All Things Sea & River

What are things Sea and River? I am amazed by how Japan’s relationship to landscape and nature turn up in katagami. Incidental observations become iconic and evolve with multiple iterations. Look at the s-curve of bank meeting river or the undulating line of sea meeting cove. Reversing-ground stencils turn rendering a landscape into a textile strategy. That line of inlets where water meets shore becomes a diagonal stripe when the print is repeated along a bolt of cloth. Waterside grasses on land are softened with the marks of turbulence. Maple leaves wash into streams. Peonies are set against shorelines with the flower writ large as the landscape falls to distant background. Turtles always have a splash of water behind them, marking escape from human observation. Plover scatter on beaches as a symbol of winter isolation. Mist and ocean waves are depicted both in natural observation and as referenced through a patterned symbol. Additional examples can be found in the catalog by searching keywords;  koi, fish, sea, waves, ocean, plover, cranes, ducks, rivers, and streams as well as the plants and animals that live there.