Tea Room
1978
I have begun the study of Chanoyu— Japanese Tea Ceremony. Initially I was drawn to learn more about the uses of fabric in the tea ceremony and in the process I am discovering an impermanent art form. In the ritual of whisking a bowl of tea, there is the intimate and the intricate. I have come full circle, returning to my formative experience at Oomoto in Kameoka, Japan.
A Respite from the Noise.
I whisked tea in Japan forty years ago and offered it at the altar of the Oomoto shrine. Today I am called to offer tea again, using my own handwoven ceremonial textiles. The live wires connecting me to the gods have shifted the focus of my work as a weaver to the contemplative practice of serving tea. Quiet, yet revolutionary, this act takes the spotlight off my craft and my work as an individual artist and showcases the sacred in an offering to the community. In the tea room, textiles have protocol as they invite the ancestors into the space holding in their woven threads history and tradition in patterns and designs of generations of tea masters. I weave fabric for kobukusa* and shifuku* and sew those works which are used to purify, protect and honor those objects which contain the sacred tea. Simple and mindful, whisking a bowl of tea is to offer a gift of nourishment in a gesture of humility. Tea ceremony is a ritual, an impermanent work of art, an invitation to enjoy a choreographed tranquil moment of relationship.
