A few weeks ago I found out I have a valuable piece of artwork in my household. Not something I paid 20 bucks for at a garage sale and wouldn’t you know it—it’s a Picasso! But along those lines…
Of course, there’s a story behind the story (isn’t there always?). I learned to sew when I was about 11 years old, in junior high school. In home economics class in North Dakota, they were determined to teach us girls how to cook, clean house, and sew—valuable skills for all of us young, budding farmer’s-wives-to-be. For me, the sewing thing stuck, I mean really stuck. I took to it like a duck to water. I remember racing across the back alley to show my grandma what I’d learned each week, which thrilled her to pieces because she was also an avid seamstress. I continued sewing through high school, and after college graduation my husband and I moved to Dallas, a large center for the fashion industry. There I found classes taught by a fashion designer, who was determined to teach the home sewer the same professional techniques used by those in the industry. From her I took advanced sewing classes, tailoring classes, and pattern-making classes in the evenings and on weekends.
Once I discovered Vogue Patterns and understood the difference in design and the quality of the instructions, I wouldn’t buy anything else. I boldly paid $20 or more for patterns because each one was an advanced sewing class in an envelope. I loved the designer patterns, but took a particular liking to Issey Miyake patterns, a famous Japanese fashion designer who also made some of his designs available to the home sewer. I loved his asymmetrical designs and unusual interpretations of how clothing should fit and flow on the body. He was known for avant garde, wild creations with exaggerated pleating, intricate detail, and clothes you could wear numerous ways. These just fascinated me.
Fast-forward about 25 years; it’s November 2005. I’m now living in Rockport, Texas and I opened an art gallery there a few months ago. The man I moved there with, who opened the gallery with me, has just moved back to Houston and has dumped the whole thing in my lap. It’s Thanksgiving, and I decided that my heartbroken and furious self needed to get out of town for a few days, so I flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the holiday weekend.
While in Santa Fe, one of the things one does there is go to art galleries, because it’s second only to New York City for its concentration of fabulous artwork. Most of what I saw was well beyond anything my gallery could carry in terms of price, but it still was fun to look at the competition. One of the galleries I wandered into was Tai Gallery, which specialized in Japanese artists. I saw a couple of textile art pieces displayed on a wall that stopped me dead in my tracks. Almost 4 ft wide by 6 or 7 ft tall, these huge fabric wall hangings were just magnificent. They were multicolored, pleated, crinkled fabric creations with starburst patterns at regular intervals—one dominated by purples, reds, and silver, and the other by oranges, yellows, and gold. I would walk up close, stare in amazement, back up, move on, then kept being drawn back to them. Because of my love of sewing and unusual fabrics, I just couldn’t stay away from these!
The gallery owner noticed me dancing around like a moth to a flame, of course, and came to talk to me. She mentioned, “You know, this artwork was created by a man named ‘Mpheih Mphthphrrtt’. He’s a well-known textile designer for the fashion designer Issey Miyake—do you know who that is?”
The first name she uttered flew in one ear and out the other, but the second name landed. Did I know who that was?! My jaw about hit the floor! My face lit up and we got into an animated conversation about what a fan I was of Issey Miyake’s work, and how I’d followed his designs, as much as I was able, as a home sewer for years. Well, once I knew that about this artist, it didn’t take me long to hand over my credit card and lay out what amounted to several multiples of my mortgage payment for this piece of artwork. For me that weekend, it was the true definition of retail therapy.
I’ve since carried around this piece of textile artwork on every move I’ve made and it’s become one of my most treasured possessions. In some places I’ve had a wall big enough to display it, and in some places I haven’t. I’ve always thought of it as my “Issey Miyake piece,” as the actual artist’s name was long forgotten. Until recently.
Upon moving to Washington state in 2023, I’ve discovered the more fun parts of Facebook—the special interest groups. I first joined a sewing group where all we talk about is sewing projects, fabrics, and various patterns we are looking for. Then there were the splinter groups off that one—those interested only in Vogue Designer Patterns, and a private subgroup off that, interested only in Issey Miyake patterns, which are now all out of print since the designer passed away in 2022. I joined that one immediately as soon as I became aware of it.
After moving into my townhome in Spokane, I once again had the wall I needed to hang my textile art. The weekend I got it hung, the first thing I did after taking a photo was to post it to the Facebook Issey Miyake group. I knew this group of ladies would appreciate this textile probably more than anyone else! I briefly told the story about when and where I bought it, and then said, “At the bottom of the piece there’s an artist’s signature; it says ‘Junichi’ something, but I can’t read the rest.”
Immediately a few ladies chimed in: “Um…do you mean this person??” And they started posting links from The New York Times, The New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Encyclopedia of Design, the Cooper Hewitt Museum at the Smithsonian, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, regarding Junichi Arai. Turns out, this guy was no starving artist! Celebrated in his time, he was considered “the world’s foremost innovator in fabric and textile design.”
About 70 people responded to that post, excited about the artwork and exclamations of “Do you realize what you have?!” and “Please don’t ever cut into that, you’ll destroy its value!”
No, actually, I didn’t know what I had, but I do now. I learned from the articles posted that the apparent silver-colored threads in the centers of my pleated rosettes were not simply silver-dyed polyester, but metal fibers (aluminum and silver) woven into the fabric, a technique he pioneered. David McFadden of the American Craft Museum in New York, lauded his “transformative impact on production fabrics through ceaseless experimentation and embracing new techniques and materials.”
Junichi Arai passed away in 2017, 12 years after I purchased this piece of artwork. At that time I was still unaware of the impact this artist had on the textile and fashion industries, or the gem I possessed. I’m grateful today that through a fluke of connections and common interests, finally, I know.
Isn’t it interesting how you can come to buy something simply because you like it, and it has meaning because it is associated with someone you admire. And all these years later, it turns out to be so much more?
And in thinking about life’s bizarre turn of events, I marvel about how this all unfolded. How if I had never taken to sewing and gotten fascinated with designer fashions, would this have ever taken place? I guess I might still have become aware of this particular Japanese designer, just as the world is aware of Christian Dior or Ralph Lauren or Coco Chanel. Maybe. But if I’d never tried to sew up one of his difficult and time-consuming garments and appreciated the design that went into them, would I have become a devotee? Because buying one of his creations was certainly out of the question. And the circumstances that brought me to Santa Fe that weekend—well, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Yet those dire circumstances caused me to purchase something that not only made me happy then, but almost 20 years later, brought me such an unexpected shot of joy. In these days dominated by bad news, it’s nice having a new reason to smile.