Arimatsu is a small town in the Aichi prefecture, near Nagoya. It is considered a birthplace for shibori, and is where the Itajime and Arashi techniques I practice originated. The festival is held annually around the first weekend in June. I’d love to be more specific with dates, but that is all the info I could find on it via the web, so I booked my tickets and crossed my fingers!

On arriving at the festival I was giddy with anticipation of all the amazing shibori I was going to see. I’ve not found a great deal of information on the web about the festival, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was of a mind that I was going to be swept off my feet by amazingness.

Let me pause my story now and say, Arimatsu Shibori Festival was actually a huge let down for me. I know, it’s not what you are expecting me to say, and it hurts me to say it. But here is why I feel this way.

As I walked around the festival, I saw the same thing over and over – second rate dye work. The majority of the work that I saw was not indigo dyed, or naturally dyed, it had been dyed with what I suspect is Rit dyes. I wandered into a “workshop” at one point and they had cooking pots of it on the stove. Yes, it was blue, but it’s not indigo. My disappointment was really exacerbated by the fact that I had looked forward to this for so long, and then to find it other than what I had dreamed of – I felt shattered.

My husband, son and I wandered through the festival, which was decorated with beautiful shibori banners, they flew in the hot breeze and made really wonderful examples of traditional techniques. Again they were dyed a dark blue, but I don’t think were indigo dyed.

We walked in and out of kimono houses, where kimono lengths of fabric were on display, and could be purchased by the roll to have sewn into yukata or kimono. There was a lot of stitched shibori, and a little Arashi shibori. Only a few places had Itajime “sekka” shibori. It’s possible there were a few indigo pieces tucked away in these houses, the lighting was quite dark and often the “good” fabric was kept away from grubby hands.

I spent an entire day thoroughly moving in and out of all the shops, and I also visited the Tie Dye Museum.  There was a few excellent pieces of indigo dyed shibori on the walls, but I think most of the exhibits had been cleared out, because the whole museum had been turned into a shop where you could buy more of the same commercially dyed shibori as outside.  I can’t help wondering if visiting the museum when the festival is not on would have been better.

I’ve chatted with a few people about the festival, and my disappointment over it. I have in the past once seen Arimatsu shibori referred to as “fast food shibori” and i dismissed it, but i am sad to say, the label is fitting in many ways. There is no denying the skill displayed in the techniques on show, but it is all the same. It felt very mass produced – I wonder if this is because they’ve been sitting on the same piles of fabric for a few years, and slowly adding to them. It makes sense because one person or family masters a single technique – and they just produce this design their whole lives. They aren’t able to produce a lot of different work, they just make the same thing again and again. It’s not considered art, it’s considered a trade. I suspect it’s sort of like needlepoint – something for idle hands.

Despite my disappointment with the festival, I am glad I got to go. The history of the town is important to shibori and I hope that Arimatsu shibori returns to the greatness that it could once again so easily be. The skill and know how is already there.

I know I sound down on the festival, but it really had some great moments too. One of the best parts of the festival was watching 4 old ladies sit and tie their shibori. While watching them, a man standing near me told me that one of them was 95 years old! She had deft fingers, and the speed with which they all did their work was astonishing. A lifetime of practice paid off! There was no sign of any apprentices learning from the women, I truly hope they do in fact have some so their knowledge is passed on to the next generation.

I did have one huge spot of luck though, out of the corner of my eye I spotted through the doorway of an extremely busy shop a beautiful wall hanging – and it was indigo dyed. At first I thought it was a noren for sale, and I went in to look at it. It was actually two wall hangings, mirror images of each other. I now own one of them. I couldn’t resist it. I used google translate to speak with proprietor, who turned out to also be the dyer! Finding this one piece made the festival worth the visit for me, and I feel lucky to own such a lovely work. It also gives me hope – the dyer was a young woman named Neoko Koyabu, who clearly loved her craft and was so happy to have sold one of her works. It’s work like hers that will give Arimatsu the future it deserves.

It’s been a whirlwind frenzy of activity at my place lately, but I wanted to look back at the indigo shibori workshops I held recently at the Cecilia Fox warehouse in Brunswick.

Being able to hold the workshops in such a large bright space was really wonderful, and as always, I learned a great deal from my students, as well as they hopefully learned from me! At any rate a lot of fun was had by all, and a lot of great shibori and indigo dyeing was done. A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the workshops, you guys really made it great!

I am currently trying to work out dates for some workshops in the new year, so if you are keen sign up to my mailing list over in the right sidebar to be the first to know!

I was lucky enough to have the wonderful Lillie Thompson come along to take some snaps at the first workshop to remember the day by, so consider this a picture heavy post!

The photos below were taken by me at the second workshop :)

Today I am speaking all about my love of Indigo on The Planthunter.

You can check out my story here!

A quick reminder as well, I have 2 workshops coming up this month, both held at the Cecilia Fox warehouse. It’s a fabulous space, and I’m really looking forward to sharing my skills knowledge, bad jokes and day with everyone. There are only a few spaces left in each class, so sign up now! It’s possible that I may not find time in schedule to do another workshop before the end of the year, so if you’re holding out for a later date, don’t wait! I’m not sure when the next workshop will be. Click here to book.

About 6.5 years ago, I spotted this old chair in a vintage shop in Brunswick that is now a cafe. I decided I HAD to have it and I was going to recover it. Coz let’s face it, it started out it’s life with me as pretty damn ugly.

I meant to finally recover this thing, LAST summer. Thankfully though, I didn’t and I now have a very lovely chair in my lounge room.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this dye job. I spent 3 40 degree days outside, drinking buckets of water and dipping this thing in the vat, oxidising it, unwrapping it, washing it, not liking the colour, meticulously refolding and so on. I went around and around and around with it.

After I’d dumped it in the vat about 20 times and most of the Indigo was still not penetrating the fabric (it’s very thick canvas) I decided to take my chance and dye over it with Procion dyes. Success!! Sure I could have left that part out and let everyone think I’m a world class Indigo master, but well I’m an honest gal. I will say that most of the colour came from being in the vat though. It just needed tweaking.

It came out amazeballs though, right? Arashi the cat thinks so. He jumped right up there as soon as he could.

In addition to being stocked at such a lovely shop, we also got to be part of an editorial in Belle Magazine all about Indigo! The magazine is out next Monday the 4th of November, but in the mean time, here’s a sneak peek at our work in the mag. (Top right corner)

This is my first magazine appearance, so I’m pretty excited about it! Hopefully the first of many!

I’ll have some Shibori on the street for the 2 weeks of the festival, some Indigo works on canvas as part of the “Small Works Small Spaces” exhibit. My work is entitled “Phases”, and is still a work in progress, I’ve got a bit to finish off before the end of the week.

I’ve been contemplating the notion of shibori street art for a little while now, so being able to take part in this festival is pretty cool. The idea came to me when i was thinking about yarn bombing, and how that has become such an accepted practice in Melbourne, and particularly in Moreland which is where I live.  I love the idea of turning textiles into street art, something that can be either left for all to enjoy or be squirrelled away for use in a project. (Before you think of squirrelling these ones, they’re on heavy painters canvas, so they aren’t going to sew nicely into a quilt for example!)

Now I just have to test pasting this heavy canvas onto a wall! Otherwise I will have to find a different way to install them, and probably a different location on the street too.

Northern Exposure runs for 2 weeks, opening this Friday 12th July 2013 @6pm on High Street in Northcote. You can find more info on the High St Northcote facebook page.

I had so much fun shooting these scarves, trying to capture their floaty movement, I really love the images that resulted, I think they are little artworks in themselves.

I also managed to get a facebook page up and running yesterday during nap time, where you can see more photos from my scarf shoot yesterday, and keep up to date to any news via facebook. You can find me on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BindandFold .

It has been a challenge to dive into this without a real knowledge of it, and with no help, but I have been really enjoying working with it, even if a little frustrated at times.

Still I did manage to do some pretty decent stuff, although I think my patience needs a bit of work, I think I began using my vat before it was really “ready” because I am yet to achieve a super deep indigo.  Despite this, I did still get some lovely blues, some pale and summery, some steely blue like the sea on an overcast day, and some in between!

I had less success dyeing protein fibres than cellulose fibres, so I won’t post any pictures of those, but I did make some new couch cushions out of some linen. Ah linen, I love it so. It’s such an interesting and luxurious fabric! It has so much character to it too. I just love it.

I also have some other pieces but I have some sewing to do with them first before I post pictures.

In other news I have started to sort out a little shop! You can see a link to it at the top of the page. It’s currently only get a test item listed, but I hope to have one or two things available in the next few days.