KUROTANI WASHI
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Like hypnotic white noise, Horie Sato-San scrapes her rusty knife back and forth across the outer layers of the Kozo branch, exposing its inner white pulp. The corrosive mounds of rust across her blade suggest she doesn’t come here often, to this modest shed-like room where the small fluorescent lightbox above gently swings from side to side. Yet the calendar nailed to the wall behind her hangs open to today’s date. The thermostat beside it still in function and reading a brisk two degrees. It becomes suddenly evident to me that Sato-San does indeed frequent this space. Almost every day in fact, for the past fifty years.
Now eighty-seven, Horie Sato has lived most of her life in the small village of Kurotani. Nestled amongst a shallow valley of trees, the village is etched in local folklore as the once refuge of the defeated Heike Clan, offering prosperity to the survivors by means of agricultural work during the warmer months, and producing Washi through winter. Fast forward some 800 years, and Kurotani remains one of the only villages in Japan still producing Washi as their ancestors once did. From growing and harvesting the Kozo plant, to breaking down fibres and sifting them together, the complete manual process of producing Washi this way is time consuming, arduous, and low yielding. It is then no surprise for the nation to fervently take to the new technologies of mechanized and chemically produced paper towards the end of the Meiji period. Yet the demand for handmade Washi remains, primarily amongst artists and high-end interior designers.
Like most traditional crafts, elements differ from region to region. The Kurotani Village specifically craft their Washi from the Kozo plant (Paper Mulberry Tree), due to the plants’ notoriously long fibres that offer strength and durability. After harvesting the plant in nearby farms, the branches are brought to the village where they are soaked and then boiled to soften the outer layer of bark. Next, they are brought to the Kurotani river stream, which runs through the heart of the village. The freezing winter temperatures and purity of the water inhibits bacteria growth, preventing the decomposition of the plant’s fibres. It is at this stage where Horie Sato really gets to work, spending hours in the stream rhythmically stepping on the fibres to ensure all impurities are removed and washed away. She is one of the only known existing producers to then take the fibres to her workshop and remove each last impurity by knife.
It is at this point Sato-San passes the process onto one of the fifteen members of the Ayabe Washi Union for production. Only the inner white layer of skin is used, with a goo-like glue from local mugwort used as a deflocculant to help break down the fibres further. Once boiled, the fibres are pressed for two – three hours, then transferred to the Sugeta, a bamboo frame used to sift the fibres back and forth, until a consistent layer is formed. After being hung out to dry, each piece is ‘cut’ and weighed, with each piece no more than 1.5grams. A successful day at Kurotani will see a final yield of one hundred and fifty pieces, a significantly low number compared to more mechanized iterations of Washi.
Given the rate in which modern technological advances drive our societies forward, it is a case of ‘the proof is in the pudding’ as to how Kurotani Village has managed to withstand centuries of change. The focus and impetus placed on ensuring each individual sheet is honoured with time and attention has placed the Village at the heart of Regional Kyoto Tourism, and to an extent, Japanese culture. Traditional shoji and fusuma sliding screens and partitions would be hardly recognisable without their use of pristine Washi.
Without utilising high-end Washi such as that of Kurotani, these iconic pillars of Japanese design would not have had the desired effect as they were originally intended to. There are also individual characteristics of the production process found in Washi in which Japan as a nation have taken forth into the twenty-first century. The soaking of Mitsumata, another common shrub used to produce Washi, is continuously used in strengthening and finishing the nations infamous paper banknotes.
Since it’s rise in demand and popularity, Kurotani has occupied an old abandoned school in where they produce a wider range of Washi, for a multitude of uses. The ‘Kurotani Washi Kougei No Sato’ (Kurotani Washi Craft Village) even offers visitors a chance to participate in creating their own Washi. The larger space to work with allows them to retain the level of attention to detail that originally brought them to fame, whilst keeping up with increasing product demand.
As to whether Horie Sato-San’s process will be continued, the village is unsure. Like many regional outposts, the current youth are preferring to up sticks and move with the times, leaving a generational gap where traditional methods are left vulnerable to extinction. In knowing this, my own attempted Washi, made from the fibres of Sato-San’s mastery, sits in an archival box in my studio as a beautiful memento towards tradition and heritage. A galvanising reminder that things of beauty and worth take time and patience, something I often forget.
