, taught her first Japanese shibori class in Berkeley, CA. Encouraged by her student-friends as well as mentor, the legendary editor of Japanese craft and cuisine at Kondansha International in Tokyo, Kim Schuefftan, Yoshiko co-authored, Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing with Jane Barton and Mary Kellogg Rice (1983). This book became the first definitive book on shibori.
In the early 1990s, younger generation shibori producers and artisans became concerned that shibori, a centuries-old technique and the source of their livelihood, would perhaps not survive into the next millennium. In 1992, they hatched a plan. They organized the First International Shibori Symposium (ISS) in Nagoya, Japan with a goal to promote shibori textiles inside and outside of Japan. From this first ISS The World Shibori Network (WSN) was born to exchange information and inspiration and to start a grass-roots effort dedicated to preserving Japanese shibori and similar heritage techniques across the globe.
Yoshiko’s continued research on “world shibori” traditions as well as on the history of Japanese shibori artisans led to her second book, Memory on Cloth: Shibori Now (2002) which recognizes the evolution of shibori and its innovations in art, fashion, and textile.
2022 marks the year when the WSN Foundation is officially established as a non-profit organization.
