Japanese Boro Textiles –
November 9, 2007
Finding out about Japanese “Boro” textiles earlier this year was an exciting eye-opener for me — one of those moments when you’re reminded how different cultures can be wordlessly connected through the shared use (or even independent development of) similar visual motifs and artistic techniques. (Although I know many scholarly types warn that any cross-cultural comparisons are fraught with “eye of the beholder”-type danger.) I was able to see the 2002 (?) Whitney exhibition of quilts developed by the Gee’s Bend community in Alabama and was really into it at the time, although I now have more mixed feelings about the Gee’s Bend phenomenon, in part from seeing a documentary about the “discovery” of the quilts — their acceptance into and elevation by white culture, etc. (I’d love to find a really good critically written article about the subject). But that’s another topic altogether! What I’m really getting to is that in the same way I like many of the Gee’s Bends quilts I also like Japanese Boro textiles and am interested by the similarities between some of them — although I can only guess it’s completely coincidental. Above top: a Boro textile from Kathleen Taylor’s collection here in San Francisco. Below, a quilt by Lucy Mooney featured in The Quilts of Gee’s Bend (Tinwood Books).
Kindly visit my blog and say how you feel in my guest book about the inventions in textiles.
I just found your blog and this post specifically after having been recommended it by a commenter on my blog. This is very interesting! I only recently became very interested in the Gee’s Bend quilts and then seeing the similarity to the Boro Textiles is amazing. I agree with the part, too, the “discovery” of the Gee’s Bend quilts and then the subsequent elevation of respect from the outside world… It’s all very interesting…
[...] very different overall her work reminds me of the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Japanese Boro textiles, and El [...]