Book Info: Quilt Artistry: Inspired Designs from the East By Yoshiko Jizenji Kodansha America, Inc; January 2003 pp. 136; ISBN: 4770027567
	Foreign Theme Parks Kimono Basics The North American Quilt Fun Fundamentals Museum for Textiles Sashiko

In Japan, however, the distinction between art and craft has largely been blurred.  Take, for example, Japanese government’s National Living Treasures list that honors traditional artists and craftsman, such as Kabuki actors and weavers, alike.  Thus it is not surprising that quilting has found a following in Japan, a culture that sees no contradiction in finding art in craft and vice versa.  As in the West, women have been quilting since the invention of cloth, but as a hobby, quilting has grown rapidly in the last twenty years in Japan; so much so NHK’s monthly craft magazine and television show, Oshare Kobo, now has a regular quilting segment.  However, Yoshiko Jinzenji’s Quilt Artistry, Inspired Designs from the East, is an example of a developed and unique aesthetic vision in cloth.

Jinzenji redefines the very idea of quilting by mixing the modern with the antique, the synthetic and with the organic: “What I am striving for is to bring out and add to the essential textures of the cloth, to create shadows and light, and to find a balance between minimalism and a sense of richness."

She first encountered quilts in Canada in 1970 where she became acquainted with Canadian Mennonite quilts.  Her early work derived largely from the North American tradition.  From there, the book traces quilting in Japanese culture such as the uchishiki and funzoe Buddhist altar cloths made from used kimono and how they influenced Jinzenji’s work.  Indonesian selendang shawls with their natural dyes and woven Balinese palm offerings, ketupat, further inform her work. 

One result is series of miniature Amish quilts made with Indonesian paper, lacquered cloth, and silk. Another is series of palm-sized mandalas, religious representations of the geometric universe, made by antique cloth from all over Asia.  Oddly the enough, the mandalas are evocative of archetypical American quilt blocks such as Log Cabin or Hidden Star. “The quilts I create incorporate textures that I have absorbed from overseas,” Jinzenji writes.  “They are woven with contrasting textures of other cultures, shaped by innumerable differences in ethnicity, customs, lifestyles, and values.”

Another aspect of Jinzenji’s work is that it uses some of the most modern materials and techniques, but results appear organic.  Many conventional quilters insist on all cotton fabric thread and cloth and sew by hand.  Jinzenji mixes her media—cotton and silk with synthetics, metallic lame, rubberized fabric—and uses many different sewing techniques, including chemically stripping thread.  For example, in Hibiware (Fissures), she used a traditional western pattern, Irish Chain, but used differing layers of sheer nylon to create lights and darks.  The result is diaphanous and natural—unexpected considering the man-made materials.  In this piece, as with others, she works closely with textile designer Jun’ichi Arai, an innovative and influential textile designer.

She also explores natural processes: In her studio in Bali she experiments extensively with natural dying techniques.  She describes the contradictory exercise of dying silk the “color” white by using a mixture of bamboo and grass. The resulting white is luminous: “Two or three hours later the cloth had been transformed. It was if the silk was a prism sparkling with colors like pink, yellow, and green. It was a white with depths." 

Some of her work is made by a process she calls “engineering”: a mechanical term for a handicraft intensive process which starts with dying the thread to weave into fabric.  Each step in cloth weaving is echoed in the sewing of the final piece.  She uses different sewing machines to create subtly different lines as well as the sunlight to create natural gradations in color in both the cloth and sewing thread.  While she maintains control over the minute details in the quilt’s development, the results are simple, fresh and free of any artifice. 

Quilt Artistry is beautifully photographed and captures the artisinal quality in Jinzenji’s work. Jinzenji’s spare prose complements the photographs. The book includes guidelines for replicating her quilts: While one could attempt to recreate her designs, the directions are more insights, rather than step by step instructions, into the artistic process.  While modern and pan-Asian in feel, Quilt Artistry is a fine example of the Japanese mastery of both craft and art.

Jinzenji redefines the very idea of quilting by mixing the modern with the antique, the synthetic and with the organic: “What I am striving for is to bring out and add to the essential textures of the cloth, to create shadows and light, and to find a balance between minimalism and a sense of richness."