壺草苑
Early 19th century travelers to Japan described the color of the land, the color of the people Japan Blue. Indigo was everywhere. In the work clothes of farmers, banners and signs, townspeople and their bundles, indigo was the common language.
It is still a highly prized color today and gaining rapidly in appreciation. Taking a hint from the layers of shades of blue hills of Ome surrounding it, Kosoen indigo dye workshop translates the colors around it onto a whole range of blue textiles: cottons, silks, ramies and heavy linens. Their tool box of techniques is filled with shibori, katazome, stencil dyeing, board clamp dyeing, tsutsugaki, freehand designs achieved by squeezing paste resist from a tube like a frosting applicator.
It is still a highly prized color today and gaining rapidly in appreciation. Taking a hint from the layers of shades of blue hills of Ome surrounding it, Kosoen indigo dye workshop translates the colors around it onto a whole range of blue textiles: cottons, silks, ramies and heavy linens. Their tool box of techniques is filled with shibori, katazome, stencil dyeing, board clamp dyeing, tsutsugaki, freehand designs achieved by squeezing paste resist from a tube like a frosting applicator.
This alarmed Amy and two other friends, Carol Miles and Fujiko Hara who teamed up to create Blue & White, a tiny shop in Tokyo’s fusty old neighborhood near Roppongi where they worked to encourage craftsmen to redirect their work to what was functional and useful in every day life. It was a haphazard name, but it served to keep them focused and limited their attention to a palette of just two colors. Two brilliant and utterly Japanese colors.
What started as a naiive and idealistic project, has now, after 43 years, become a nexus, center of activity of people who make things with their hands and people who seek them. Dyers, sewers, basket makers, potters, papermakers. We continue to encourage craftsmen/ shokunin san, of all types, to create things that address the needs of every day life. To be relevant. For 43 years Blue & White and Amy have sought to connect makers and users in a smooth dialogue of making and using them.
For 43 years, Amy has travelled throughout Japan seeking the best and most interesting, and sometime quirky crafts of the land. What an odyssey it has been. Wonderful stories and friends have formed the blue & White family.
Lucky Amy! Thanks to a generous and supportive husband, and long suffering children who have been forced to consider Blue & White as their fifth sibling, Blue & White has become a life’s work that will hopefully continue to bloom/flourish and gather craftsmen and new friends in its indigo net.
For 43 years, Amy has travelled throughout Japan seeking the best and most interesting, and sometime quirky crafts of the land. What an odyssey it has been. Wonderful stories and friends have formed the blue & White family.
Lucky Amy! Thanks to a generous and supportive husband, and long suffering children who have been forced to consider Blue & White as their fifth sibling, Blue & White has become a life’s work that will hopefully continue to bloom/flourish and gather craftsmen and new friends in its indigo net.