According to Reiko Mochina Brandon in her book Country Textiles of Japan: The Art of Tsutsugaki, the term tsutsugaki is reserved for utilitarian cotton and hemp fabrics used by commoners and decorated with a paste-resist process. Although there is usually no distinction of terms between textiles found in the country and those found in the city, different types of fabrics were needed and produced in both places.(1)

What is common to tsutsugaki is the way they are produced. The word can be translated to "tube drawing."(2)  In these tubes of Japanese paper with bamboo or brass tips, a thick rice paste is squeezed to draw motifs on the surface of the cloth. Tips vary in size so as to make fine or large lines. From this point on, the process is similar to other resist-dye techniques as the paste applied to the cloth stops the absorption of dye where it is applied.

Paste as a resist agent first originated in China and was made of soybean flour, which cannot be dissolved in water.(3)  Soluble rice-paste was developed in Japan and had two advantages: it could create a crisp line and was easily washed away once the dying process ended. This technique may have been produced as early as the Kamakura period (1192-1333) in an environment of self-sufficiency.(4)  In addition to growing hemp and cotton, which became available to commoners in the seventeenth century, indigo plants also were cultivated in villages and became a favorite color in rural Japan.(5)  In addition to their availability and the dye's colorfastness, shades from light to dark could also be obtained by repeat dipping in indigo's colorless water-soluble coloring matter which turns blue when exposed to air.(6)

Anne Bissonnette, PhD
Curator
Kent State University Museum

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        (1) Reiko Mochinaga Brandon, Country Textiles of Japan: The Art of Tsutsugaki (New York, Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1986).
        (2) Ibid., 3.
        (3) Ibid., 30.
        (4) Ibid., 6, 31.
        (5) Ibid., 43.
        (6) Ibid.

Text Included in the Exhibition

Mood Indigo
Broadbent Gallery, September 27, 2007, to August 31, 2008
Dr. Anne Bissonnette, Curator