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By guest blogger Teresa Duryea Wong, quilter, speaker and author
KYOTO, JP In September, I had a special visit with Yoshiko Jinzenji in her home up in the mountains outside Kyoto. We toured her gorgeous custom-built house and of course, went through dozens of her stunning quilts.
Needless to say, an afternoon spent digging through these treasures—touching them, running my hands over her impeccable stitching, noticing the million tiny details—was priceless.
Yoshiko has finely tuned her minimalist palette and infuses her art with tons of tiny details that give her quilts rich hues and an unforgettable feel.
For many years Yoshiko maintained studios in Bali, Indonesia and Kyoto, Japan and living in these two countries inspired her to seek out and perfect the art of natural dyes. At one-time, she was practically a one-woman industry who would dye her own yarns, weave her own cloth and make completely original quilts and other items from her own textiles.
Yoshiko’s quilts require patience and personal experience to truly appreciate. Her work is unusual on so many levels and the quiet palette of mostly white, off white and other natural colors is incredibly soothing in a world saturated with color, noise and confusion.
Minimalism is not for everyone. To produce work in this genre requires a great deal of focus and fortitude. The artist has to edit out the extraneous color, edit out too many lines, edit out the clutter. When minimalism is done well, the result draws your eye to the uniqueness that a seemingly limited color set and design can render. You find yourself studying the detail and appreciating the finer points. Yoshiko’s quilts fit this category precisely. She is a master of focus and refinement. And she constructs her quilts in ways that are entirely new and innovative, a process she refers to as “engineering” quilts.
Her artwork is in private collections around the world and many museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Nebraska, the Spencer Museum in Kansas, and others.
Teresa’s new book:
Yoshiko Jinzenji is featured in my new book, Japanese Contemporary Quilts and Quilters. Readers will enjoy learning more about her background and how she came to quilting.
My book tells the history of 40 years of quilt making in Japan and how the idea of the quilt was originally imported from America.
My book also introduces dozens of talented quilt artists—former painters, graphic artists, seamstresses and homemakers who have made professional careers in quilting—along with antique American quilts and early Japanese quilts.
The Japanese quilts are stunning and each quilter offers a unique Japanese aesthetic while staying true to their own style of landscape, taupe-ism, applique, abstract, mixed media or fiber art.
