The Weaving Notes Of Linda Spencer, Apprentice Kasuri Weaver 1976

The back story on the partial manuscript presented here. Some time ago I was yet occupied as a generic antiques picker and dealer. A fellow picker spoke to me of a small collection of Japanese weaving tools and a note book he had picked. The collection was in storage. We went over to the storage unit to check out what was what.

He had the notebook of one Linda Spencer of Wilmington, NC along with a four harness loom of user make, a Japanese spinning wheel, a few weavers tools and a handful of woven samples. I offered to help get them up for sale but, pickers being pickers, he declined. I did convince him to let me take some photos of the notebook for research. Unfortunately I could only take a small set of photos, which photos you will find here.

First up is a transcription of the newspaper article giving the story of Linda Spencer. Although from Minnesota, Ms. Spencer had lived in Wilmington at the time of her passing.

I did try to convince my friend to sell the entire collection but sadly, he declined.

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KYO (京) GAIJIN — by TAKESHI HIKINO

Linda Spencer, Apprentice Kasuri Weaver

On Jan. 25, 1976, Miss Linda Spencer found herself aboard a Japan Air Lines jet en route to Tokyo. Japan was not an unfamiliar place to her; it was to be her third visit. But mixed emotions occupied the young American from Long Lake, Minnesota.

Miss Spencer knew that she wanted to return to Japan very much. At the same time, she felt a little nervous when she thought that she was going to be “thrown into an entirely Japanese atmosphere” in Kyoto.

She had spent all her elementary school years at the American School in Japan in Tokyo and had studied at Kyoto’s Doshisha University in 1974 on an exchange program. But this time, she was to bind herself as an apprentice to a weaver in Kyoto, to learn Kasuri weaving techniques and Japanese indigo and other natural dyeing.

“I’m not sure exactly what made me so interested in Kasuri. But I know I love it,” said Miss Spencer, who majored in 20th Century painting and sculpture at Williams College in Massachusetts. Her ingenious colors and patterns began when she decided to take it up as a research project while at Williams.

She admits that her outspoken American personality sometimes shocks Japanese craftsmen, but she says all accept the outspoken American in her characteristically cheerful voice.

Strict Sensei

“Sensei is kibishii (strict) … but he is good,” she said. “I think it’s not fair for me to say so because I imagine many Japanese Sensei are like that. And I’m not sure strict is the right word.”

Miss Spencer, living in Japan’s traditional world, has often come across surviving old ethics and old ways of thinking.

“I think that in Japan there is a system that sets the relationship between Sensei and possible and to see exhibitions. Since coming to Japan, she has traveled to Shimane, Tottori, Tokushima, Okayama, Chiba and Okinawa prefectures. She is a fluent speaker of Japanese, and has already talked with more than 25 craftsmen.

Miss Spencer, who is now accustomed to the conventional Japan and leads a “very comfortable life” in Kyoto, hopes to make her living in Kasuri weaving in the U.S. if possible.

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