Toba Mika Official Site

『 Katazome 』

Katazome has a long history of tradition among many dyeing techniques in Japan. It is one of the most excellent designing techniques in the world by combining eloquent expression of designing with sprendid art skill of Japanese craft persons.
Katazome was indigenously invented in Japan. It has never been exported to overseas, and has been developed as a highly technical and sophisticated dyeing method. However, it is difficult to preserve Katazome relics due to the type of materials and the usages in the Japanese climate with high temperature and humidity. Katazome product was used as a practical purpose, and therefore, somewhat hard to trace and verify the precise history of Katazome from the limited relics, and we can only assume the following by looking at the existing relics.

　 Some survived cloths were excavated in the monument of the Silk Road, and it was identified that they were patterned by soaked wax block using a stencil, estimated to have been produced in the 6th century. At the Shosoin Temple in Nara, the eastern terminal of the Silk Road, there remained the relics of batik dyeing similar to those found in the Silk Road.

There exist some oldest relics of the broad category of Katazome, one of which is known as “Fukie no kami”, a sheet of paper with “sprayed” pictures. Because it was based on the technique to produce a pattern by spraying colors on a white paper with stencil papers, “Fukie no kami” is considered as one of the origins of Katazome.

There were some other more modern stencil paper techniques found in the late Heian and the Kamakura periods known as “Somekawa” dyed leather, and “Fumikomi-gata” dyed leather. They were used as a decorating armors having pressed leather with stencil mold.
“Wax” is a very important material for “batik” dyeing. It was one of the varieties of items imported from foreign countries in the Asuka and Tempyo periods, but was never been imported after the secession of the dispatch of “Kentoshi” envoy to the Tang Dynasty. As a matter of fact, for more than one thousand years until the Taisho period, “batik” wax dyeing method was not used in Japan at all. Then, an alternative stencil dyeing method was to be invented to replace the batik dyeing, and there came the new dyeing method using rice glue as a resist paste since rice was abundant in Japan, a rice growing country.
The oldest relic of stencil dyeing with resist paste is “Yoshitune’s Kote”, a hand protector worn by the famous Samurai warrior Minamoto Yoshitune in the Kamakura period, which has been preserved at Kasuga Shrine in Nara. This indicates that the Katazome method should have been established either in the late Heian period or the early Kamakura period around the 12th century. Katazome culture became popular with the rise of Samurai to power, and it gained important place in the society.
Since Muromachi period, Katazome was used for the accessory to armors worn by the samurai lords such as Uesugi Kenshin, or “Shogun” Tokugawa Ieyasu. In the Edo period, “komon” a small repeated pattern using Katazome was popularly used as an official samurai uniform, since the symbol mark of each family was designated by the “Daimyo” lord.

Katazome was also used for the clothes of “kyogen” a Japanese classical performing art, and it was refined as a dynamic and modern designing. Katazome became even more popular in the Edo period, as it was adopted in the clothes of commoners and was produced in a large quantity. Thus, it has developed as a unique culture in Japan, combining many elements of Japanese elegant cultures of flowers, birds, animals, legends, and so forth.

After the Meiji era, some advanced chemical materials were developed and used for “Kata-yuzen”, a kind of Kimono, and was proliferated for the fashon trend of colorful clothes in the Taisho and early Showa periods. However, after that period, Katazome technique has been retreated and was about to be disappeared because of the introduction of more advanced dyeing techniques.
The materials and the production process of Katazome are as follows:
“Katajigami”, stencil made by hand-made washi paper made of “Kouzo” paper mulberry,
“Kakishibu”, persimmon tannin is used to glue the washi paper, and special rice (mochigome) for making rice-glue resist paste to prevent dyeing in the pattern. Japanese climate as natural environment is also essential.
Shiroko and Jike of Suzuka-city in Mie Prefecture are well known production area of Katagami, and a particularly famous specific stencil paper is known as “Ise Katagami”.
Some craft persons left old capital of Kyoto at the time of “Ounin no Ran”, civil war, and moved to this local area. They stayed there, and were protected by “Han-shu”, a feudal lord.
Many capable craft persons with high level technique were involved in the process of Katazome. First, Katagami (it was patterned by cutting a washi stencil paper waterproofed by Kakishibu) is tightly placed on the cloth, and then, a special resist paste made of rice and nuka is attached over it, and after that, Katagami is removed. The patterned resist paste is dried on the cloth. During this process, the squeeze of soy beans and Funori paste are used to prevent the blot of the resist paste.
The cloth is colored by brushing with dye, steamed at high temperature, and washed out for removing the resist paste after that process. By removing the resist, the cloth is shown as patterned with colors because the dye could not color the parts protected by the resist. Katazome technique is, indeed, a very dramatic method because all of the colored patterns will appear at one single moment of removing the resist. The technique by protecting coloring with patterned cut paper stencil makes the artistic expression of Katazome a very unique one. The space and the patterns made by this process are obviously different from those made by brushing and painting of ordinary pictures. The dye soaks to the inside of cloth and stops at the border of the protecting resist. The border is featured as very sharp edge by cutting stencil paper with a sword, therefore, the space and the patterns produced by the sharp border line become much stronger than that by the brush. This kind of specific effect through fabrication technology and manufacturing process leads us to the unique expression of dyeing, never seen in the ordinary paintings, and thus shows us its special potentiality and identification.
These high level concept and methodology when making a form by protecting from dyeing coloring, and forming a beauty by controlling space, might come from the oriental culture and the way of thinking. We can be proud of this deep color world of Katazome dyeing as a unique Japanese culture.                                                          
(translated by Mitoji Yabunaka)

『 Toba Mika’s “Katazome”　Process 』

Katazome is an art form to create patterns through complicated process------draw patterns, then produce “ Katagami”, by cutting a washi stencil paper in accordance with the drawing,　and then, place resist paste over the blank space so that dye would not spread---- a totally different process from the painting. It requires 18 different process of no return, and many talented craft persons wit high level of technique were involved to develop this Katazome method over many centuries in Japan. The following is the rough process of Katazome:
1. Drawing---sketch objects, and make a drawing by writing brush and sumi (Indian ink). Add a bridge form called “tsuri”, so that designed form would not be fallen into pieces in the process of carving. This “tsuri” will be either erased at the time of placing resist paste or be incorporated as another pattern. By drawing in sumi-ink, black and white drawing sharpens the part to be cut out.
2. “Katahori”---produce “Katagami” by carving out blank space by a knife after tracing the drawing over the washi stencil paper which is made waterproof by using “Kakishibu”, persimmon tannin. This is the point of no return as blank parts are cut out.
3. Placing resist paste---cloth called “Hakusan Tsumugi” which is woven by silk thread made of twin silkworms, is placed over a wooden board, and then, the above “Katagami” is placed over the cloth. Then, resist paste made of rice and rice bran (nuka) is attached over it.
4. Erasing above “tsuri”---place paste over the “tsuri” to erase from the patterned object.

5. Remove “Katagami”---requires two months for “Katahori”, two hours for placing resist paste, and a single moment for removing “Katagami”
6. Control the state of paste---control humidity so that “Katagami” will not be broken apart after the placement of resist paste.
7. “Jiire”--- lay overnight the cloth in soy bean juice, so that it would help preventing from irregular spread of dye, and would add more full-bodied color as protein help coagulate.
8. Dyeing---synthetic dye invented in the 19th century could produce all different types of color, and start dyeing by adding different dye liquid with brush. As resist paste prevents the spread of dyeing, one could produce sharp and strong line, and create profound art world of dyeing helped by the rich quality of cloth.
9. Steaming---in order to fix the dye on the cloth, steam the cloth for about 90 minuets at 100℃　in a steam box made of cedar and Japanese cypress. As dye simmers into the cloth, brilliant color will emerge.
10. MIzumoto (dip in water) --- lastly, dip the cloth in water. Resist paste is gradually removed, and dyed pattern and form surface clearly in the water. This is the moment when you will meet the art work for the first time. “Mizumoto” or dipping the dyeing cloth in the water was the famous scene at Horikawa river or Kamo river in the olden days.
11. This is the one set of process, and then, you will add color, dye, and place paste further, to enrich the art work. Process differs in each art work, and therefore, it is impossible to produce the same product from each “Katagami”.