Masako Kinoshita
April 24, 1926 -August 4, 2022
Masako Kinoshita (née Matsuoka) passed away in her sleep on August 4, at the age of 96. Born in Kochi, Japan, she and her husband emigrated from their home country and settled in Ithaca, New York, where he became a professor at Cornell University. They lived there for 60 years before moving in 2016 to Amherst, Massachusetts, where they shared a home with their youngest daughter and her family.
Masa, as her friends called her, was an internationally known textile artist and historical researcher who published Nihon Kumihimo Kogihōno Kenkyū (The Study of Ancient Japanese Braiding Techniques, 1994), a landmark in the field of Japanese textile arts. The 359-page volume describes her decades-long investigation into the history of the craft of creating decorative braids (kumihimo) used in Japan as ties for Buddhist sutra scrolls and lacings for samurai armor. When she began her research, little was known about what had become an almost forgotten craft. But Masa’s expertise in braiding and mathematical skills enabled her to establish that historic kumihimo braids dating from the 7th century through Japan’s war-torn medieval era were constructed using a finger-loop technique that had largely fallen out of use in Japan by the 19th century.
Modern kumihimo braids are made using a stand-and-bobbin technique that she thought was too cumbersome and slow to allow for the production of huge quantities of armor lacings that would be required during times of war. Masa’s research led her to obscure documents that recorded industrial recipes, including braid-making, that were written in a secret code. With her deep knowledge of braid-making and structure, she was able to crack the code. Her book records her journey in meticulous, scholarly detail, and is filled with photographs and computer-generated diagrams which she created for reconstructing a multitude of historical braids.
While the mystery of Japan’s lost braiding technology intrigued her intellectually, it was the beauty of the braids that engaged her most deeply. Masa loved textiles from growing up in Japan and while living in Ithaca became highly accomplished in weaving and spinning, using natural plant dyes and just about any textile craft that captured her interest. Within a few years after acquiring her first loom, she was winning top jury prizes at regional craft fairs. Her daughters recall she once knit a sweater using fur from a friend’s Samoyed dog.
Masa was born on April 24, 1926, in Kochi City on the south coast of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands, to Yoshikazu and Michiko (née Nosé) Matsuoka. The family, descended from samurai, moved soon thereafter to Kyoto, where her father taught philosophy at Doshisha University and her mother taught ethics at Doshisha Women’s College. She was the second of five children and the elder of two daughters.
Masa is survived by her husband, Toichiro, of Amherst, Massachusetts; daughters and sons-in-law Kay Kinoshita and Alan Schwartz of Cincinnati, Ohio; June Kinoshita and Tod Machover of Waltham, Massachusetts; andRay and Charles C. Mann of Amherst Massachusetts; sister Yuriko Tanaka of Hayama, Japan; and six grandchildren, Maya Schwartz, Eito Schwartz, Hana Machover, Noa Machover, Emilia Mann, and Schuyler Mann.
The Textile Society of America is deeply grateful to the family of Masako Kinoshita for sharing the news of her passing and offer our sincerest condolences.
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