Metamorphosis

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) announces Metamorphosis, an exhibition of fiber art created on SAORI loom by Nobu. The exhibition opens on October 6 and will remain on view through November 30, 2016.

There will be an Opening Reception with the artist and SAORI weaving demonstration on October 22, 2016 from 5 – 7 pm. A 20′ documentary about SAORI will be shown at 5:30 pm, followed by a brief talk by Loop of the Loom Founder Yukako Satone introducing the SAORI ARTS NYC non-profit organization (saoriartsnyc.org).

This, the second exhibition of SAORI fiber art at CRS, aims to demonstrate the potential for using the SAORI therapeutic approach to weaving to explore one’s emotional and creative impulses deeply enough to create works of striking imagination, originality and visceral impact that can be appreciated as art and serve as a vehicle for liberation for both creator and viewer.

SAORI is a contemporary hand weaving method founded by Misao Jo (1913-, Japan) in 1969. She started weaving when she was 57 years old and created her own easy-to-use-immediately loom and style, free from the traditional concept and rules of weaving. She named her weaving style ‘SAORI’ and because the loom is so easy to use, it allows anyone to express his or her self freely regardless of age, gender, disability or intellectual aptitude. In Zen vocabulary, SAORI is the combination of the words SA, meaning everything has its own individual dignity, and ORI, meaning weaving.

“In SAORI, we try not to imitate machine-made products, and we always try to do what only human beings can do. No two weavings are alike, and it is very natural that every single cloth freely woven by people with different personalities is beautiful in a different way. The irregular selvage and accidental skip of thread add the unprogrammed beauty to the SAORI cloths; and we admire this irregularity as ‘the beauty with lack of intentions’ created by our natural creativity.”
— loopoftheloom.com

Since 2004 Nobu has been active in the NYC SAORI community and and at the studio, Loop of the Loom, under the direction of Yukako Satone. She is a SAORI certified instructor and SAORI healing artist. During this time she has learned to use SAORI as a meditative practice to observe her inner mental and emotional state. Her commitment to the practice has freed her to allow her deepest impulses to intuitively guide her selection and manipulation of the threads.

While SAORI celebrates beauty in the imperfect, a characteristic commonly found in Japanese traditional aesthetics, SAORI works and Nobu’s work in particular embrace improvisation and veer so far in their wildness and irregularity from traditional woven fabrics and garments that western viewers may be more inclined to place them in the abstract expressionist tradition. Rebellious and highly idiosyncratic, Nobu’s creations burst with energy, not an easy effect for yarn to achieve. Is the yarn imbued by Nobu with energy or is the energy already inherent within — SA, individual dignity — simply being made palpable? Nobu’s works raise many questions without offering definitive answers or explicit meanings. They invite the viewer to feel rather than think and allow her feelings to give rise to authentic creative impulses of her own. By encouraging viewers to accept and express their own inspirations, Nobu’s work celebrates a way of living with constant transformation of our idea of who we are, free of self-definition and self-limitation.

ABOUT NOBU

Nobu was born in Kamakura City and lived right in front of Kanagawa Modern Museum. During her elementary school years, she loved to visit the museum and even explored neighborhood galleries on her own. After winning an international student art competition and showing great promise, her mother offered to send her to art school, but Nobu instead chose to study economics at Rikkyo University.

For eight years after college, Nobu worked in the fashion industry and after moving to New York with her husband, himself a talented interior architectural designer, she planned to open a wedding design business, but the birth of her son led her to change directions once again. When her son turned five, they attended a SAORI weaving workshop at CRS, sparking her interest in fiber arts. A reunion last year with her school friend, Yoh, whom she found had begun painting again, inspired her to throw herself back into it. She began training regularly at Yukako Satone’s SAORI studio uptown and soon began to develop her own style.

Previous Exhibitions

2011 “Re –Birth“ was Nobu’s first exhibition, held at CRS in New York City in March

2012 Exhibited “All” at The Sheep Palette in Kyoto, Japan

2012 Exhibited “Soul Journey“ at excy gallery in New York City in October

2012 Solo exhibition “Cocoon” in Yushima, Tokyo

2015 Exhibited “Deep and Deep, Gucha Gucha” at The Sheep Palette in Kyoto, Japan

2015 the Loop of the Loom group show at the Tenri Gallery in New York City in April