This strong yet warm and soft paper is made from the inner bark of the kozo (paper mulberry), mitsumata or gampi plants. It has nothing to do with rice! Perhaps when goods were first sent to the West they were wrapped in these intrigueing papers. The people in the countries from which this paper came ate rice. Therefore it was wrongly assumed the paper must be made from rice. For whatever reason the name has stuck. Help me in changing this by insisting it be called "washi" in the future.

Washi was an intregal part of life in Japan.It was used for the usual purposes such as letters, bookkeeping etc. But it also had many others uses as well. Because of the frequency of damage from fire and earthquakes, the buildings were made mostly of wood and paper to facilitate the rebuilding process. Farmers would often grow paper-mulberry trees between their rice fields and make paper during the winter months to help subsidize their rice yield. As it turns out, the winter months are the best time to make washi because it keeps the fibers from breaking down, yielding a strong yet soft paper.

Most in the West are familiar with laquered or oiled umbrellas. The Japanese also used oiled or treated papers for raincoats, lanterns, samurai helmets, boxes etc. Washi could be twisted into thread or twine and woven into clothing such as Shifu or made into carrying cases of various shapes. Imitation leather papers (kinkarakawa-gami and gikkakushi) were developed and used for tobacco pouches and eventualy for wallpapers in the west. A mulitude of treatments and techniques for decorating the paper were developed alongside the textile crafts. Stencil, and resist-paste dyeing (katazome), woodblock printing(ukiyo-e and kyokarakami), embossing, hand-crushing (momi-gami), creping(chirimen-gami), various gold and silver leaf techniques, all were used to decorate sliding doors (fusuma), partitions (byobu) clothing etc. Most recently, what are called "Yuzen" papers are made using the silkscreen technique and usually depict intricate traditional kimono designs.

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Katazome is a stencil dyeing technique used for cloth as well as washi. The patterns are created using stencils and a resist paste made of rice flour. Once the colors have been applied, the paper is soaked in water to softened the paste and whereever there was paste goes back to the original color of the paper.

Yuzen-gami is paper that has been patterned using silkscreens. The term "Yuzen" actually refers to a technique developed during the Edo (previous name for Tokyo) period. As the technique applied to fabrics, the technique also used a resit paste but in this application the paste was used to outline each shape and the colors where then filled. This allowed for unlimited colors and variations that lead to sophisticated pictoral and landscape designs.

Momi-gami is a textured paper made by crumpling the paper much in the same way you might crumple a letter you were throwing away. There are many other variations you can employ to create the wrinkles in momigami. Each approach results in a slightly different texture. Sometimes a gelatinous glue made from the devils tongue root (konnyaku) is used to strengthen the paper. I find this helps to create finer wrinkles as well.

Kinkarakawa-gami is a most wonderful imitation of embossed gilt leather. The gilt leathers originated in Spain and were introduced to Japan by the Dutch. In Holland, these leathers were used as wall coverings and chair backs and were not really gilt at all.The process involved a tin leaf that was painted over with orange shellac and gave the impression of gold leaf. The Japanese cut up these leathers and made them into pouches (fukuromono) and also covered boxes.

Since Japan was not a meat-eating country, leather production was basically limited to the deer skins used for armor. However, using the strengths of washi, they were able to invent a wonderful imitation leather made of paper. One style (gikkakushi) used the chirimen-gami technique and resulted in a leather-like textured paper. The other (kinkarakawa-gami) technique resulted in an embossed "gilt" paper that successfully replicated the look of the Dutch leathers.

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To be continued....