By Patricia Belyea
TIETON WA The real reason I visited Tieton last month was to see a numbered edition of The Nuno Box : Textiles of Reiko Sudo. The Nuno Box is not the Mona Lisa or the Rosetta Stone but, for a Japanese textile enthusiast like me, it was certainly worth a five-hour drive across the state.
BELOW: Ed Marquand of Marquand Editions in Tieton, Washington
REIKO SUDO
Forty years ago, Reiko Sudo co-founded Nuno Corporation with Junichi Arai. Although “nuno” simply means fabric in Japanese, Sudo’s textile creations are anything but simple!
The innovative textiles produced by Nuno, conceived by Sudo and her team, blend traditional Japanese dyeing and weaving mastery with advanced modern techniques.
Sudo has been recognized globally for her contributions to Japanese textile design. Her work includes collaborations with architects, fashion designers, and artists, as well as major museum exhibits.
A BENTO BOX
To celebrate the first 30 years of Nuno, Reiko Sudo collaborated with Marquand Editions. Instead of producing a printed book filled with photographs of Nuno fabrics, Marquand crafted an art book using actual Nuno fabrics.
The Nuno Box is a treasure like no other. With its handmade construction and inspired contents, it radiates like a concentrated capsule of creativity.
Styled as a bento box, The Nuno Box has four stacked layers, each revealing a different aspect of Reiko Sudo’s work and Nuno’s story.
BOX ONE
The top layer introduces you to Nuno. Two handmade booklets lie under a floating fly sheet.
The first booklet, titled A Woman of the Cloth, offers a 24-page personal history of Reiko Sudo, complete with tipped-in drawings and prints of her designs.
The second booklet, Guide to the Boxes, includes detailed information about the fabrics used in the construction of the boxes, the scarves in Box One, the collages in Box Two, and the tools and materials in Box Four.
The booklets are letterpress printed on Japanese paper with traditional stab-stitch binding and folded pages.
Tucked below are three Nuno scarves — the Cotton Chirimen Scarf, the Tsugihana Scarf, and Sudo’s iconic Pleat Scarf, made from sheer polyester organdy heat-set into a folded origami pattern.
BOX TWO
Fourteen textile collages are stacked in Box Two. Each collage, created by the Nuno Studio, exemplifies a different theme in fabric innovation.
The collages, framed in heavyweight Japanese paper and letterpress printed, are titled: Pleat, Pocket, Twist, Float, Cut, Embroider, Screen, Rub, Punch, Mono, Metal, ReTrad, Cocoon, and Paper.
To give you a sampling of these remarkable fabrics, here are the descriptions of the fabrics in the Punch collage:
- Stress and Stripes (1997) by Reiko Sudo
Needle punching—abrading fibers with a barb—is used to create padding or linings, the invisible parts of clothing, but here we use the technique to create a beautifully crushed texture. 100% polyester - Grater (2006) by Keiji Otani, Nuno Sudo
Traditional Japanese graters are made of bamboo, ceramic or metal. Here the “rasps” are spiky tears where barb-pricked fibers interlock. 100% cotton - Threadstray (2006) by Reiko Sudo, Tomoko Iida
Needle punching multi-colored bouclet warps and wefts makes them mesh together in wild ways. 100% wool
BOX THREE
Nuno Compendium, a hefty handmade book, nests in Box Three. This volume features 66 tipped-in samples of Nuno fabrics on sixty letterpress-printed pages of handmade Japanese paper.
Each page includes the title of the textile and the innovative processes used to produce it.
To contrast the immensity of Nuno’s textile accomplishments, the Compendium concludes with six fantasy short stories by Alfred Birnbaum, printed on UV Ultra paper.
The eight signatures are bound using Japanese long-stitch binding with blue threads on a spine of Nuno’s pumpkin-colored French Knot fabric.
BOX FOUR
Two segmented trays fit into the lowest layer. Box Four is filled with tools, models, and raw materials frequently used by Sudo in fabric production.
The trays include special objects such as Basho yarn, stainless steel fiber, amate paper, a thistle for distressing surfaces, lace embroidery with a water soluble backing, a Jacquard punch card, a rusty steel plate and nail, a silkworm cocoon, a origami folding pattern, and mulberry paper from Kuzo Studio.
Of particular interest is a twist of ogaramichoshi, natural and flattened. Once discarded, this byproduct of silk production is now reworked and woven by the silk producers of Tsuruoka city, Yamagata under the direction of Nuno.
THE TEAM
The development of The Nuno Box was a feat that spanned three continents — North America, South America, and Japan in Asia. The project was designed by Ed Marquand, Reiko Sudo, and Alfred Birnbaum.
All 140 textiles included in The Nuno Box were produced by Nuno: Reiko Sudo, Hiroko Suwa, Sayuri Shimoda, Kazuhiro Ueno, Yumi Yasui, Jun Mashiba, Yuki Abe, Gaku Masui, Tomoko Fujino, Fumi Ito, Masaaki Takekura, and Hiroaki Takekura.
The texts, translation, editing, and coordination were handled by Alfred Birnbaum.
The letterpress printing was by Steve Morgan, and the binding was completed by Maria Solorio and Teresa Martinez.
The Nuno Box was compiled and constructed at Paper Hammer Studios in Tieton, Washington. All 50 copies are signed and numbered by the author, the subject, and the designer. Five lettered hors commerce copies were also published.
A RARE ACHIEVEMENT
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For The Nuno Box, this is so true. Beyond its material value, The Nuno Box holds cultural and historical significance for anyone obsessed with Japanese textiles.
WHO OWNS THE NUNO BOX?
The Nuno Box has been acquired by a bevy of private collectors as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum, Cotsen Foundation, Tokyo Zokei University, Textile Museum, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, and UCLA Library.
OKAN ARTS HAS SIX BOXES!
Ed Marquand of Marquand Editions recognizes the synergy between The Nuno Box and the Okan Arts’ community of Japanese textile aficionados. With that in mind, he has consigned six editions of The Nuno Box to Okan Arts.
If you’re interested in acquiring a limited edition of The Nuno Box +click here
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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