Katagami and symbolism

Researcher and practitioner Mamiko Markham's images and transcripts for a talk exploring the symbolism of the motifs used in katagami stencil design and the methods used to make them, including a paper introducing the traditional 'Hikizome' workshop she gave at ULITA and a handout explaining identifying Katagami using analysis of infrared photographs, by naked eye examination and by historical background. The talk was delivered on 5 December 2017 at ULITA - An Archive of International Textiles at the University of Leeds as part of the Katagami in Practice Arts Council england Research Project and the ULITA exhibition 'Katagami – the Craft of the Japanese Stencil' which ran from 11 April 2017 – 7 December 2017 The process of using Katagami:The fabric is first stretched using bamboo sticks (Shinshi).

A Katagami stencil is placed on the fabric and past resist is applied. The Dyer uses a Hake brush to 'paint' dye on the fabric. This process is called 'Hikizome'.