine innovation with more traditional forms. A final section on modern techniques gives extremely detailed information, including dye recipes, on various high-tech processes and the particular methods that individual artists use to achieve certain effects.
As informative as it is inspirational, Memory on Cloth will take its place alongside Wada?s earlier work, Shibori, as a definitive text that will help keep shaped-resist dyeing processes a vibrant and important form of modern art.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #435613 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-14
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.14" h x 8.83" w x 12.36" l, 3.11 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 212 pages

From Library Journal
Best known in the United States as tie-dye, shibori is a traditional Japanese resist-dye technique that gained popularity along with other folk art movements of the 1960s and 1970s. With the rediscovery of its techniques, shibori's popularity spread worldwide; there have been three international symposiums on shibori, the last in 1999 in Chile. Artisan and author Wada (Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing) has promoted and taught this technique for years. Here, the author outlines shibori's transition from craft to fiber art in traditional and nontraditional formats, focusing on the works of several artists. The descriptions are accompanied by illustrations that are well placed though a bit muted. For in-depth information on both the technique and its history, there is no substitute for Wada's earlier book, which is in its ninth printing. Focusing on more advanced forms of a dyeing technique, this volume is rather narrow in topic and recommended only for specialized or fiber art collections. Public libraries that have the earlier book will want to pass. Karen Ellis, Nicholson Memorial Lib. Syst., Garland, TX
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"... substantially broadens the [Japanese] term shibori ... to similar processes used all over the world."
--European Textile Network

"... this book will confirm old passions -- and ignite new ones for initiates."
--Textile Fibre Forum

"... a sumptuous book, sure to delight the art lover and the expert designer. Profusely illustrated, it captures shibori?s planned and accidental evanescence, its ability to express seemingly endless variations of color and texture."
--Sigrid Wortmann Weltge, American Craft

From the Publisher
FOREWORD TO THE BOOK

Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada has chosen her subject well. As the global authority on shibori in its myriad forms Wada has, for decades, been the driving force behind this tradition's popularization. She is also spearhead of the International Shibori Symposium (ISS). Even so, this author is not fully appreciated, even by those who know her, even by the many in her debt for opening doors to art expression or commerce. Perhaps because of her diminutive frame, seeming reticence, and prolonged youth, we don't recognize a Colossus spanning East and West, past and future.

Decades ago, when the San Francisco Bay area was the absolute Vatican of fiber development in the Americas, Wada first served as a conduit to Asian resist-patterning traditions. As a founder of Kasuri Dyeworks and instructor at Fiberworks, Center for Textile Arts, she nurtured innovators such as Ed Rossbach and Katherine Westphal. Perhaps more than anyone else, Wada caused the evolution of fiber focus from cloth structure to the dye patterning that we now recognize as surface design.

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. For instance, the Malay/Indonesian term plangi, first proposed by Swiss scholars and widely used for almost a century, is now less often heard than the Wada term, shibori -- itself an umbrella for dozens of methods including fold-dye, stitch and clamp resists, and even a woven form.

Still more crucial at the dawn of the third millennium are shibori methods as the most dynamic of all textile aspects. While patterning with liquid resists (batik) or binding yarns to resist dyes (ikat) are by their nature limited, shibori resists embrace an extremely flexible universe. By providing both discipline and freedom in many mediums, shibori has the potential to transform post-industrial craftsmanship.

For example, any manner of pleats -- random or precise -- can be created through automation, then pad-dyed or transfer-printed, then opened -- all without human involvement! Whether crisply defined or shadowy, the resulting pattern is as full of miniscule accidents for natural randomness as traditional shibori. Because we can perceive this marriage of liquid dyes and thirsty cloth, this "understanding of making" is a pleasure increasingly rare in an industrialized world. That this organic patterning is also three-dimensional makes it the optimal antidote to the monotony of mass production.

More recently we learned that shibori can also be used to subtract color (discharge) or fiber (burn-out) or even whole layers of cloth. We have also learned that using shibori methods for permanently pleating or shrinking cloth creates miraculous surfaces. Finally unlocking the potential of thermoplastic memory, we are using these new wrinkles to resist wrinkles, increase comfort, and widen ranges of size and fit.

Fortunately, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada understands all this full well. She also knows the designers opening up these universes. Crescendo!

Jack Lenor Larsen