Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada (born August 2, 1944) is a Japanese textile artist, curator, art historian, scholar, professor, and author. She has received international recognition for her scholarship and expertise in the field of textile art. In 2010, she was named a "Distinguished Craft Educator - Master of Medium" by the James Renwick Alliance of the Smithsonian Institution, who stated: "she is single-handedly responsible for introducing the art of Japanese to this country". In 2016 she received the George Hewitt Myers Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Early life and education Wada is the granddaughter of a family of kimono makers in Tokyo, and she was raised in Kobe and Tokyo. Her paternal grandmother studied European dressmaking in Europe and encouraged her granddaughter through her love and knowledge of European art. After graduating from Hyogo Kenritsu Kobe High School in 1963, Wada studied textile art and museum sciences at Kyoto City University of Arts (BFA 1967). She moved to the United States, and received a degree from the University of Colorado Boulder (MFA 1971).

Wada returned to Japan for postgraduate studies of ikat weaving and indigo dyeing with Tsuguo ODANI, Kyoto, in 1972 and traditional Japanese silk embroidery at Daihiko Studio, Tokyo, 1980 to 1981. She lived in Kyoto under the Japan Foundation fellowship to conduct research on in Kyoto and Arimatsu Narumi in Nagoya. During this period she began to specialize in the study of traditional Japanese crafts.

Works Her Japanese background, education and early experience are the basis for the techniques she uses for her artwork, while she gets her inspiration from global cultures, with which she has had extensive contact in her academic endeavors.

Seeking to share her knowledge of Japanese textile techniques and kimono she co-founded Kasuri Dyeworks (1975), a gallery and shop in Berkeley, California. "Perhaps more than anyone else, Wada caused the evolution of fiber focus from cloth structure to the dye patterning that we now recognize as surface design". In the 1970s, Wada taught at the Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts in Berkeley, California. One of her notable students was textile artist Ana Lisa Hedstrom.

In 1979 and 1996, she received the Japan Foundation fellowship which resulted in two books: Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing and Memory on Cloth, Shibori Now. Based on her knowledge of kasuri, she co-authored Ikat: An Introduction in 1973. In 1996 she co-curated an exhibition and co-authored the catalog at The Textile Museum Washington, D.C. The Kimono Inspiration: Art and Art-to-Wear in America.

Affiliations Wada has co-organized and chaired all International Shibori Symposia, including the 2014 symposia, at the China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou. The first one took place in Nagoya in 1992, and led to the foundation of the World Shibori Network, which she co-founded with Kahei Takeda, of Arimatsu. Wada is president Of the World Shibori Network.

In 1998 to 1999, a grant from the Matsushita International Foundation enabled her to study pre-Columbian textiles at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Smithsonian Institution. She lectures and teaches workshops on textile-related subjects including , dyeing, and the recycling and transformation of fabric. Exhibitors of her artwork work include the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery and the International Textile Fair in Kyoto.

Since 2010, Wada has been adjunct professor at the Institute of Textile and Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Personal life Wada lives in Berkeley, California, she was married to dentist Hercules Morphopoulos (1934–2016). They have one son.

Grants, awards, honors 2018. Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council 2016. George Hewitt Myers Award of the George Washington University Museum, recognizing "lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the field of textile arts" 2010. James Renwick Alliance of the Smithsonian Institution "Distinguished Craft Educator – Master of Medium" 2003. American Express Foundation Grant via Aid to Artisans for "Sri Yantra Bandhini Development Project", collaboration with the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India 1999. Matsushita International Foundation Grant for "Amarras" replication and comparative study of ancient pre-Columbian tradition 1999. The Japan Foundation, Grant in support of catalogue publication of National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago Chile, for 3rd International Symposium 1996. Asian Foundation Grant for Crafts. Demonstration and exposition of traditional artisans of India, Africa, and Japan. National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, for the 2nd International Symposium 1992. The Japan Foundation, Fellowship for research for Textile Production and Women Consumers in the First Half of the Twentieth Century Kiryu, Japan 1992, 1993. James Renwick Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institution. Senior postdoctoral fellowship for the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC. Research project The Development of American / Tie Dye/Shaped-resist since the 1960s. Washington, D.C 1983. The Indo-U.S. Sub-Commission on Education and Culture, Fellowship for research on tie-dyed textiles: bandhani, lahariya and ikat. Research affiliation with The National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India 1979. The Japan Foundation, Fellowship for research on resist-dyed textiles, and . Research affiliation with Kyoto City Fine Arts University, Kyoto and Arimatsu/Narumi Preservation Association, Nagoya, Japan.

Curatorial work 2013 Curator, mnemonikos: Art of Memory in Contemporary Textiles Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand 2004 Curator, Ragged Beauty: repair and reuse, past and present, Museum of Craft & Folk Art, San Francisco, California 2001 Curator, Shibori: Tradition and Innovation – East to West, Museum of Craft & Folk Art, San Francisco, California 1999 Curator, El Arte de Teñir con Amarras, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile 1996 Co-Curator, The Kimono Inspiration: Art and Art to Wear in America, The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. 1992-94 Advisor, Japanese Design: A Survey since the 1950s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, traveled to Milan, Paris, Düsseldorf, Osaka

Publications