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March 26, 2004
Chūgata
I began cutting a new katagami pattern today as a stress reliever. This one is arguably the most complicated I have attempted. It is actually a very old pattern that I found in the wonderful book Carved Paper: The Art of the Japanese Stencil which is in essence the English language bible of katagami. It is a chūgata or medium pattern, a pattern designed to repeat down the length of a bolt of cloth (but not across). This particular one, from page 27 of Carved Paper, is dated to 1694 (Genroku 7) and is one of the two oldest dated stencils. Working only an hour or two a day on this pattern, it will probably take at least a ten days to complete—more like two weeks.
Unfortunately, I am not able to do the pattern onto shibugami, the laminated and persimmon juice tanned mulberry paper traditionally used for stencil carving. The production of shibugami appears to be trailing off, and I imagine that most of what is produced is reserved for the few traditional katagami carvers left in Japan (many of them designated as National Treasures). I have no idea if this stencil will hold up to more than a few pastings as it is being carved from heavy card stock. I hope that I am wrong, but the only source I know for blank shibugami paper is having a hard time getting a steady supply of it.