NY -- NYC -- Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum -- Exhibit: Nature by Design: Katagami:
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- Description of Pictures: Nature by Design: Katagami
March 30, 2019 – October 27, 2019
This exhibition highlights the traditional Japanese craft of katagami: paper stencils carved by master artisans for use in decorating textiles. These stencils often take nature as their subject, and are made from natural materials. Cooper Hewitt’s collection of katagami mostly dates to the late Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras, when the craft was at its height. The works on view demonstrate a range of styles and cutting techniques, reflecting the great expressive potential of the medium.
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- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- CHKAT_190827_01.JPG: Nature by Design: Selections From the permanent collection
To accompany the special exhibition Nature -- Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Nature by Design presents nine distinct stories drawn from Cooper Hewitt's collection of over 210,000 design objects. Throughout history, designers have observed nature, investigated its materials, and imitated and abstracted its patterns and shapes. Textiles, jewelry, furniture, cutlery, and more show how designers have interpreted nature's rich beauty and astonishing complexity. Across scales from microscopic to monumental, and in forms familiar and unusual, we invite visitors to discover how nature and design have intersected in the past and continue to converge in our world.
- CHKAT_190827_07.JPG: Katagami
Katagami is the traditional Japanese craft of katagami: paper stencils carved by master artisans for use in decorating textiles. These stencils often take nature as their subject, and are made from natural materials. Cooper Hewitt's collection of katagami mostly dates to the late Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras, when the craft was at its height. The works on view demonstrate a range of styles and cutting techniques, reflecting the great expressive potential of the medium.
To create the stencils, pounded mulberry bark is treated with fermented persimmon juice, resulting in a paper that is strong, flexible, and waterproof. Once the paper has been cut, thin silk threads are sometimes added in order to reinforce the design. These treatments are necessary because, since at least the 16th century, katagami have been employed in a dyeing technique called katazome. In this method, a highly-skilled dyer places the paper stencil over prepared fabric and applies a dye-resistant rice paste (or "resist") through the stencil. This process is then repeated along the fabric's length, creating an unbroken pattern. Later, when the fabric is dyed -- usually with natural indigo -- the areas protected by the resist remain untouched by the color. Finally, when the resist is washed away, the finished textile retains the stencil's design.
- CHKAT_190827_19.JPG: Carving Patterns
- CHKAT_190827_22.JPG: Animal Patterns
- CHKAT_190827_33.JPG: Abstract Patterns
- CHKAT_190827_49.JPG: Supporting the Patterns
- CHKAT_190827_54.JPG: Large Patterns
- CHKAT_190827_63.JPG: Export Patterns
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