Bingata vs Katazome 「紅型」対「型染」

Studying katazome, you inevitably end up hearing about and seeing the very similar technique of bingata which　developed in Okinawa.Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to finally get to visit Okinawa and managed to check out a couple of bingata working ateliers whilst I was there. It was an interesting exercise in realising various differences between bingata and katazome. Let's explore some of those here.
型染を勉強すると、沖縄の「紅型」を必ずどこかで知るようになります。2週間前、やっと沖縄へ行けて、居るあいだに紅型の所にも足を運びました。紅型と型染の違いが多いと思って、面白い経験でした。ここでその違いや特徴をいくつか見てみましょう。

example of an 18-19thC Ryuku Bingata national heritage piece.

Katazome vs Bingata
The basics process of the two techniques are essentially the same: A stencil is carved out of heavy paper, this is used to apply a gooey resist paste onto the fabric, the paste dries and the exposed fabric is dyed, then the resist paste is removed to reveal white un-dyed areas.
「型染」対「紅型」
両方の基礎はそんなに異なっていません。つまり、分厚い紙からステンシルを彫って、柔らかな糊を置いて、乾いた糊の間を染めて、蒸してから洗うと染めていない所が見えってくるという工程のです。

hint as to why I like bingata.. birds! bingata designs often feature brightly coloured birds in flight

Some features of bingata, however, are markedly different from katazome.
しかし、紅型、あるいは「琉球紅型」には特徴も幾つかあります。

For one thing, traditional bingata is extravagantly colourful! (Bingata actually translates as "coloured patterns") Think reds, deep yellows, greens, purples and blues. I'd like to think this is due in part to Okinawa's tropical island climate and the subsequent vivid high-saturation flowers and light they have there. (it's currently a Japanese prefecture but it's quite far south from main island Japan.) But it's probably more to do with the Chinese influence on the visual language of the old Ryukyu Kingdom and the fact that pigments were often imported from China. Plant dyes made from local plants like fukugi and Okinawan indigo were used as well as pigments like yellow ochre, vermillion and indigo were used. Apparently yellow was reserved for (then named) Ryukyu Kingdom royalty.
一つ目として、すごく鮮やかのです！！(紅型の意味は鮮やかな模様ですし…)
沖縄の熱帯の気候に咲く花や強い陽射しのおかげだと考えたいけど、昔から使われていた植物染料や顔料は中国に影響を受けましたのでしょう。

various colourful bingata patterns. they are often very very detailed too!

I went all the way to Osaka in 2012 to catch an amazing exhibition of bingata.  I remember being just floored by the colours! Pinks, sky blues, purples, yellows...If the pieces on display had faded at all in their 100+ years then old Ryukyu was certainly a colourful place! 
2012年、大きいな紅型の展覧会をわざわざ大阪まで見に行きました。その時、色彩に感動しました！ピンク、水色、紫、黄色など。100年以上まえに作られたものも沢山あって、その色は昔もっと鮮やかだったはずだと思ったらすごいですね！

Another feature of bingata is the decorative patterns which often have large unconnected open areas which you don't see in old katazome. 
Let me explain with a picture of the stencils used for in both techniques. 
もう一つの特徴は、花や鳥のデザインに細かい線や型染には見ない空白が入っているのことです。説明しにくいから両方の代表的な型紙の例を見ましよう。

Fine traditional katazome stencils, carving blades and punches.

The very traditonal katazome stencils seen here (known as Ise Katagami) have been carved to cut and remove small shapes.The design on the left includes lines that touch an cross to keep the whole thing in one piece. In the centre, you see an expert carver working with a VERY fine blade to cut several layers of stencil paper at once. On the right, ridiculously tiny sharp punches, both circular and shaped were often used to create uber fine details, originally employed to give the illusion of a woven fabric. Once carved, the stencil paper is left as is and soaked before use.
伝統的な型紙、いわゆる「伊勢型紙」は上に見えるように、細かい部分を刀又は丸きりで切り抜きます。和紙でできている型紙を何枚か重ねてから彫ることが多かったそうです。彫ったあと、水でぬらして、糊を置きます。

more open Katazome stencils also existed and these often had a fine silk mesh applied to ease paste application, as you can just see in the right image.

Sometimes more open designs (though never seem to be quite as open as bingata stencils) were lacquered over and had a fine silk mesh applied so that the artisan's spatula didn't catch on the stencil during paste application.
切り抜いた所が大きい場合、ヘラが型紙に引っかからないように紗を漆で貼ります。（右上で紗が見えます）

Now let's look at some bingata stencils. さて、紅型の方は？

bingata stencils with large open areas, 'floating' elements and fine sweeping lines.

You can see these bingata stencils incorporate thin curving lines and a birds etc that are suspended in space, that is, not connected to other parts of this design physically. You can imagine how, when you cut this stencil, you would end up with a handful of sad, separated pieces, right? So to keep it all in one piece, temporary connecting lines are left between areas of the design, then after a fine layer of silk mesh has been applied with lacquer, they are are removed and the stencil is usable. This use of open space is much more marked than in katazome.
紅型の型紙では、細かい曲がっている線や繋がっていない鳥などがみえます。下にある型紙を普通に切ると、バラバラの物になるから、切るときにつながる「橋」を残して、絹の紗を張ってから橋を除くと使えるようになります。

can you see the gradations on the petals and feather details?

You might notice the gradations of colour in this bingata example. This characteristic effect is acheived using a combination of dyes (which enter the fabric and grip fibres) and pigments (which rest on the surface of the fabric). When we visited Shiroma Bingata, we watched the workers first apply a layer of flat pigment colour which has been mixed to a liquid with soymilk. Next, they were using a very stiff bristled round brush, to almost dry brush a darker shade or different dye colour over the top in certain areas to create accent areas and to really push the pigment into the fabric.

this is how the gradations are done. a quick sweep of darker dye with a brush then smudging it hard into the fabric with a stiff bristled brush.

上の例には暈しのところに気付きました？これは、繊維を掴む「染料」と生地の上に塗る「顔料」を両方使うことによるできた効果です。城間紅型工房へ邪魔したとき、色差しのところも見えました。そこで、まず豆汁に溶けた顔料を塗っていました。次は、色がしっかり生地に入るように、硬くて小さい刷毛で染料を所々に暈して染めていました。より濃い色の染料など別の色で暈しを染めるから、印象的ですね。

The feature of bingata that I am most in awe of and often confounded by is the use of "fuse-nori", that is, a second process of very carefully covering previously dyed areas with another layer of resist paste and once dry, dyeing the background colour. The bingata patterns are often so fine and detailed and whilst the entire pattern may not be covered with fuse nori (allowing layering of colours) the time and patience involved in covering over all those tiny design parts gets some serious respect from me. 紅型の行程で一番尊敬しているのが「伏せ糊」の作業です。「伏せ糊」というのは、背景の地色が染めれるために、一回染めた模様（又はその一部）をまた糊でかぶせていくの仕事です。ものすごい細かい仕事で、時間がかなりかかりそうです。でも、この段階があるため、また別の雰囲気が出せます。

See these examples of fuse nori and what it allows you to achieve. The white areas have been preserved with the second layer of paste. 伏せ糊を使えば、こういう感じで染められます。

bingata patterns where a second layer of masking paste has allowed a background colour to be dyed too

I think I might put together a second post about our visit to Shiroma Bingata studio but suffice to say I was impressed with the different distinctive characteristics of bingata. I'm thinking it would be exciting to combine some bingata tricks and qualities with katazome or even with yuzen! Always inspiring to find new possibilities like this.　また城間紅型工房の見学について書こうと思っていますが、一応「紅型の特徴に感動しました！！」と言いたいです。紅型の独特な行程や雰囲気を型染、もしくは友禅（！？）と組み合わせしてみたいと思ってきました！新しい可能を見つけるのは楽しいですね。

Australia - Land of Parrots オーストラリア ～ オウムの地域

When I first began living in Japan, I was acutely aware of the lack of birds. I couldn't hear bird calls out my window and I rarely saw any birds besides crows and the fierce kites which prey on unsuspecting picnickers. I almost always depict colourful birds, especially parrots, in my artwork and often Japanese people comment that surely those birds are not real or that the colours must be taken from my imagination. I proudly correct them that no, they are indeed all depicted as true to life as I can and in fact, these birds are a normal part if daily life. They are everywhere!

初めて日本に住んで来た時、鳥がほとんど居ないことにびっくりしました。窓から鳥のさえずりが聞こえませんでした。カラスや川原で座っている人の食べ物を盗むトンビ以外はあんまり鳥が見えませんでした。作品では、大体鮮やかな鳥を描写するので、よく日本人が「その鳥は本物じゃないでしょう？」など、「その色は嘘でしょう？」を聞きます。自慢いっぱいで、この鳥はもちろん本物のように書いていると語ります。それで、どこにも居ると伝えます。

No doubt these guys are circling above some tourists ready to ruin their picnic. おにぎりを盗むのが大好きなトンビたち。

Clever crows making a mess on garbage day. ゴミの収集日が大好きなずるいカラスたち。

Well, returning home recently for a holiday, I experienced some kind of reverse culture-shock at the abundance of wildlife. I travelled to Byron Bay, Canberra and Melbourne as well as many smaller places in between and everywhere I went I heard and saw parrots and cockatoos and just generally birds! I enjoyed seeing Kookaburras, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Rosellas, Corellas, Galahs, Black Cockatoos, Lorikeets and even Emus in the wild. It was sort of gratifying to see that when I tell Japanese people that birds are everywhere, I really am telling the truth!

この2月、オーストラリアで三週間を過ごしていたら、野生鳥の数で逆カルチャーショックのような物を体験しました。海が綺麗なバイロンベイー、首都のキャンベラ、南にあるメルボルンやその間にある小さな都市にも行けました。どこに行ってもインコ、オウム、色んな鳥が見えました。野生のキバタン、アカクサインコ、黒オウム、ゴシキサイインコ、モモイロインコ、ワライカワセミやエミューでも見ました。日本人に「鳥がどこにも居るよ！」と言うときは全然嘘じゃないと気づくのが嬉しいことでした。

歌う中のカササギフエガラス Australian Magpie warbling away

Juvenile Crimson Rosella hunting out a nest spot in a Eucalyptus. ユーカリに巣を作る穴を探していた幼いアカクサインコ

Waddling Superb Parrot at a bird enclosure in Canberra
歩き方が可愛いいカジキインコ

人生2、3回ぐらいしか見ていない野生エミューと雛２羽も見えた！
Even saw a wild Emu and her two chicks! Maybe only the 2nd or 3rd time I have ever seen an Emu in the wild.

Cute little Musk Lorikeet at a walk in Aviary in Canberra. ジャコウインコも可愛かった！

Whilst in Canberra I went to see the huge exhibition "Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia" at the National Library of Australia. There were all kinds of amazing maps and voyage records on show from the 1400's onwards. They traced the gradual discovery of pieces of Australia's coastline by European explorers and the way that Australia had once been a great, mysterious southern land-mass; undiscovered and unfamiliar. See an overview video of the exhibition here.

今キャンベラにあるオーストラリア国立図書館で開催している「Mapping Our World」という展覧会を見に行きました。色々な素晴らしい地図や大航海時代の書類が展示されていました。オーストラリアがまだ知られていない時代から、海岸の形ががどんどん地図に載っていた時代への歴史が見えました。

A reproduction similar to Ortelius' 1564 Map of the "New World"

Most interesting was a map from 1564 by Flemish mapmaker Abraham Ortelius called the "New world Map". It shows the mysterious undiscovered southern continent as a large piece of land connected to the southern tip of South America and conglomerating Australia and Antarctica. One inscription in Latin describes the region as Psittacorum Regio: Land of Parrots. The inscription reads: psitacorum regio sic a Lusitanis appellata ob incredible earum avium ibidem magnitudinem

気になった地図の一つのはフラマン人のオルテリウスに制作された世界の地図でした。まだ発見されていなかったオーストラリアの一位に大きな大陸が見えます。あそこにラテン語で書いてあるの一つは「Psittacorum Regio」です。

Detail from a different version of Ortelius' Map reads "Psitacorum Regio"

Sounds cool doesn't it? If only I could read Latin! With some help from the Internet it seems to translate as something like: Region of Parrots. So named by the Portuguese for the incredible size of the birds there.
ラテン語が分かればよかったのですが、大体その文章が「オウムの地域。凄い大きなの鳥が見えたポルトガル人にこう呼ばれた。」という意味のようです。

Since this land mass on the map is in an odd location it's not clear whether Psittacorum Regio is refering to Australia but some suspect it is describing the West Coast of Australia. Which is curious because most history books tell us that the Dutch were the first to sight Western Australia in the 1600's. I'm interested to do some more digging on where this "Land of Parrots" description came from but for now I am proud to say that Australia really is still just that; Psittacorum Regio.

現在の国の場所がこの地図とちょっと違うから、この「オウムの地域」がオーストラリアのことを指しているかどうかは確かなことではないが、西オーストラリアの海岸のだと考える研究者もいます。歴史の本はよく、西オーストラリアをはじめて見たのがオランダ人だと書いてあるので、ポルトガル人がその前に見た可能性のはとても面白いです。この「オウムの地域」という名前がどうして、どうやって、いつ付けられたのが興味深いことです。とりあえず、昔に言われたように、オスとラリアはまだオウムの地域であるのを自慢しています。

Fragmentation: Red-tailed Black Cockatoos 分解化 赤尾黒オウム

My most recent artwork was breaking new ground for me in several ways. It's the largest work I've made so far, it's the first time I've dyed predominantly black birds and it's visually different from my previous pieces.

一番最近の作品は幾つかの理由で私には斬新でした。今までに作った物で一番大きいし、ほとんど黒の鳥を染めるのが始めてだし、デザイン的には前の作品とちょっと違う感じでした。

Let me show you the final piece and then I'll tell you a bit more about it. 

作品を見せてから作品の話しをさせていただきます。

Here it is on show last week at Gallery Fleur in Kyoto Seika University, as part of an exhibition held by 1st year Master's students of the Art & Design Graduate Schools. 

これは、先週行われていた「京都精華大学大学院一年生展」に展示していた様子です。

"Fragmentation: Red-tailed Black Cockatoos" 2014. katazome and yuzen resist techniques on linen. 6 panels of 60x180cm. 「分解化・赤尾黒鸚鵡」　型染、友禅、他。麻地6枚。

This work as displayed at the 1st Year's Masters Exhibition last week. To the left you see the work of my Textiles classmate Kiko Takahashi and in front is the work of Endo Ryotaro. 「大学院1年生展」での展示。左側に同級生の染織専攻高橋紀子の作品です。前景に、陶芸専攻の遠藤良太郎の作品です。

One thing I felt from my last exhibited works at Rissei Elementary School was that they would have had more impact if they were bigger. It always feels as if the work is enormous when you are making it, thanks in part to the detail involved, and the way you have to reach and use your body but then you display it on a wall and realize with dismay that it's actually not that big. 

11月元・立成小学校で作品を展示した時に気づいたのが、j作っているところは大きく感じるが、やっと壁にかけて、離れて見るとがっかりするぐらい小さくみえることでした。

when you are working on it in 6 pieces (only 4 visible here) the work feels enormous! こういう風に6枚に分けたら（ここで4枚しか見えないけど）、作品がものすごく大きく感じるんですね！

So I tried going bigger this time and in the end the work cam out to be 180cm tall by 360cm wide. Because of fabric width limitations and also because I enjoy the movement of fabric in spaces, the work is made up of 6 free hanging panels of a lightweight natural-coloured linen fabric. 

というわけで、今回の作品は横360センチかく縦180センチです。使いたっかった生地の幅や、空気に揺れる生地の感じが好きということで、60センチ幅の麻地を6枚合わせた作品です。

see the way the design is split over a set of panels. Japanese viewers are used to this format thanks to folding screens and noren split curtains. こんな感じでデザインが何枚かに流れています。日本では屏風やのれんなどに見える方法です。

In my work to date, I have been exploring depicting birds in flight and trying to give a sense of movement. This time I attempted to add to that effect with a grid of diagonal lines in the background. This background fades out slowly towards the left side. 

今までの作品では、動き感や時間の流れを感じさせるように、飛んでいる鳥をよく染めます。ここでそれをより深く感じるために、背景に斜線でできているグリッドを入れてみました。鳥の方向に沿って、背景の色はだんだん薄くなっていきます。

飛んでいる鳥の表情が一番好きです。I like the expressions and shapes of birds in flight the best

I titled the work "fragmentation: Red-tailed Black Cockatoos" (I don't much like titling work, it can sound so arrogant) because the south-eastern strain (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne) of the Red-tailed black cockatoo is now endangered and this is in part due to deforestation and fragmentation of eucalyptus habitat. As at 2013, less than 1200 birds were counted by volunteers in South Eastern Australia. See this website for more information. 

タイトルというと(本当はタイトルを付けるのがあんまり好きじゃないけど) 

「分解化・赤尾黒鸚鵡」なんです。アカオクロオウム属では、5種類がいます。オーストラリアの東南に生きる種類(Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne)は絶滅危惧種になっています。2013年、ボランティアによる調査でオーストラリアの東南に1200以下の鳥が数えられました。

In terms of technique, this time I combined hand drawn yuzen resist (the cockatoos), katazome stencil resist (the Eucalyptus leaves silhouettes in the background) and dyeing directly on the fabric with the help of some clever masking.  

技法については、この作品に三つの染め方が混ぜ合わせています。オウムは友禅でそめていて、背景の葉っぱが型染めのもので、幾何学的な背景はマスキングしながら直接染めた所です。

The birds are dyed with the thin resist lines of yuzen and the leaves and gumnuts in the background were applied with a hand-cut stencil - katazome.　オウムは友禅の細い線で染めました。背景にある葉っぱや実は型染のしゃっきりとした線で表現したかったです。

here you can see the soft gradients I dyed in the background, using slightly thickened dye, a big soft brush and lots of masking tape. ぼかしのところをテープと染料と糊剤と丸刷毛で染めました。

I had some good feedback on this piece at last week's exhibition and I'm happy with the direction this artwork is taking me in. 

6枚の生地をバラバラにして作業しましたから、展示した時は自分で始めて見ている気持ちでした。お客様や先生ににいいコメントをもらいました。自分の中でも、この作品が向かっている方向が好きで、次のステップをワクワクしています。

My work in Gallery Fleur alongside work by 1st year Master in the Japanese Painting Department, Hiroko Kanayama. ギャラリーフロールで日本画専攻の金山ひろこの隣でした。

Already turning the mental cogs about the next big piece and I'm thinking FLOCKS! Big swarming flocks of parrots! Very exciting. Stay tuned :)

次に大きい作品を作るときのアイデアはもうあふれています。「群」について考え中です！インコの鮮やかなでっかい群！いいでしょう？楽しみにしてください☆