boro expo

down to london again, this time for an exhibition of antique boro

click here for a slideshow 

about forty pieces, a couple of items of clothing but mostly large cloths, ? blankets - some neatly stitched with rows of shashiko, others roughly pieced with larger, irregular stitches, different weights of fabric, some worn through several layers, others with neatly placed patches and little wear but clearly well used

i found myself wondering what the women were thinking while they stitched .... what was the story for each patch added ..... did they remember them as they stitched .... or was it another job to be done in the routine of eaking out their resources? 

each piece holds years of family history in a way that doesn't seem to happen now - they valued their few possessions while many of us replace our possession with little thought - i know 19th century rural northern japan was a different time and place, but there are enough parallels - these pieces are a timely reminder of how wasteful i can be and how much more i could value what i have