Arts Thread

Inspired by the lanterns, summer festival clothings, and fireworks in the Japanese summer festival (夏祭り), along with each day in life’s pictures that I have captured with my friend, through 35mm and 120mm film cameras that belongs to my grandfather, during our visit to the house he grew up in in July. I aim to mimic the warmth, faded tone of film photography, the warmth of Japanese summer, and the light each lantern produces in the festival. The faded tone resembles old clothings each firework couriers wear that passed down from generations. I have explored a tremendous amount of variations on resist dye with indigo and natural dye for over a month before starting my final samples. I have also found a new resist method that received compliments from technicians - the embroidery stitch resist with indigo, they told me that it hasn't been done before in this combination. Through trials and errors I have managed to make it work. This technique is featured in a few of my final outcomes for this unit. I have also explored other techniques, such as Itajime (wood clamping) dye, with the help of wood workshop, I was able to cut shapes to practice this technique; rice paste resist, where I have made a resist paste with sushi rice that is able to print through silk screen; and natural paste in screen print, in which I have explored the reaction of Iron, Soda ash, and Citric acid on natural paste. In summary, the whole project was inspired by me and my friend’s film photographs and its tones, I have only used natural dyes. I have also paid respect to the Japanese traditional craftsmanship using their techniques and ways to dye fabric in layers. All of my final outcomes started from plain white fabrics in linen and cotton, dyed with natural dyes to get the base colour, then layered with Itajime, Shibori, stitch resist, and rice paste resist.