Northern California Angora Guild

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Saori, the Free Style Weaving






Betty says,
These two Saroi woven bunnies were gifted by Chris O., these are very nice art work, I treasure them.
What is Saroi weaving?  Let's see how it started according to information on the internet:
"“SAORI” - its beginning When Misao Jo was 57 years old, she built a loom, and started weaving as a hobby. One day, she wove an “Obi” (a belt for Japanese Kimono), and found a warp thread was missing. But she thought it was making a good effect, and she was very pleased to find that a nice pattern had been formed by an accident. She showed the “Obi” to a person who was running a weaving factory in her neighborhood because she wanted to know how other people would value her weaving. The man told her that her “Obi” was “flawed” and it would be worthless as a commercial product because one warp thread was missing. Misao realized that a commercial factory is only eager to produce a “flawless”cloth, but she would be able to achieve a hand woven quality through intentionally making a “flawed” cloth. Then she began to weave an “Obi” with many “flaws”. It was easy. She just skipped some blades of the reed when warping her loom. In doing so, she found that the absence of warp threads in irregular intervals and varied thickness could make more interesting effects. She finally finished an “Obi”, and it was highly praised by an owner of an “Obi” shop in "Shinsaibashi Street" (an expensive shopping street in Osaka, Japan)."
Many weaving studios are now set up to teach Saori weaving, and many are called such style as "Freestyle weaving". 
I consider my handspun Angora yarn as freestyle, I can make them lumpy and I can make them smooth, depending on how the wool is and how I feel at the time of spinning.  When people ask about my lumpy yarn, one of my usual answer is, "If you want perfectly even yarn, go to Walmart."
Handmade items are expressions of how the maker or the artist is feeling at the time.   They are all one of the kind, no reason to make all look exactly the same.  If one wants something to be totally symmetric or totally the same from one to the other, one should go with things that are made by mass production.    Artistic expressions are all unique and different.


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home