The sight of this stole, weighing just 3g and the weight of three 1-yen coins, dancing in the air is the epitome of a feather robe. A thread is searched for in the cocoon produced by the silkworms' silk. From that thread, the raw silk is pulled out one by one, without being twisted, leaving the ultra-fine silk just as it was when the silkworms spit it out. The weaver focused every nerve in his body, carefully working with the thread, and weaving it resulted in a stole that dances in the air like a feather robe. This miraculous feat, weighing just 3g, took approximately 90 days to complete. It was woven by Michiko Uehara, whose cocoon weaving studio we visited in Okinawa. This 3g stole, gently dancing in the air, is filled with Uehara's respect for the material created by nature and her passion for dyeing and weaving.
A 3g silk stole gently fluttering through the air
Born and raised in Okinawa, Uehara moved to Tokyo to study early childhood education. It was only after leaving Okinawa that she realized she knew nothing about Okinawa. As a young woman, Uehara frequented the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo, with the sole desire to learn more about her hometown, Okinawa. While looking at pottery and textiles there, she developed a desire to try her hand at dyeing and weaving. It was Yanagi Yoshihiro, nephew of Yanagi Muneyoshi, the father of folk crafts. At the time, Yanagi's workshop already had many apprentices, but he welcomed Uehara as an apprentice, saying, "Okinawa has been so kind to me, so I wanted to give back to Okinawa." Uehara spent two and a half years learning the ins and outs of dyeing and weaving under Yanagi. There, Uehara learned from Yanagi Yoshihiro that weaving is all about the material, saying, "First, the material. Second, the material. There's no third or fourth, it's all about the material." "I would buy commercially available thread, untwist it, and re-do the yarn..." Over the two years he spent at Yanagi's workshop, he felt the texture of the materials and learned the texture of natural materials. And in 1974, Uehara returned to Okinawa, fulfilling Yanagi's promise that "when I returned, I wanted to do Okinawan work properly."
However, despite her longing for her hometown, Okinawa, when she moved there, Uehara says, "I got tired of looking everywhere and seeing Okinawa everywhere. I lost interest in traditional crafts... I realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do."
She spent her days weaving fabrics and pondering from various perspectives what dyeing and weaving would be like in today's world. So she decided to return to her passion for texture and rethink dyeing and weaving.
Kimono bolts are typically woven from yarns that are combined to a thickness of around 160 to 200 denier. One day, Uehara had the opportunity to get her hands on some 27-denier raw yarn, before it was used to weave a kimono. From that moment on, she decided to try weaving with just this one thread, and began weaving pieces using the ultra-fine thread. And so, "akezuba weaving," with its delicate, airy texture, was born.
The word "akezuba," which refers to "akezu (dragonfly)" and "ba (wing)," also appears in the ancient Ryukyu dance songs. In the Ryukyu dance songs, it is said that "I want to weave a kimono as thin as a dragonfly's wing for my beloved."
Akezuba weaving: "Dyeing and weaving is a collaborative effort between man and nature" - Meeting Uehara Michiko in Okinawa. --Continued in Part 2 [ENcounter vol.3].
A 3g silk stole gently fluttering through the air
Born and raised in Okinawa, Uehara moved to Tokyo to study early childhood education. It was only after leaving Okinawa that she realized she knew nothing about Okinawa. As a young woman, Uehara frequented the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Komaba, Tokyo, with the sole desire to learn more about her hometown, Okinawa. While looking at pottery and textiles there, she developed a desire to try her hand at dyeing and weaving. It was Yanagi Yoshihiro, nephew of Yanagi Muneyoshi, the father of folk crafts. At the time, Yanagi's workshop already had many apprentices, but he welcomed Uehara as an apprentice, saying, "Okinawa has been so kind to me, so I wanted to give back to Okinawa." Uehara spent two and a half years learning the ins and outs of dyeing and weaving under Yanagi. There, Uehara learned from Yanagi Yoshihiro that weaving is all about the material, saying, "First, the material. Second, the material. There's no third or fourth, it's all about the material." "I would buy commercially available thread, untwist it, and re-do the yarn..." Over the two years he spent at Yanagi's workshop, he felt the texture of the materials and learned the texture of natural materials. And in 1974, Uehara returned to Okinawa, fulfilling Yanagi's promise that "when I returned, I wanted to do Okinawan work properly."
However, despite her longing for her hometown, Okinawa, when she moved there, Uehara says, "I got tired of looking everywhere and seeing Okinawa everywhere. I lost interest in traditional crafts... I realized that this wasn't what I wanted to do."
She spent her days weaving fabrics and pondering from various perspectives what dyeing and weaving would be like in today's world. So she decided to return to her passion for texture and rethink dyeing and weaving.
Kimono bolts are typically woven from yarns that are combined to a thickness of around 160 to 200 denier. One day, Uehara had the opportunity to get her hands on some 27-denier raw yarn, before it was used to weave a kimono. From that moment on, she decided to try weaving with just this one thread, and began weaving pieces using the ultra-fine thread. And so, "akezuba weaving," with its delicate, airy texture, was born.
The word "akezuba," which refers to "akezu (dragonfly)" and "ba (wing)," also appears in the ancient Ryukyu dance songs. In the Ryukyu dance songs, it is said that "I want to weave a kimono as thin as a dragonfly's wing for my beloved."
Akezuba weaving: "Dyeing and weaving is a collaborative effort between man and nature" - Meeting Uehara Michiko in Okinawa. --Continued in Part 2 [ENcounter vol.3].
![Akezubaori: "Dyeing and weaving is a collaborative effort between man and nature" - Meeting Michiko Uehara in Okinawa. --Part 2 [ENcounter vol.3]](https://wrqc9vvfhu8e.global.ssl.fastly.net/api/image/crop/380x380/images/migration/2017/02/8bb22555b540af28f2dce40c0d7455cc.jpg)
