A Meditation on Washi

Relief by Dominique Prèvost -- Photo (detail) by Kenya Maithin

                                                                                                

A Meditation on Washi 

by Bibi Chan (she/her)

Have you heard of Washi?

Let me teach you Japanese…

“Wa(和)” “Shi(紙)”.

Washi means “traditional Japanese paper, wa (和) meaning Japanese and shi (紙) meaning paper.”^1.

Sharron Corrigan Forrest (detail) photo by Pixel Heller

How to make paper?

Breathe and see and feel...

Sound of natural environment...

Might you sense these papers as harvested from trees?

Produced by machine?

So, what kind of trees?

You might be wrong.

Not all…

Harvested from the inner bark of the Gampi tree, the Mitsumata shrub, or the Kozo bush.

Produced from nature. 

Method passed down from the past.

Gently, handled, picked, beaten… from living fibre to art.

Sharron Corrigan Forrest (detail) photo by Pixel Heller

1.  Reference:  https://japanobjects.com/features/washi-paper