Indigo is a unique dyestuff, no less so for being found in so many different plants. Coaxing the blue hue out of green leaves and onto yarn or cloth requires a combination of chemistry and skill that has arisen across the globe.

Rowland and Chinami Ricketts each found their own way to indigo in Tokushima, Japan: Rowland was looking for a sustainable artistic medium after learning that the darkroom chemicals in his photography were making their way into local streams where he was teaching English. Chinami was seeking a colorful lifelong practice working with her hands, and it made sense to pursue the specialty of her region. Tokushima is celebrated as one of the leading centers for indigo cultivation, and both Rowland and Chinami took on an apprenticeship in traditional Japanese methods of working with indigo.

Rowland and Chinami are now located in Bloomington, Indiana, where Rowland is a Professor in Indiana University’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. Though thousands of miles from where they first learned to grow indigo, Indiana also has a temperate climate that suits Persecaria tinctoria plants. Following the cycles of planting, harvesting, and processing, they cultivate a crop of indigo for their own work and to support other artists each year.

Rowland’s earlier indigo works included noren, a form of decorative home textile that often screens a door, and geometric paste-resist wall hangings. In recent years, he has taken on more large-scale installations that play with light, volume, and even sound; these works have occupied interior and exterior spaces on several continents.

Chinami chose to pursue the difficult kasuri technique, a bind-dye-weave method akin to ikat. Chinami creates warp and weft kasuri in patterns that require great skill and precision to dye and weave. Her primary format is narrow-width woven cloth intended for kimono and obi, though recently she has transformed that cloth into wall-mounted artwork.

In addition to their separate work, Rowland and Chinami collaborated on Zurashi/Slipped, a large yarn-based work created for the Seattle Art Museum exhibition Ikat. We also spoke about Rowland’s explorations of the traditional American coverlet in a few multicolored works.

Whether you’re drawn to fiber art, traditional textile methods, or the magic of indigo, you’ll love this interview.

This episode is available in two formats, a full version that includes portions in Japanese and English (available in the Handwoven Library) and a voice-over version in English only (available through the regular podcast feed).

Links

Ricketts Indigo

Watch Rowland discuss the recent piece Bow as part of Project Atrium at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida.

See photos of Chinami as she plans, dyes, and completes a project in kasuri.

See Zurashi/Slipped on exhibit at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art until September 1, 2024.

The Fort Wayne Museum of Art exhibit also includes a number of pieces from Rowland’s series Unbound, which uses historical American coverlet patterns in a meditation on the colonial globalism of the triangle trade.

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