Shirley Berlin loves to teach kumihimo and other narrow wares workshops.
She is particularly interested in basic kumihimo and its myriad variations: texture, distortion, thick and thin, adding bumps or beads, beginnings and
endings and practical uses.
Her most popular class starts with basic patterns for beginners on Day 1and moves on to variations on Days 2 and 3. She has some wonderful slides and does a general lecture about narrow wares called "That's nice, dear, but what do you do with it?" looking at history, ethnography, craft, art and practical issues.
Shirley lives in England and Canada and sometimes other places too, for instance, this year, Paris and the extreme north of Sweden. Because she flies regularly between all these places she can usually arrange to touch down for free at major airline hubs in the USA.
For more information, reach her by e-mail.
Jan Buday teaches kumihimo and lampworking classes in her studio in Washington, USA. As an artist of mixed media, she has a great interest in incorporating the Japanese tradition of braiding with silk and the forming of molten class on madrels to form beads. These two media lend themselves to an interplay of light to form a unique blend of splendors.
For more information e-mail Jan. Jacqui Carey was Introduced to braiding while completing a BA (Hons) degree in Woven Textiles at West Surrey College of Art and Design. She has since specialized in Kumihimo as maker, teacher, author, and researcher. Jacqui has exhibited, demonstrated, lectured, and taught throughout UK and abroad. She has written four books and various articles. Her research work covers history, other braiding techniques, creative applications, mathematical analysis,and cross disipline connections.
For more information, she can be reached by e-mail.
Contact Carol for more information.
Suwa-Andrea Hoeller lives in Vienna, Austria. She was introduced to kumihimo by Tokoro Hoko-san from Gifu Prefecture in Japan in 1999 and since then loves to make kumihimo. Since 2002 she has had classes at the Adachi School of Kumihimo in Kyoto. Suwa-Andrea teaches kumihimo in small classes, especially with disabled children, partially sighted and blind people and hard of hearing and deaf people. She has found that her disabled students, both children and adults have great potential skills!
She teaches on the Marudai in small classes at schools, home and private houses. Suwa-Andrea feels honored to continue to attend the workshops of Tokoro Hoko-san each year in the spring at the Japanese Embassy in Vienna.
Contact Suwa-Andrea for more information.
Giovanna loves teaching and sharing her passion for kumihimo. She teaches both locally and nationally, primarily beginner, intermediate and advanced maru dai workshops as well as weaving with wire and mixed media jewelry. Click on the Portfolio link on her website to see her work.
For more information, contact her by e-mail.
Ethel Kawamura studied kumihimo in Kyoto, Japan in 1980-81. Presently she is available to teach workshops, give demonstrations,and show slides. Generally she prefers 2 or more day workshops. She has taught marudai and kakudai, but could do ayatakedai if there is interest. Workshops can be geared to the students desires, but generally include some ideas for use and history. Locally she will teach half day classes, but would not travel far for that amount of time. She has the use of a local needlework shop's facilities if a class would like to come to Nashville,Tennessee!
For more information, contact her by e-mail.
Masako Kinoshita has taught marudai kumihimo, the circular-top stand-and-bobbin braiding techniques since 1980, and finger-held and hand-held loop-manipulation braiding techniques since 1983. She teaches one- to four-day workshops, her preference being three- to four-day classes. By going back to the simplest braid structure and following historic as well as present forms of braiding techniques, she shows students how varieties of braids can be grouped into a small number of procedure patterns. When students learn this basic principle, then they can understand how braids have been developed and how they also can develop their own designs. Memorizing braiding recipes also gets much easier and memorizing color arrangements for each pattern is no longer necessary.
Masako has shown her woven and braided works internationally and published articles on the subjects in magazines and academic journals, in English and in Japanese. In 1994 she published a monograph, "Nihon Kumihimo Ko Giho No Kenkyu = Study of Archaic Braiding Techniques in Japan." This book is about her epoch-making research of a long-forgotten art of Kute-Uchi, a highly developed from of loop-manipulation braiding. She also founded the Loop-Manipulation Braiding Research and Information Center (BRIC) in 1998 and publishes Loop-Manipulation BRIC News.
For more information, see her web site.
Maryse Levenson owns Fiber Expression, located in Colorado. Her web site has information about the classes that she offers and those that she teaches. Maryse also offers marudai for sale made to her specifications.
Rosalie Neilson learned to braid on the Marudai and Kakudai stands in 1980 at the Naganuma Kimono Gakuin in Tokyo, a school where women learn how to dress in kimono and accessorize their outfits. Part of the curriculum includes learning to braid Obijime. After her class, she purchased the round and square stands, lots of silk, and was presented with two books in Japanese to continue her studies back in Oregon. In 1982, she returned to Tokyo for lessons with a teacher speciailizing in Ayatake Dai braiding, a technique which uses a supplemental weft. She then traveled to Kyoto in 1987 to the Adachi Braiding School to study braiding on the Takadai. She has taught two to three day kumihimo workshops on the Marudai at various weaver's guilds throughout the country. Her lecture (a history of Japan seen through the eyes of a braider) entitled "Kumihimo: From Defense to Decoration" has been presented at Art Museums, Tea Ceremony schools, Ikebana organizations, and Japanese American Societies. She will be teaching a workshop on 16 element braids at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in the spring of 2001. For dates and details, contact the the College (503) 297-5544. She has also developed a software program called Braid Runner, which predicts the color and design of fourteen different 8 element braids.
For more information about Rosalie go to her web site.
Rodrick Owen, who resides in Oxford, England, has been teaching braid workshops in England, the U.S. and Australia for many years. His introductory book on marudai braiding was published in 1995. Forthcoming (early Spring 2004) is his latest on takadai braiding - Making Kumihimo: Japanese Interlaced Braids. He offers all levels, week-end and/or week-long workshops, and lectures on both Japanese and Peruvian braid techniques. His annual teaching schedule includes several United States sites on both Coasts. Rodrick can be reached by e-mail or at his web site.
Denise Prattson and Lorraine Dokas are offering classes in Kumihimo with fiber/yarn/ribbon and kumihimo with beads at The Carriage House Designs, Manchester, Connecticut, USA. E-mail Denise for information.