The real traditional Indigo Studio, “Kon-yu”

“Aizen ‘s indigo is” What is it “So it is”
When listening to tezomeya ‘s indigo, when we explain tezomeya’ s indigo dye at indigo dye workshop, this is the word we decide to use.

“The indigo building of our house is doping and it is rolling over”
This is also a phrase that we often say.

The indigo used by tezomeya is a signature indigo type which is once a natural sedimentary indigo type (although the individual difference between the sedimentary indigo and the synthetic indigo is the difference between 蒅 & lt; Potassium carbonate (Alkaline agent, as it is contained in ash, it must exist in nature as well), when making a dye solution (this is expressed as “to build” with indigo dyeing term) Although it is used in tezomeya, tezomeya uses artificially synthesized chemicals) and hydrosulfite (official name: sodium subthionate, a reductant which does not exist at all in nature) I have not done any fermentation process.

Indigo dyeing is quite special as a staining with natural dyes.
If we explain it briefly from the chemical aspect, it is a dyeing method that uses so-called oxidation-reduction reaction very effectively, and in natural dyes it resembles other than shellfish dyeing (dyeing that uses a part of the internal organs of a particular conch) There is no dyeing.
In the present age where the mechanism of the dyeing method is roughly chemically understood, it can be dyed using chemicals as talked about earlier in the present age, but without such chemicals there is no mechanism or the like totally unknown All the methods of indigo dyeing in the past were all dependent on fermentation. And regardless of whether the chemical mechanism is known or not, in this country at least 1500 years ago have done indigo dyeing very high quality with the power of fermentation, traditionally inheriting it even now There are several indigo dye workshops in the country.
Since indication and sense, sense, materials, tools, equipment preparation differs considerably from indigo dyeing with other natural dyes, when trying to do indigo properly by the traditional fermentation method, there are many cases where it is inevitable to become a specialty workshop It is.

We finished the safflower tour last month and the staff and the number head are coming back to Kyoto, we remain in East Japan, we visited the indigo dyeing factory “Azumayuki” in Sano City, Tochigi Prefecture, where such natural fermentation is being built, I asked for reception.

Mr. Azumabe is a studio specialized in indigo dyeing which is absolutely opposite to “Doping” like “us” and “Nanchachi”.
Koichi Okawa, the representative of the studio, is of course indigo dyeing teacher as it is.

On this occasion, this day is in the midst of the “indigenous workshop” presided over by Mr. Okawa, that day is the second day of the seminar. Seven people from all over the country stayed at a study group for seven days of staying so that Mr. Okawa ordinarily prepared a dye liquor of indigo, managed and dyed (that is, all related to indigo) .
Okawa, I really apologized for disturbing you when I was busy.

Mr. Okawa is teaching the students.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I call Aoki of a handmade store …” When I say sorry it sounds okay, Mr. Okawa is busy finding time regardless of the description during the discussion. And first of all, I explained all of Okawa’s way of indigo building. I was surprised at this.
The tree which becomes the raw ashes of the ash to take the lye, and how to treat after ash, how to take the lye, and the self made Field of Tadeyei, and how to build indigo · · ·.
Everything was osami, I explained everything up to what I’m likely to hesitate about not being asking or listening.

And since I explained all of Okawa’s indigo dyeing method in detail,
“I will lend a pot to Mr. Aoki today, so please use as much as you want.”
It was said. I was amazed.
Well, is it really okay?
“Of course, it’s a T-shirt you bring in. Please feel free to have your favorite color.”
I gave it back with a smile.
Oh, on the street? What? It is the first time that I was told such indifferent things, not only indigo dye workshops.
I wonder if something has been tried this …? (Although such a thing was not at all) and so on, but decided to say with words.

This is the indigo jar that I borrowed.

As expected. It is the same as when I saw it in the picture of facebook page of Mr. Okawa before. There is no indigo flower at all. And that natural odor that is unique to fermentation is very mild. Although the smell of. Is solid. A very mysterious blue lily. I have asked 5 of the fermentation-built indigo studio, but this is the first time for such a pot.
And it looks like a sherry wine fl uor like a thin film (although it is not as thick as a flor).

One of the purposes I asked to Mr. Okawa this time is to see this mysterious jar directly with my eyes and nose.
I guess that it is as expected or more than expected, or maybe there is also a lack of experience in us, but a completely magical indigo. I borrowed this unexperienced indigo jar and let me dyed it with my words. Of course, as taught by Mr. Okawa, it does not hurt the blue age of Mr. Azumabe-san, and with the dyeing method in which color is entered into the T-shirt carefully.
I posted a video to YOUTUBE. If you like, please.

https://youtu.be/FS_D8n42DGg [/ embed]

In Okawa’s workshop, the color of indigo is in the water.
Underwater coloring itself has been seen in other indigo dye workshops, and when we want to dye thinly underwater there is sometimes underwater color development, Okawa’s place to use two water properly, firmly extract the lye and Ensure underwater color development.
An image of Mr. Okawa’s role model.

Dye it over over 10 minutes, let it develop colorfully in the water, and exposed to air for about 30 minutes (it was?) I let you do the process of saying about 5 times, the Ogawa ‘s indigo color It stained.

Although it is hard to understand in the image, I felt that it was a deep green color with a lot of sharpness. It is completely different from indigo indigo, which is chemically denuded in everything.
Because my daughter is just dark.

While listening to various stories, I spent the afternoon of the day with Mr. Azumae Ayumi and scooped out the sediment that had settled in the jar on the way home. It is already dull and brown. This is the state ….

In indigo dyeing workshop by natural fermentation built, there are many places to work by dropping a monkey or the like there so that garbage collected in the bottom of the jar does not stick to the dye item. However, despite the fact that Mr. Okawa did not have such a thing, if I rubbed a dyed item in a pot for a while, I would sink it to the bottom of the pot and leave it.
When I heard this process at the beginning, when I heard that “Do not pollute the dyed items there,” Mr. Okawa was grinned.
It was such a thing.
There is nothing like a fibrous thing that is often attached when there is such a muddy. I see.

It is strictly prohibited for us to dye our hands in our usual work as we have to dye it in various colors at our studio. Of course, I sometimes put my hands in hot water, but I basically wear gloves basically including indigo which is not hot.
However, I completely forgotten that my experience with Mr. Kanegami was so much fun and gloves.
To be accurate, I remembered gloves just before dyeing but I thought it was a waste to pay attention to such a thing.
The end of that is the ending. I firmly tried hard but washed nails and fingers never dropped.
How about dyeing from tomorrow? I should leave it all to the house in the staff (laugh).

Actually, I had a little courage to ask Okawa’s place.
It is an honest feeling that I was watching Okawa’s facebook and blog posts from the usual way, thinking that she might be a bit scary.
Somehow, it seems like I’m getting offended when I’m indoors like “my dog ​​is indigo”.

However, we met and we had a limited time but we could tell you many things, there were a lot of things I could not notice on facebook and blogging.
What I felt most wonderfully is that Mr. Okawa is a very well-balanced person (I’m sorry by the young people).

It seems to me, but when working alone with a studio set up alone, it seems that it will become a captain of Oyama without knowing nothing. I think that the reason for becoming the captain of Oyama is, from a simple point of view, the body “Mamoru”.
In other words, continuing to pick up information from many different directions becomes a challenge and you have to make a judgment only from the limited information both temporally, spatially and ideologically. Doing so will result in a so-called “thinking stop” state, making it impossible to figure out the temporal and spatial ideological position of your ideas, work and finished products.

Mr. Okawa does not take care of himself for more than a week and his own indigo jar which makes “Do not stir!” As one of the most important thinking is quite a heresy compared to a general indigo dye workshop I firmly recognize that. It does not matter at all about the pH of indigo juice, you know well enough that it is quite a change in natural fermentation that says what. At least it appeared to me.
This is a word that Okawa had always added when telling such a story hotly, “No, this is what I’m talking about” but it all tells us.

Your own idea, indigo denomination method in Azumabe-san, indigo dyeing method are all systems that were completed by compilation of various trial and errors and many knowledge absorptions that Okawa has been doing so far. It’s a wonderful system. But, that is not an absolute correct answer. Of course I think that it is still evolving.
And I fully know that the system is quite different from what it is called “stereotypical” natural fermented built “than anyone else.
So it is obviously being evaluated as “objective” that your system is wonderful, and at the same time, it is also important that only your own system is not the only correct form of indigo dyeing You know.

And because we understand such things firmly, with a view from the top, understanding and explanation of unified and fundamental principle such as “Is indigo originally called ○○ ×× in the first place, you understand?” There is no mercy for anyone.
It was that “Ohkawa – san ‘s facebook” scary appearance “that I see occasionally, it was.
This, perhaps,
“Blasphemy against Indigo”
That is because we feel Ookawa-san, we are disturbed.
Rather than declaring war on war against you.

The atmosphere that I met Okawa and explained the atmosphere, the air of the workshop, the finished product, perhaps a lot of things combined, I felt it was a shame, for all the phenomena related to “indigo” for Mr. Okawa It was that he was always working seriously seriously and very rationally (this is not bad at all). And I felt that such feeling is showing Mr. Okawa so much “to humble person against” indigo “.

In the first place, there is no “absolute correct answer” in manufacturing. If there was a person who said “This is the absolute correct answer!” Or “This goal is the last goal”, it just stopped there. That person just decided that level and its product as a goal.
What I do is to make things more difficult to understand is monozukuri (which is probably why anything). I felt that Mr. Okawa would not accept it as a word but as a head and a body, that is, as a whole living person, and that he would have been moving forward towards the end of that reason.

The way of thinking, methods and products like that are very easy to understand and refreshing. And it is not a liar. To say further, that kind of person is really cool.
Yes, Mr. Okawa, I was very cool.

Mr. Okawa and me are obviously different people. So, as long as you can sympathize with Mr. Okawa ‘s things and thoughts, that’ s not true. (Of course, with regard to indigo dyeing, it is not a level that we can not sympathize with ours hundreds of times wider and deep technology, experience and knowledge)
However, Mr. Okawa and its product are definitely wonderful. No, it was a very good color because Mr. Azumabe-san, who really got stained at my T-shirt, was a very good color.
And that is inevitable, yeah, that’s because it’s a product that comes out of here, so it’s so, so on, on my way home from Azumae-kun, thinking slowly and thinking slowly, while traveling to Sano station bicycle I took a shaky shower. The wind at the evening of Sano was very comfortable.
·····

I went home the next day and did the washing treatment as I taught Mr. Okawa. As you mentioned, yellow lye broth came out.

And thought that Mr. Okawa might get angry, I really wanted to see the green that put Yellow Yellow on the color of Mr. Azumabe-san, only the left side of the T-shirt pierced with yellow pink with dyeing I did it.

Well, the color is not bad, but as a T – shirt I wonder if only Mr. Azumabe – san ‘s color was better. .
In the first place it is not good at narrowing down.
I do not have much time. I’m bad sense.

Okawa, sorry m (__) m. And thank you very much.
I’m glad if you would oppose us again from now on.
Sincerely!

& nbsp;

Mr. Azumiri’s HP is here ↓
http://www.kon-yu.jp/

& nbsp;

Hand-smelling shop
https://www.tezomeya.com/