Somé no Bunka - Fukumoto Shigeki's introduction to the unique magic of Somé

It took me many months to read, but I successfully worked my way through a book by Japanese artist and researcher Fukumoto Shigeki called "Somé no Bunka", or "The Culture of Dyeing".

Part of the motivation behind my exhibition (and especially the choice of title) last month at the Japan Foundation in Sydney was to introduce more people to the genre of somé. Somé means 'dyeing' in Japanese and the term separates it from other forms of textiles. 

In Japanese it is common practice to divide the field of textiles into dyeing and weaving (somé & ori 染め、織り). The name of the textiles course in many Japanese universities is senshoku (dyeing and weaving 染織) which is the just a different reading of the characters for somé+ori.

Somé is different from weaving, obviously, but it is also distinct from surface design or 'textiles'. It's a complicated division and of course there are overlaps but Fukumoto's book reiterates the unique history and way of thinking behind Somé.

Fukumoto is a practitioner and proponent of Textile dyeing. His own work is diverse but is characterised by free-form dyeing with gradations, folds and wax resist.

This is a beautiful video showing him and one of his techniques. I have to say it's a little bit contradictory to the things he says about flatness and tactility but it's interesting nonetheless.

I thought I might translate a few short passages from Somé no Bunka here for you. (Please excuse the Engrish-y feel of them!)

Preface

"There is a curious pleasure to be found in dyeing work, almost without realising. It’s something you sense during the actual work of the dyeing process; a joy perhaps only privy to those who’ve tried it. 

There’s the feeling of pleasure when impurities and excess dyes are washed away. Or in the final rinse, one feels a sense of accomplishment as the dye stops running from the fabric and the water runs clear.

You see the vibrancy of the dyed colours in the soaking fabric.
Relaxing the fabric with steam, it becomes supple and fresh again.
Touching the freshly dyed fabric, and knowing it is clean and clear of impurities is a joyous moment.
As well as the many possible dye-effects, there is a satisfaction in knowing the finished artwork is still simply a single piece of cloth. 
There is a joy not simply the making of the work, but also in the sensation of touching it with the skin.
I question that perhaps I enjoy this too much."

Regarding mounting textiles　↓

"Dyeing requires cloth and dye. 
Unlike painting with pigments, for example, dyeing is borne of the need to fix colour onto cloth without spoiling the fabric's characteristics. 
That is, the basis of dyeing is using methods that don't alter the feel of the cloth.

If you go and frame or mount a dyed piece of fabric, it becomes a flat artwork. That piece of cloth is transformed into a mere surface and it loses its meaning as a soft, pliable cloth.
If it's an illusory flat surface you want, what's wrong with using canvas, or paper, wooden board or a wall?
If you insist on using fabric even though the final product will be hard and flat, what's the point of going to all that trouble dyeing it to maintain it's fabric qualities? You're probably not interested in the tactility of the cloth - the direct interaction with the skin.
 In which case, your choice to insist on using fabric is nonsense."

- YEAH! you tell 'em Mr Fukumoto!

He also goes into a lot of depth regarding the relationship between Japan's dyeing history and culture and European and American understandings of dyeing. He is particularly scrupulous about the Surface Design Association in the U.S and their development from a weaving-dominated association to one that covers all kinds of textiles. I think Australia went through a very similar progression, from crafts-based textile skills, to 1960's/1970's free-form fibre-work and dyeing to a contemporary Textile scene we see today.

Though Dyeing tends to be subsumed under the heading of Surface Design in Australia and the U.S, Fukumoto maintains that Somé and Surface Design are not one and the same. He advocates using the word Somé as an alternative, to avoid the inevitable connotations of words like Textile Design, Surface Design or Fibre Art.

He's actually quite adamant, "Sashimi, Karate, Anime and Shibori are already incorporated into our internationalising vocabulary. Why not just call it Somé? Japanese dyeing culture is highly regarded around the world. If people are so enthusiastic about learning those traditions and skills, first they should just use the word Somé!!"

I would love to share more of his writing in future posts - but for now just these tasters!

-- keep an eye out, I hope to post images from my exhibition in the near future!

Beautiful Weeds and the Sixth Extinction

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've muttered a bit before about weeds and how they might not be the baddies we've condemned them to be - and can also be quite beautiful.

Since then, I've started doing some reading about said weeds - mostly to see whether I was being naive to suggest that "weeds" and "exotic pests" will probably just take over the landscape as part of the natural cycle of things. So far I'm still straggling through the thick scientific-ness of the books but I've found some interesting insights.

For one, I'm certainly not the first one to show a little sympathy to the poor weed. Really, it's a matter of nomenclature.

Beautiful invasive "weed" - Lantana Camara, spotted in Wakayama prefecture, Japan

Because really, there's no difference between a so called "plant" and a "weed". Weeds are just something we humans have decided are plants in the wrong place and are not advantageous for our purposes - eg invading an otherwise productive crop area, messing up a paddock we decided to graze sheep or cows in graze (also exotic, by the way), etc etc.

Some weeds can also be classified "invasive species", which, if you want to get finicky and historical, is mildly unfair, given we Australians got off boats from overseas and spread all over this place. (ha!) As a side note, see this interesting explanation of why some call Australia Day, which falls on January 26th "Invasion Day.

One book I've started reading is "Beyond the War on Invasive Species" by Tao Orion. She's all for taking a natural approach to controlling weeds and restoring habitats and one thing she says stands in the way of that is the way we talk about weeds using unscientific and emotional words like "invasive" and "noxious".

http://www.chelseagreen.com/beyond-the-war-on-invasive-species

Tao explains how some ecologists will make the case that introduced species are a threat because it can't be predicted exactly what long term effects they might have on their adopted habitat or neighbouring species. And yet, there are actions taken to eradicate certain invasive species using herbicides that have, when you look into it, highly questionable ingredients and effects which no doubt pose risks in the future that cannot be fully predicted.

Wouldn't it be easier to just let the "weeds" be? Probably that is too naive of me. I haven't read far enough into the book yet to see what Tao suggests instead of severe chemical eradication.

It's interesting how things have come to this point of demonising some plants over others. I guess it's a side effect of agricultural society. When really, 

the idea of "invasive species" is peculiar since all plants and animals are native to our singular and unique planet. 

Tao Orion, "Beyond the War on Invasive Species"pg 10

Blackberry - Invasive (and delicious...) image from Eurobodalla Shire Council

On a different note, did you know there is an official list called "Weeds of National Significance" in Australia? Sounds quite noble, doesn't it? (Not as much when you use their abbreviation of WoNS...) It's a list of 32 weeds that is: 

"a proactive attempt to strategically manage priority weeds that pose future threats to primary industries, land management, human or animal welfare, biodiversity and conservation values. It is an effective tool that...assists States/Territories to prioritise their weed management strategies for the benefit of Australians"

On the list of 32 WoNS, only some are found in the ACT. You can find more info here, if you're into that kinda thing. http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/weeds/weeds/lists/wons.html

More info HERE

One more book I found, which is not as relevant for the humble weeds issue but interesting in general is "The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert. Her book title refers to the wave of extinctions that have occurred in the last 500 million years or so; "The Big Five" Extinction events which have been altering the species on the planet and suggests that we are now in the Sixth wave. In other extinction events, climate and sea level changes could have been the triggers but this "Sixth Extinction" is said to have been caused by Humans. There's also suggestions we may be in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, marking the overwhelming human impact on recent modern history.

Kolbert's book documents, amongst other things, some of the species that are becoming extinct around the world, at remarkable rates and the efforts by scientists to study them. She makes an interesting point about the mixing of species across continents in the modern era. To me it seems unavoidable that plants will mix and collide and naturalise.

"From the standpoint of the world's biota, global travel represents a radically new phenomenon and, at the same time, a replay of the very old. The drifting apart of the continents that Wegener deduced from the fossil record is now being reversed - another way in which humans are running geologic history backwards and at high speed. Think of it as a souped-up version of plate tectonics minus the plates. By transporting Asian species to North America, and North American species to Australia, and Australian species to Africa, and European species to Antarctica, we are, in effect, reassembling the world into one enormous superccontinent - what biologists sometimes refer to as the New Pangaea."

(pg 208 The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History)

Some examples of plants "jumping continents". It's all give and take though...

Prickly Pears - weed gift from the Americas to Australia

Sweet Hakea a weed gifted from Western Australia to South Africa

Tasmanian Blue Gum - hey California, you're welcome!

Camphor Laurel - Thanks for that China & Japan! now a weed in NSW and QLD

ANYway. I'm still reading these books (well, let's be honest, there's not a whole lot of reading happening at the moment) and these are just tid-bits that have tickled my interest.

It's all been part of thinking about a new series of work I'm making, "The Beautiful Weeds of Canberra"

For this series, I've been sketching and dyeing some of the weeds found aoround nature reserves and suburbia in Canberra, kind of elevating them from ordinary stragglers to elegant, proud plants. As I've been sketching them, which takes a lot of concentrated observation, I've noticed how many are really quite beautiful. Well, re-noticed. I already had an inkling this was the case and it's proven true. I hope the weeds will come across as I intended when the works are complete. 

Here are a few progress shots. The finished works will be in show in Sydney next month. More to come on that next time!

The Mismatch, The Spaces Between.

At a review meeting I had two weeks ago at school, my head Professor saw my draft design and declared, "It's like an Australian Sōtatsu!" (Sōtatsu Tawaraya is a very famous founding member of the Rinpa school of Japanese painting and is most famous for his bold designs and folding screen paintings which are a staple in Japanese school textbooks) It was a laughable comparison but essentially, my Professor was suggesting that my artwork looked pretty Japanese.

VERY Famous pair of screen paintings by Sotatsu. Reproductions are on permanent display at Kennin-ji in Kyoto.

Another teacher then asked me whether I'm "conscious of that mismatch between the Japanese and Australian". Yes, of course and I feel like I still haven't managed to tread that fine line with sufficient finesse. Perhaps my artwork still does look too Japanese.

But let's think about what that means; to "look Japanese". Maybe my compositions or colours are heavily influenced by Japanese painters. But isn't any artist inspired by someone, or by some art that came before he did? It just happens to be that what I am inspired by is "outside my own culture" or has a history attached that was borne in another country. I'm not trying to appropriate or parody Japanese paintings or Japanese traditions, rather I am impressed and moved by them. So perhaps the questions should be more about where the line is between Parody and Homage. 

It comes back to the very crux of what is "creation". All we are ever doing is recycling. Grabbing all those little skerricks of things we love, things that excite us, things that make us go "ohhhh" and bundling them up together cleverly and beautifully in a way that becomes us. 

Where we grab those strands of inspiration from will influence the whole but the sum of them will be unique.

I can be influenced by Japanese painting or scrolls or Abstract Impressionism but if I am a talented artist, if I am engaging in creation, then the artwork that I create won't be an imitation of those or a parody but rather an artwork that rings of a certain taste, certain familiar qualities, certain influences that are important but not all-defining. 

I happen to love art that makes you look twice because it's a special play on imagery or tradition. How about this list for starters? Australian Danie Mellor, Ceramicist Ah Xian, Sculptor Ricky Swallow, Painter Yamaguchi Akira, 

Yokohama-e Prints from the 1860's, Edo-era Bird scrolls, Japanese painter Takeuchi Seiho.......

Quirky scrolls depicting imported bird species from the early 1800's

Ah Xian "China Bust 15" 1999. Porcelain

Akira Yamaguchi 『演説電柱』2012

Takeuchi Seiho "Painting of Rome" 1903

These are artworks and artists inspired by tradition, inspired by certain tastes or cultures but they turn those influences into something else entirely. 

In my own work, I feel the same push and pull. The technique gives the work a certain look, and I push it towards something else; as a result it can be neither here nor there. And why not be both? If we did the same thing as everyone else, we could expect the same results, and we know from the definition of "creation" that every recycling produces a new combination.

I have now officially spent half of my art education in Australia and half in Japan so the images and artworks that I've been exposed to are from both backgrounds. Perhaps if I was doing katazome purely within an Australian art school, my work would tend more towards design or abstraction or experimental textiles. But with the things around me like Nihonga (Japanese painting) and contemporary pictorial textiles, this is what I have gravitated towards. Also I'm really interested in the ideas behind Japanese painting about compositions and seasonal imagery and flow, it's not purely just that those paintings are around.

Instead of feeling odd or uneasy about the mismatched things and the spaces between, why don't we celebrate them? 

The Vagueness of Textiles and the Fake-ness Trap of Art

There’s a few words in Japanese that I miss when speaking English. There’s just no words to replace them in English that have quite the same feel or roll off the tongue in the same way. For example, yappari (just as I expected) sasuga (that's so typical) naruhodo (it all makes sense now) or bimyo (vague, hard to categorize).

It really shouldn't be so surprising that Japanese is full of words like these that refer to complexity, vagueness, subtlety and difficulty because, you know, Japanese society is like that! Nearly everyday I am confused by complexities (wait, how do you open this triangular onigiri package with numbered instructions?), bamboozled by subtleties (a limited express train is not the same as an express nor a local-express...they all end in "kyu", of course) and irritated by vagueness! ("Yes this is the Arts Faculty Office and yes, I'm the person you are supposed to make enquiries to but..." But? But what?!) 

It really is complex... Onigiri opening step-by-step by Sake Puppets

I've just one semester of study left in Japan now and I am starting to think about the future. As well as trying to figure out the equation of "art+x=able to eat", I've been thinking about where I fit into the field of textiles and what it means to me to make textiles. 

But the thing is, textiles as a field is just so BIMYO! 

"Textiles" is such a broad and all-encompassing description as to be rendered almost useless. It’s not just handiwork, it’s not just art, it’s not just traditional crafts, it’s not just design, it’s not just fashion, it’s not just industrial fabric production... it's a confusing diagram of all of these things. 

Oh textiles, you're so unsure of yourself and confusing....

"Textiles" crosses the borders of a bunch of different fields and it becomes hard to define where you fit within it all. It's not that you need to slot perfectly into one 'section' or another but I'm coming to realise its important to know what you make and why you do it in order to stay focused and get where you want to go explain to attractively high-paying grants what you do and why you need their money!


Since coming to Kyoto Seika University, I've been studying textile dyeing inside the Graduate School of Arts and I think that has made me frame myself as a "textiles artist". When I was at ANU, in the Australian textiles spheres, I think I saw it more as a pursuit of design or craft. Seeing how Textile dyeing can be art too has been great but the prospect of graduating from `ART` is daunting. 

I was speaking to my Professor earlier this year about the possibility of selling one of my works and she made a comment that went something like 

"Our job as Artists is to show people something. If that truly resonates with someone so much that they want to have that in their home to enjoy then that's great but our main aim is to express something we feel." 

Obviously my professor sees herself as falling into the Art category of textiles and as such, guides her students in that direction. I left that conversation kind of depressed, thinking, "well if my job is only showing people something, how am I supposed to make money to buy the materials to make the next work to just show to more people?!" She also suggested that it's sad to sell your work; to part with your creations. I couldn't see why my "art" ought to be so exclusive and it seemed like arrogance to me to assume that one day I would have a retrospective exhibition in which I would want access to my entire back catalogue of stuff. 

Soon after that an article was circulating on social media about the fact that you can't expect to make a living from art. It was saying that young people now assume they can turn their art education into a living only because of a myth perpetuated by their forerunners that says it's possible. When in fact, this is, and has never been the case, so better stop expecting to. Also, in the very act of trying to make your art your income source, you render it no longer art but just a commodity. Okay, So then what?! If I am to make art my passion, then I should just resign myself now to living in poverty and eating cabbage soup a la Charlie & The Chocolate Factory? 

I've written before about the weird relationship between Art and Textiles and I think I'm still trying to figure that out. Sure, Textiles is a big, active and innovative field in Australia but I think the concept of "textiles as art", especially "dyed textiles as art" whilst established in Japan still hasn't got there in Australia. I hope I can help push boundaries that will make dyeing part of the art world, and for now I think that means negotiating genres.

But. The world of Art is also somewhere I'm hesitant to get sucked into.  

I'm saying, for now that I do want to make textile ART (not design or craft or fashion): pieces that are to be displayed and appreciated; pieces that have a story, maybe even a message; pieces that might even be hung in the National Gallery one day (haha, really?!).  That would make me an ARTIST.  By definition, ARTISTS participate in the art world loops of galleries, exhibitions, grants, museums, artists talks, artist statements...I both want to be a part of that and I don't. 

I want to keep my head above the quagmire of the fake art-talk and long winded art statements. I've never liked that part of Art. It felt like what I really learnt at art school in Australia was how to skillfully use a broad range of materials...AND how to talk "art-talk"; how to use words like 'nuance' and 'juxtaposition' and 'transience' and 'allusions'. Even all in one sentence! 

Put on Arty voice, ahem, "My work is about juxtaposing the ideas of transience and permanence, in all their nuances and alluding to the transcendental nature of our existence." Oh god, it rolls off the tongue too easily.

I don't know how easily you can be in the Art world but "not of it" but I do want to be an honest, genuine, relatable person who doesn't try and hide behind art-talk or mingles only in art circles and lurks around opening-night cheese platters. Sure artists might all be faking it until they make it but why do we have to fake it with the same old regurgitated art-speak? Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be a bit more REAL and just say what we do and not hide behind lofty words? 

I make dyed textiles. I love parrots, I think they are beautiful and have incredible colours, behaviors and histories. Dyeing fabric is a process I enjoy and I hope viewers will enjoy the energy, colours and nature in my work too.

There. Not so hard is it? (not a juxtaposition or nuance in sight)

Here's to being down-to-earth Artists.