There is something exceptionally relaxing about fixing myself a nice cup of tea (blood orange tonight!) then sharpening the knives and spending a couple of hours on a stencil. Pausing every 20–30 minutes to re-sharpen the blade and rest my eyes. I get the same satisfaction doing shibori as well. Hours of preparation and work, followed by the dyeing—which for all the recipes and synthesized formulations is still very unpredictable. Those who know me are probably amazed that this is something I have chosen to do.
So a small update for that two hours spent this evening on the stencil. In blue is the work done earlier, in purple/pink is tonights work. I have noticed that sharpening my blade every 20–30 minutes makes a huge difference in the ability to easily cut details like the chrysanthemum flower that has tight curves. I will be trying out some surgical blades soon, loaned to me from a jewelry designer along with a catalog of some other tools used in his industry. That one will probably require far less frequent re-sharpening. I’m not entirely sure if that is good or bad, but it’s worth checking out.
Tomorrow I thik I will add another web interpretation of a traditional pattern to the site.
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Well after about 5 hours of total time spent on it—and 4 resharpenings of an X-acto blade—I have finished maybe one quarter of the interior details of the katagami pattern so far. I never thought I would find myself sharpening an X-acto blade, let alone sharpening it every hour. Some of the lines are barely the thickness of the x-acto blade itself. I think it may actually pay to invest in a set of the traditional dōgubori (punch-carving) punches and hikibori (pull-carving) knives. I would ideally love to learn how to make them myself—just as the traditional stencil carvers do—but for now I think it would be best to try and find a source for the knives and punches.
Below is another significantly reduced image—the active part (in other words without the border) 9.5×3.65 inches, about two thirds the size of the 1694 original—of the stencil, the areas that are blue are what I cut yesterday and last night, in two sessions, totalling four to five hours. I did make one significant mistake—I should have started in the upper left corner to reduce the chances of any damage while working the rest of the pattern. The cutting is being done in two stages: first the finer detail work, then the larger open sections. This is done to keep the pattern as stable as possible. If I tried to cut everyting in the same pass, the chance of tearing out some of the finer bridges and details would be significantly higher.
I began cutting a new katagami pattern today as a stress reliever. This one is arguably the most complicated I have attempted. It is actually a very old pattern that I found in the wonderful book Carved Paper: The Art of the Japanese Stencil which is in essence the English language bible of katagami. It is a chūgata or medium pattern, a pattern designed to repeat down the length of a bolt of cloth (but not across). This particular one, from page 27 of Carved Paper, is dated to 1694 (Genroku 7) and is one of the two oldest dated stencils. Working only an hour or two a day on this pattern, it will probably take at least a ten days to complete—more like two weeks.
Unfortunately, I am not able to do the pattern onto shibugami, the laminated and persimmon juice tanned mulberry paper traditionally used for stencil carving. The production of shibugami appears to be trailing off, and I imagine that most of what is produced is reserved for the few traditional katagami carvers left in Japan (many of them designated as National Treasures). I have no idea if this stencil will hold up to more than a few pastings as it is being carved from heavy card stock. I hope that I am wrong, but the only source I know for blank shibugami paper is having a hard time getting a steady supply of it.
I recently remembered a Bhuddist painting available online in theMasterworks section of the Kyoto National Museum that shows use of some of the patterns I have recently posted. The piece is a painting of Bishamon-ten that was done in 1127 as one of 12 divas hung for the New Years cermony at Shingon-in in the Imperial Palace.
In the detail images you can see the bishamon patterns executed in cut gold leaf (kirikane). In the center detail you can see a variant of the bishamon pattern on the belly and thigh armour of Bishamon-ten.
In the pattern detail you can see a variant of the shippō or “seven treasures” design as an all over design.
Also notice the background pattern in use at the museum’s site. It is a drill carved (kiribori) stencil inspired design. In fact this oldest of Japanese stencil carving techniques lends itself perfectly to web background patterns as most kiribori designs are repeating patterns known as komon. Often the carver would create a small template called a kohon (lit. “small book”) that was used to ink the repeating pattern onto the larger stencil. The final komon generally consisted of 8–12 repeats of one kohon. A standard komon stencil size was 15cm x 40 cm (approx. 5×15 inches). This stencil would be repeated the entire length of the bolt of fabric being dyed—often over 100 repeats. More on all that later if anyone is interested…
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This pattern is from a traditional Japanese design called shippō or “seven-treasures”. The interlocking circles of shippō are said to represent the seven treasures of Bhuddism. Similar linked circle designs are found in many cultures through-out the world. The shippō or shippō-tsunagi(lit. linked seven tresures) design has been used as a motif in Japanese textile decoration since at least the Nara period (645-794). It is quite possible it was in use long before that, but there are few surviving samples of textiles from before then. A piece of fabric exists in the Shōsō-in collection with a similar shippō design done in shibori.
p. Shippō motifs are used in all forms of textile decoration, and are often used as an all over background pattern in a subtle color shift from the ground color, with the main designs layed above. This particular variant of the shippō motif is based on a stencil found in the excellent book Carved Paper – The Art of the Japanese Stencil.
- shippō on indigo
(20×20 pixels)
- shippō with transparent background
(20×20 pixel)
- shippō with indigo background
(40×40 pixel)
- shippō with transparent background
(40×40 pixel)
- shippō with indigo background
(60×60 pixel)
- shippō with transparent background
(60×60 pixel)
If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.
