Shimmering Waves, Yoshiko Jinzenji

Exhibition Label: "Personal Geometry: Quilts by Yoshiko Jinzenji and Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell," Feb-2014, Susan Earle and Cassandra Mesick Yoshiko Jinzenji achieved the gossamer sheen of Shimmering Waves by superimposing eight separate layers of bamboo-dyed silk and nylon. The use of synthetic nylon departs from the artist’s exclusive reliance on natural materials, ultimately prompting a meditation on how large-scale industrial production impacts artisanal knowledge. With its gradations of welcoming whites and tans, this quilt exemplifies the “surprising warmth” that emerges from combining natural dyes with synthetic fibers. Exhibition Label: "Japan Re-imagined/Post-war Art," Mar-2008, Kris Ercums Fashion authorities were unanimous in calling Yoshiko’s discovery of bamboo-dyed white a tremendously difficult technical and creative feat. The application of bamboo dye to almost any fabric gives it a beautiful, completely new complexion. When I was shown that even fibers of type 66 nylon film cold take the gorgeous flesh tone, I felt I had been made witness to a kind of twentieth-century magic. In this way, Yoshiko’s secret processes have opened up new realms of the unknown and unseen. Her world is like the paradoxical world of the primitive—springing from the bowels of the earth and connecting our lives with the people who lived before us and those who will come after. ~ Jun’ichi Arai 新井淳一 Quilt Artistry: Inspired Designs from the East, 2002