Skip to main content
Entoten
FacebookInstagramPinterestYouTube

Menu

Skip to content
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Artists
  • Places
  • Press
Sign In Search

Recent Posts

  • POP UP CRAFT SHOW at the Den on Laurel Street Dec. 3rd & 4th November 23, 2022
  • Frost Falls Approximately October 23th – November 6th October 23, 2022
  • Harmony with Food: Ceramics by Kojima Yosuke in Iga October 18, 2022
  • Cold Dew
    Approximately October 8th – 22nd
    October 8, 2022
  • Autumn Equinox
    Approximately September 23rd – October 7th
    September 21, 2022
January 2023
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Nov    

Top Posts & Pages

  • Guide to Choosing Your Tea Whisk for Matcha
    Guide to Choosing Your Tea Whisk for Matcha
  • Hanafuda: Japanese Culture Dealt in a Deck of Cards
    Hanafuda: Japanese Culture Dealt in a Deck of Cards
  • Cooperage by Marshall Scheetz: The Keeper of an Ancient Skill
    Cooperage by Marshall Scheetz: The Keeper of an Ancient Skill
  • Kintsugi: An Ancient Japanese Repairing Technique Using Urushi Lacquer
    Kintsugi: An Ancient Japanese Repairing Technique Using Urushi Lacquer
  • The Flavor of the Earth: The Rustic Ceramics of Shigaraki
    The Flavor of the Earth: The Rustic Ceramics of Shigaraki

Categories

  • 72 Seasons Essays
  • Events, Workshops and Webinars
  • People
    • Naru (Inoue Naruhito)
    • Kojima Yosuke
    • Ayumi Horie
    • Bill Geisinger
    • Chieko (Calligraphy)
    • Floresta Fabrica
    • Hanako Nakazato
    • Harada Fumiko
    • Hashizume Reiko
    • Hashizume Yasuo
    • Horihata Ran
    • Hoshino Gen
    • Ikushima Harumi
    • Inoue Shigeru
    • Ishida Tami
    • Jarrod Dahl
    • Kazu Oba
    • Kenneth Pincus
    • Kikuchi Yuka
    • Kitamura Tokusai
    • Kobayashi Katsuhisa
    • Kubota Kenji
    • Kuriya Masakatsu
    • Maeda Mitsuru
    • Marshall Scheetz
    • Mike Martino
    • Mitch Iburg
    • Muranaka Yasuhiko
    • Nakaya Yoshitaka
    • Nitta Yoshiko
    • Ontayaki
    • Sakai Mika
    • Samuel Johnson
    • Sarah Nishiura
    • Saratetsu
    • Sasaki Shoko
    • Shumpei Yamaki
    • Style Of Japan
    • Takahashi Nami
    • Takami Yasuhiro
    • Tanimura Tango
    • Watanabe Ai
    • Yamada Yutaro
    • Yamauchi Takeshi
    • Yokotsuka Yutaka
  • Baskets
  • Ceramics
  • Design
  • Glass
  • Kintsugi
  • Metal
  • Textiles
  • Urushi
  • Wood
  • Mingei
  • Research
  • Food and Craft
  • Topics
  • Tea (Chado)
  • Travels
    • Arita
    • Bizen
    • Hagi
    • Karatsu
    • Kuroe
    • Kyoto
    • Matsumoto
    • Mino / Tajimi
    • Onta
    • Shigaraki
    • Shizuoka
    • Sonoma County
    • Tokoname
    • Vietnam

Tag: abstract

The Fabrics of a Craft: Quiltmaker Sarah Nishiura

By:
Ai Kanazawa
July 26, 2017Design Textiles Sarah Nishiura

Quilts by Sarah Nishiura in our shop ->

When I first saw a photograph of an inventive quilt made by the Chicago-based quilter Sarah Nishiura, I thought I was looking at an abstract painting. The fascinating geometry, surprising lines, and the hues of colors enticed me to feel something completely new.

2017 Quilt by Sarah Nishiura.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Nishiura

Sarah, who is both an accomplished painter and dedicated quilt-maker, distinguishes between the two forms. “A painting is flat,” she observes, ”a quilt on the other hand is never flat. It may be presented that way in a gallery or in an image on-line, but the surface is textured from the stitches. There is always some kind of wave or wiggle to it, and, if it is used on a bed or a lap, it changes constantly as it is folded, draped, or left in a lump on a piece of furniture.”

quilt by sarah nishiura
A quilt changes constantly as it gets used in our everyday life

A quilt has much more purpose than a painting in Sarah’s view. “Quilts are meant to be touched while paintings are generally not. As a painter, the brush was always an intermediary between me and the thing I was making. When I quilt, I touch every inch of my work as it evolves. And similarly, touch is a very important part of the viewer/user’s experience,” she explained.

Sarah was taught to quilt by her mother, whose own mother made quilts by piecing together feed sacks during the Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Sarah’s Japanese-American father’s family was held in an internment camp during the Second World War, where they gathered wood scraps to create altars for people.

Sarah hand-quilts all of her work instead of by machine because she likes the way the lines look. It is a slow process but she feels that the pace of quilting is what makes the final product so special.  
Photo courtesy of Sarah Nishiura

By creating beautiful quilts that provide warmth through the piecing together of otherwise discarded fragments from the past, Sarah finds a connection to the ingenious creativity of her ancestors who created useful and beautiful things out of nothing.

Sarah Nishiura and her shelves of inspiration at her studio in Chicago
Photo courtesy of Sarah Nishiura

Sarah gets her greatest inspirations from quilt history. “I love looking at quilts made in the past, analyzing their designs, how they were made, and also thinking about the context in which they were made”. She occasionally takes a deep dive into the collections database of The International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska where traditional quilt patterns can be searched with examples of hundreds of variations of the same pattern.

“One thing I love to do when designing is to challenge the geometric relationships that have traditionally been used in quilting. Figuring out how to warp a grid or shift proportions within a composition is a really fun puzzle and can open up endless possibilities and create some really dazzling effects,” she said. Indeed, a quick Internet image search of Sarah’s name will pull up quilts with numerous innovative designs that she has created. Given Sarah’s gift and passion for geometry, it is no coincidence that her father was a mathematician.

Quilt designs by Sarah Nishiura. She loves figuring out how to warp a grid or shift proportions.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Nishiura

Yanagi Muneyoshi, the founder of the Mingei movement once wrote in an essay titled “Nature of Folk-Crafts” that the most essential quality of folk-craft is its nationality, because it directly reflects the life of that nation. When Sarah remarked that  “a quilt is made of many different materials that all have to be made to play nice together”, this made me think about the openness and inclusiveness of quilts and how synonymous it is with America, where the quilting tradition thrives to the present day with more than 16 million quilt makers.

A quilt’s most special quality is its intimacy. “The desire to play with geometric pattern is only one part of the game” says Sarah Nishiura.

I understand why Sarah does not want her quilts high up on walls, but want you to keep it close and take them into your hands. It is because the most special quality of her beautiful work is in its humility and intimacy.

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy & Security
  • Contact Us
  • ✉️ Newsletter Archive
  • About
  • えんとてんJapan

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Our Mailing Address is

Entoten LLC
c/o The Den on Laurel St.
205 Laurel St. Suite 104
San Diego CA 92101

E-mail: hello@entoten.com

Copyright © 2022 ENTOTEN LLC

Studio Kotokoto is now closed. Thank you for your support over the years!
You have been redirected to Entoten, an online blog and shop that was created by one of Studio Kotokoto’s founders.