What is your view of the role of handcrafts in the modern world – especially hand weaving?
Well, I think that using our hands to create things is innately human and the discipline of the hands by mind ad heart has been very important to our evolution for centuries. Not only by designing, but by manifesting those designs in the physical world, by teaching our hands to create, we nurture our spirits – both the creator’s spirit and the spirits of the people who appreciate the finished products.
This is especially true of crafts that take a long time and many processes between visualisation and realty, like hand weaving. These crafts have been transmitted from master to discipline and tweaked and perfected for thousands of years. It’s very important to preserve the knowledge that we have acquired so painstakingly – not only the techniques, but the understanding of that importance in the outside world, I mean the world of non-craftsmen.
Nowadays the vital link between the mind and the hands is getting weaker, mainly because it’s difficult or impossible for most people to devote the time to learning crafts or creating things themselves. Even [things like] hand sewing and fabric shops are becoming harder to find, as people lose their sense of the project. We have become obsessed with the quickest and easiest way to do something, like manufacturing fabric and the use of machines means that we have distanced ourselves from the generations of human effort that were required to get us to this point. Modern people are cut off from their cultural base. They don’t have the knowledge, they don’t have the technique in their hands, they don’t have the sense of continuity – and they don’t even realise the importance of this.
I believe that the mark of the evolution of a culture is the level of dedication the culture gives to perfecting its crafts. The idea of mastery, of the student devoting their life to learning from a master and becoming a master in their own right, thus continuing the craft into the next generation, is for me, the fascination of Japan. Younger and brasher cultures can’t achieve that kind of mastery and the tragedy is that because they are enmeshed with the idea that machines create everything, they don’t really care about it either. They don’t know how important it is that the masters of traditional crafts need to be supported and revered. They have specialised knowledge that is incredibly important to the human race as a whole. They are embodiments of what human beings are capable of and that is, or should be, awe-inspiring. These masters are disappearing all over the world and once they are gone, that knowledge is gone – it can’t be retrieved, because crafts have to be learned physically in a ‘hands-on’ way, not just from books.
You mentioned nurturing the spirit – can you elaborate on this?
I’m talking about art, which is the higher octave of crafts – the spiritual aspect of crafts. To use one’s expertise to create an object of beauty, to be inspired by one’s vision to devote oneself to the process of bringing the vision into reality, is to become a conduit for beauty. In every field, there are timeless works of art that still take our breath away, even after centuries – Mozart in music, Rembrandt and Da Vinci and so on in art, the architecture of Greece, Rome and Egypt, European tapestries, Japanese kosode. These works of art lift us out of our ordinary lives and allow us to see the universal truth of beauty. It is spiritual food and it is just as satisfying to our minds and hearts as good food is to our bodies – and just as necessary for a full human life.
We recognise something that has been created with love and care. People shouldn’t take these things for granted. We need to devote more time and energy to nourishing our spirits, to make personal investment in this kind of evolution. It takes time and devotion and that is the very thing that makes it valuable.
Why is it important to recognise tradition, history and specific cultures?
People these days have become seduced by the next new thing. There is always something new around the corner and the vast majority of it is just cynically put out there by someone looking to make some money out of it. Even ‘couture’ which used to be painstakingly handcrafted and the epitome of high quality, is often now being outsourced and made available by entrepreneurs – the resonance of those iconic names is being lost. Newness is an elusive and essentially contradictory criteria for desirability – every new thing soon gets old. Underneath it all, human beings are hungry for meaning and depth and these new things can’t provide it.
My nephew told a story that illustrates this very idea. When he was in the Japanese traditional archery club at his high school, the American English teacher came to the club one day wanting to learn archery. She said it was her intention to ‘master all the Japanese arts’ during her two-year stay. She was very put out when she wasn’t allowed to touch the bows and arrows. My nephew said that even new club members couldn’t touch the equipment for at least two months, until they had studied and absorbed many different kinds of knowledge and technique first. The Japanese say it takes ten years to learn anything. A lot of people scoff at this idea. Modern people aren’t willing to devote themselves – they think it’s easy – they don’t intend to immerse themselves in the process, which is really the most important thing.
Can you talk about the process, as it relates to hand weaving?
It’s all about the relationship between the brain, eyes and hands. Making a piece of textile requires many steps, very few of which are directly related to how the finished piece looks. For example, putting the threads in order in the warp, making sure they are all perfectly tensioned and the colours are evenly graded. When I weave a sample for a project, I have to not only look very carefully at the weave structure, but also feel the threads with my fingers and constantly make small adjustments. This has to be done directly with the eye, hands and thread. These fine adjustments, which bring the piece closer and closer to perfection, can’t be done on a computer screen or other ‘virtual’ piece of equipment.
An incredible level of discipline, concentration and tactile discernment is required to follow each step through to the end. And this makes a big difference to the finished product. Things that have gone through a physical process with the hands are unmistakable – they just have an aura of care and a purity of precision that is impossible for machines, no matter how sophisticated. And deep inside, people know this. The era of pumping out mass produced things that, from this point of view, are worthless, is already collapsing. Cheapness and convenience, in the end, can’t compare with the worth of something that is hand crafted by a master.
What, in your opinion, can be done to preserve crafts such as hand weaving?
Well, just to take one example, there used to be an event called the Kyoto International Textile Competition. This has been defunct for many years, but I’d really like to see it revived. This kind of thing encourages craftspeople to get out in the arena, to create things they know will be seen, appreciated and evaluated. Society as a whole has to show appreciation for the efforts and devotion of craftspeople, by supporting them, by seeking out and feeling the joy from their products. There are many concrete ways to do this – and its really important – before these crafts are lost forever.
Do you have a ‘mission statement’ or an overarching personal goal you’d like to share?
I believe that human beings have a deep inner need for beauty – they need to transcend their mundane everyday lives on a regular basis. The human spirit is capable of incredible things and will always triumph over the shallow and cynical. My hope is that my own work will nourish the spirits of all who see it. I aim to create things that radiate the real energy of beauty. If I can do that I will lived well.