i like this story about this late chosun dynasty christmas. heck, i just love the 19th century.
and here we are in the 21st century and there was a bit of a theme to some of our gifts this holiday season -- because i have a new textile obsession. i let these things simmer for a while before i commit -- the whole blackwork thing had been long mulled-over before i asked for the very first kit for my birthday last year.
and this year... i was ready, months before hand, with a request for the book rapt in color: korean textiles and costumes of the chosun dynasty. and soon -- during the long pining period awaiting my book -- i gathered more and more information about the korean patchwork called pojagi or bojaki (you might even find a bojagi -- mix it up when you search).
pojagi are made by korean women from all stations of life. making pojagi was a way to use up small scraps of cloth -- those common in use in korea being hemp, ramie, cotton, and in finer circumstances, silk. pojagi are wrapping cloths -- used to store and protect important sentimental items and documents, and have also been used as altar coverings. three- and four-sided scraps of fabric are most commonly used, and while color is everything, so is the absence of color just as striking in these works, often valued and preserved, but with no provenance to speak of. the women who made many of the pojagi valued today in museum collections are nameless, faceless women. it is a populist craft form, born of necessity. women who made pojagi in korea were not women who could have hoarded koigu, for the most part, and women who made pojagi often did so in solitude -- none of the social construct that surrounds quilting seems to accompany this form.
today, the japanese seem to have embraced pojagi. quite a bit, really. this book about making pojagi (purported to be in korean but it looks like japanese) can be purchased online.
a recent rash of ebay auctions out of japan offered many gorgeous, high-priced, and "authentic" pojagi, with this poetic and enigmatic "description" on each auction:
This is made by 83 years old Korean woman
This old korean peasant's design, simple and random
will die soon
well. i did of course receive my book, and, as a hanukkah gift for
ben
-- the
ben
who has gotten a little lax lately about using coasters (and granted, our coasters were in need of replacing) -- i got some pojagi coasters.
even before getting my christmas presents, i had zipped ahead a tad and began making what i now know to be the cintamani or "wishing stone" design. what i am making here, however modest and however amateur, will serve as a little curtain for the tiny window in the powder room of literary rejection.
i've also begun practicing the stitching and piecing techniques of the garden-variety min po (pojagi are often called simply po and min po are the pojagi of the common people, as opposed to the kung po of the royal court.) i have been practicing, with some success, using a large collection of plaid and checkered garments that i have owned over the years. i am wild about plaid flannels, particularly red ones, and have always had dresses and pajamas and pants in such. (this all stems back to a dress that i bought at mooshka on 6th and south streets, when i was fifteen years old. i seem to have spent quite a bit of my life trying to replace that dress with others like it.)
many years' worth of pj's, pants and dresses -- and some boxers that were ben's -- have given me a great stash to sample from, and thus, my mostly red, mostly plaid, mostly flannel, pojagi has begun. pojagi fills a need for me since i have always been interested in piecework, but never been interested in quilting. many pojagi are one layer, unlined objects. pojagi are perfect! my stitching is not. but there is a pretty wide range of stitching aptitude shown in the pojagi of many museum collections, and how else to get better?
i have posted previously about chunghie lee. do take the time to look at her pojagi-inspired works at the victoria and albert museum. she takes it all in a whole different direction.