Katano shibori (kah-tah-no)
Japanese painter and batik artist Motohito Katano founded the style of Katano. This resist processes combines pleating, covering, and stitching. Katano Shibori produces a repeating pattern across a width of fabric in variegated colors, white lines, and areas resembling soft airbrushed tinting. Below: The first piece is a pashmina shawl and the other pieces are wall hangings.
Katano History
In mid career the Japanese painter and batik artist Motohito Katano became interested in shibori, which had been ignored by his peers and dismissed, no doubt, as a village industry. In 1957, encouraged and urged on by Soetsu Yanagi and Kanjiro Kawai, the founders of the minegei (“folkcraft”) movement, he devoted the remaining years of his life to exploring shibori’s possibilities, using his discoveries and rediscoveries of this ancient craft as the vehicle for his creative expression.
Katano viewed shibori from a different perspective than that of a village craftsman. He recognized the beauty of the humble yet high-spirited art of Arimatsu-Narumi shibori and brought new insights to bear on the traditional methods. One of the most ingenious resist processes he devised, and one he used extensively, combines pleating, covering, and stitching in a way as brilliant as it is simple. This process produces a repeating pattern across a width of fabric in variegated colors, white lines, and areas resembling soft airbrushed tinting. Motohito Katano (1889-1975) lived in Nagoya which inspired many of his shibori technques. It seems fitting that it should bear his name. His work leaves an indelible mark on contemporary shibori art, and his legacy is being continued by his daughter, Kaori Katano. Acclaimed fiber artists Hiroyuki Shindo and Shioko Fukumoto have been greatly inspired by Katano’s work.
Katano Shibori (an adaptation): The cloth is folded into vertical pleats, which are held between protective strips made of folded cloth. Stitching is then done through all the layers. The pressure exerted on the cloth by the stitches and the protective strips serves to define the elements of the design by directing, channeling, and controlling the dye penetration.
Kathleen Goddu 