M i n g e i

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Mary Taguchi

Indigo

Textiles

Clothing

Texts

Seminars

mingei@hinet.net.au

Mingei

"the arts of the common man" describes the everyday utilitarian folkcraft traditions - in ceramics, textiles, wood, metal - of Japan's anonymous craftspeople. This combination of form and function and the earthy character of mingei crafts survives today and reaches Australia in the form of indigo cotton textiles, steeped in the history of dyes, patterns and traditional techniques.

Mary Taguchi has worked for many years with the dyers and weavers of these cloths. A long connection to Japan's masters allows consistently beautiful cloths to be available as fabrics, garments and tableware accessories.

Mary Taguchi

With a long involvement in Japanese language methodology for children's classes and indigo mingei textiles, Mary Taguchi has established outlets for the strong sense of form and function evident in both language and textiles.

Indigo

The tradition of dyeing with indigo, aizome, is centuries old and still continues today. Using large ceramic vats and natural drying, the indigo plant provides the principal dyeing substance used to transform cotton, linen, hemp into rich blues.

Indigo dyed cotton textiles

For centuries the dye used for the clothing and accessories of the working, farming, crafts people, indigo both strengthens fabric and ages beautifully. Indigo-dyed threads and cloths are the recipients of many design techniques - kasuri, katazome, sashiko, shibori, shima - to make blue and white cloths.

Clothing/clothware

'Art to wear - timeless, spontaneous, uncomplicated'.
Mingei Australia combines traditional and contemporary design to produce clothing and useful items of functional elegance where the main feature is always the choice of fabric.

Japanese language texts for young people

The image of the sun - its core and surrounding clouds - is the mind map for the innovative teaching scheme in Mary Taguchi's OHISAMA . . . connect! This is a researched and clearly documented text shared by teachers and children and giving logical placement to language, directions, activities and resources.

Seminars

Seminars and workshops are held regularly throughout Australia for teachers of Japanese language, teachers of Studies of Asia and children.