Seeking a positive outlet when dealing with a difficult teenage son, Pip Steel stumbled upon recycled Japanese indigo fabric.
Having decided to make her son a quilt, she researched the fabrics and began buying it online.
‘‘I spotted these ragged and tattered items online and had no idea what they were.’’
So she did some more research and discovered they were Japanese boro textiles — clothing worn and mended or patched many times over.
‘‘It was quite by accident. I just became completely fascinated, and the more I read about them, which wasn’t easy, because most of it’s in Japanese, and I don’t speak Japanese, so things were hard to find.’’
‘‘Obviously life was pretty tough and they recycled and mended and patched and kept mending and patching, ending up with these beautiful, well-mended items of clothing and bedding.’’
When items became worn they cut them down into smaller items, like aprons and bags, or used what fabric was finally left to mend other garments.
‘‘So every single part of the making process was done by hand. And so that made fabric really valuable, as well as long-winded to make. It had to last.’’
The more she researched, the more intrigued she became.
‘‘It took me ages to get up the courage to get them. You just think about it. It’s really just a worn bit of cloth and so I very, very hesitantly bought that piece.’’
Her first piece was a section of a futon cover which was cut down.
These days Steel sees them as works of art rather than ‘‘rags and tatters’’.
‘‘I laugh because now I’ve gravitated towards that. It’s taken quite a long time to build up the appreciation as it’s something so worn and abraded.’’
She now seeks out the more distressed pieces, Steel says, pointing to one piece.
‘‘You can’t even see what the fabrics are, they’re so ragged and distressed. You couldn’t push a textile much further than that.’’
The majority are blue or indigo due to the readily available persicaria tinctoria plant across Japan, which was a cheap dye source and reputed to have insect repellent and antibacterial qualities as well as mythical properties. They used the plant dye to colour hand-spun cloth different shades of blue.
‘‘So, it was very popular. Although it’s interesting, because originally that blue dye was very expensive to make, because of the dye process. And it was associated with aristocrats and royalty.’’
Steel tries to find out as much as she can about the textiles’ provenances, describing it as a bit like an archaeological dig. Sometimes the stitching gives away the region it came from.
‘‘You sort of see the layers of the fabric, and all those layers have a story to the people who would have used them. And I try and be respectful to all of that.’’
‘‘They see it as something they want to forget about. And so a lot of these fabrics got destroyed or burnt. So the ones that have survived are quite precious.’’
She did find out one piece came from a silk-producing household’s wedding futon.
‘‘The silk-producing household fell in hard times, so the very beautiful wedding futon, which has got a phoenix and a paulownia tree, got cut into strips and then repurposed into a more utilitarian futon cover and then patched and repaired as it was used.
‘‘They are works of art and stories, really. Stories of a life lived.’’
As life was so tough and very prescribed for Japanese women in those times, their freedom to choose was limited.
‘‘So perhaps this was their way of expressing themselves through their stitch, through their mending, even though it was at the back and was only really for them to see and they did it for their families. And they passed them through generation to generation.’’
Other garments in her collection include rare children’s boro, fabric dye samples, handbags, and kimono-shaped garments called yogi used as bedding and made out of cotton and hemp.
‘‘Like a kimono-shaped duvet and padded and really heavy. Part of what they did in the north was the stitching was also a form of warmth, of reinforcing the clothing to give it extra thickness and insulation.’’
One type of stitching sashiko has become very popular world-wide in recent times with workshops and books on the craft.
‘‘It’s back to that slow fashion. And that’s a bit like the quilt that I started. You just stitch and you think about someone and it’s good for your relationships.
‘‘It’s not necessarily about the outcome, it’s more the process. And the thought and the care that goes behind it. It’s just good for the world.’’
There is a niche following for the textiles in Japan with some treasuring them for what it shows of the resilience of their forebearers. As their value is increasingly recognised they are becoming harder to find and more expensive.
In her research Steel discovered the ancient Japanese philosophy of Mottainai expresses regret over waste and a reverence for the inherent value of all things.
‘‘It’s got huge implications and relevance to repair and recycle now. And the fact that you don’t just buy new, you repair what you’ve got. So it’s very relevant in the contemporary world.’’
Steel keeps her collection rolled up in boxes well away from New Zealand’s harsh sunlight.
‘‘So I look after them, they’ve had a really hard life, a lot of these things, so I try not to make their life any harder.’’
Steel, who did a museum and heritage post-graduate diploma after her art teaching job was disestablished, has been sewing since she was child and also did textile art. So her love of boro is not surprising.
‘‘I never thought of it as a collection until quite recently, really. It’s hard to explain, but it just took hold of me. It’s kind of symbolic of a time and a place that doesn’t exist anymore.’’
She was an educator at Te Manawa Museum in Palmerston North for five years and it held the first exhibition of her collection.
The pieces are now on show for the first time in the South Island at Tūhura Otago Museum, her fifth exhibition.
‘‘The fact I can share my folly with others is really great. It’s the way it should be seen, and to get people to see it and appreciate it and understand it, and kind of be respectful of it. ’’
Along with exhibiting the works, she holds talks and workshops, bringing together all her interests.
‘‘It’s sort of pulled everything together.’’
To see:
Boro — Timeworn Textiles of Japan, until 11 October, People of the World Gallery, Tūhura Otago Museum
