A work from “Stenciled Elegance: Ise Katagami and the Art of Textile Design”
Elaborately patterned kimonos are frequently displayed in museums as works of art, but we don’t often get to see the hand-cut stencils that created those fabrics’ mesmerizing motifs. Stenciled Elegance: Ise Katagami and the Art of Textile Design at Asia Society Texas offers viewers an in-depth look at the fascinating materials and techniques behind this important facet of Japanese craftsmanship and history. Although not as colorful as the textiles they generate, the exhibition’s 25 stencils from the Yasuhiko and Akemi Saitoh Foundation are a captivating testament to the dedication and inventiveness of stencil designers, who continue to preserve this unique tradition today.
A stencil by Keiko Nasu
The stencils are named for their place of origin. The Ise region (in today’s eastern Mie Prefecture) is located on the Pacific coast of Japan just south of Nagoya. Ise Katagami have been made for more than a thousand years, and during the Edo period (1603-1897), the government officially restricted its production to the Ise area in order to protect the craft and prevent its replication elsewhere. That geographic connection remains to this day.
Hand-cut stencil from “Stenciled Elegance: Ise Katagami and the Art of Textile Design”
A 2024 documentary video by Irwin Wong walks viewers through the Ise Katagami process. Artisans create special washi, or handmade mulberry paper, which will later be cut by a separate specialist. A single stencil can take up to a month to create, depending on the complexity of the design. Once ready, the stencil is carefully arranged on silk fabric, and a rice paste is pressed through, masking the areas left open by the stencil. Another artisan mixes ink and dyes the fabric. Finally, the paste and excess dye are washed off, revealing the stencil’s intricate design.
Cutting an Ise Katagami stencil
The exhibition features stencils from the Meiji period (1868-1912) onwards. The stencils are small — approximately 15 x 30 cm — but contain an astonishing amount of detail. Close viewing reveals exquisite constellations of flowers, stars, snow, vines, waves, and other nature-inspired themes. The designs often connect to the passing seasons, so that the wearer of Ise Katagami-dyed garments could select their look based on the time of the year. The stencils are so delicate and highly worked that they are often backed by a fine mesh to fortify them for repeated use.
Traditional Ise carving paper
But not all stencils on view are from the past. Contemporary artists Keiko Nasu, Yoko Maruta, and Hirose Yuichi (the fourth generation head of Hirose Dyeworks) all appear in the video and exhibition, and the three also led a workshop at the museum in March. Maruta’s KANJI (2024) is a clever twist on the genre. Rather than filling the stencil with images, she writes hundreds of kanji in the picture plane. Kanji is a Japanese script that is composed of thousands of ideograms, each potentially representing more than one sound or meaning. In this way, Murata’s meticulously cut kanji float together as a sea of words, sounds, and ideas.
Today there are many alternative methods to producing a printed design on fabric, but the human warmth and expansive creativity of Ise Katagami makes it an important cultural heritage that one hopes will continue for a very long time.
Stenciled Elegance: Ise Katagami and the Art of Textile Design is on view at Asia Society Texas through April 27, 2025.
