A book inspired by Okamura’s trip to Abe, in Shizuoka, and the coarsely woven tafu cloth that is made there. This book is slightly unusual in two ways; it is one of 50 copies, as opposed to Okamura’s more common limitation of 100, and it is printed on much thicker, textured handmade paper than his other works.
Shizuoka is particularly known for a type of coarsely woven textile known as tafu. As Okamura explains, weavers in the Koshu area weave tafu from wisteria fibres, whereas mulberry fibres are more commonly used in the mountain villages of Suruga and Enshu. This is very subtly illustrated in the opening of the book where the samples have been tipped in: looking closely at the printed white areas, behind the sample on the right-hand side is a wisteria plant, and behind the two samples on the left-hand side is a mountain motif. Tafu is similar to shifu, however in the case of tafu the fibres are spun into thread that can be woven, whereas with shifu the fibres are made into paper which is then cut into thin strips.
In the book, Okamura romantically illustrates tafu weaving in Shizuoka, where the craftspeople are surrounded by nature and mischievous animals. The text is Okamura’s song of saitoro-sashi, which is transcribed and translated in the accompanying booklet.
Very rare. Only 3 copies in OCLC (NDL Tokyo, UC Santa Barbara and Swarthmore College).
