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By Patricia Belyea
OKINAWA JP When I met Atsuko Miura of Churari, a bingata artist in Naha, I noticed cats in her designs! And rabbits! And dinosaurs! And lots of birds!
Atsuko likes her full involvement with every step of the bingata dyeing process. All her designs are original. She cuts the screens and dyes the fabrics herself.
Yuki and I had signed up for a bingata dyeing experience with Atsuko — dyeing coasters.
Atsuko had prepped the fabric squares with her hand-cut stencils and pale blue rice resist. My design was a bamboo combo. Yuki’s was a Tyrannosaurus rex with volcanoes.
To get started Atsuko did a mini demo with two brushes — one with a pointed tip to dab on the dye, the other flat-topped to smush the dye into the fabric.
We painted the first round of colors on our coasters and dried them with a hot hair dryer. Then we applied another round of the same colors and dried them.
For the third application of dye, we added the accent colors for kumadori — the characteristic bingata blur.
Once we let our coaster artworks dry out completely, we can wash out the blue resist.
Our visit to Atsuko’s studio was short but sweet with lots of smiles as Yuki and I happily dyed our very first bingata projects!
To visit Atsuko’s website +click here
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ABOUT US: Okan Arts, a petite family business, is co-owned by mother-daughter duo Patricia Belyea and Victoria Stone. Patricia and Victoria sell Japanese textiles online, host creative quilting experiences, and lead quilting & textile tours to Japan.
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