Artist Yuri Tsuzuki’s furoshiki wrapping cloths for Porch and Parlour Home offer a thoughtful approach to gift-giving
Capturing the movement seen in nature is an ever-present aspect of noted Greenville artist Yuri Tsuzuki’s work, whether through a painting’s bold brushstrokes or a sculpture’s swirling steel.
“Nature is very much an inspiration. I think more than anything because of its importance in Japanese culture and its intransigence, impermanence, and fragility,” she says. “I am always trying to capture the wind, because the wind is invisible until it touches something or someone, at which point you know that it is there.”
She’s now portraying movement in textiles, a new medium. Through a collaboration with the Greenville-based home decor brand, Porch and Parlour Home, Tsuzuki created two collections of striking richly saturated furoshiki. Square pieces of cloth, furoshiki are a traditional Japanese way of wrapping gifts or transporting items. Washable and reusable, they can also become scarves, picnic or table mats, and decorative home accents.
The four different furoshiki Tsuzuki designed for each collection—one titled “Chasing Butterflies”; the other “Two Hearts. One Sky”—show butterflies dancing across abstract backgrounds and seemingly swaying trees surrounding houses meant to symbolize intertwined lives and the tranquility of home. In one, a butterfly soars past the curving spans of the Liberty Bridge.
The designs are a variation on themes Tsuzuki has explored in the other mediums for which she has become known during her more than 30-year career. Her first exhibition at the Greenville County Museum of Art in 1994 featured trees. Her steel projects include the hundreds of butterflies that first dotted downtown as a symbol of the city’s growth, and Butterfly Journey, the arch of bright blue butterflies marking the entrance to Cancer Survivors Park.
Yuri Tsuzuki Shows how to Wrap Using the Furoshiki Method
“I chose patterns that resonated with me and gave continuity to my work,” she says, adding that she envisioned each cloth’s design as a painting.
The furoshiki production process happens entirely in South Carolina, a poignant tie to Tsuzuki’s textile family, who moved from Japan to Greenville in the 1960s. “My father and grandfather built many manufacturing mills across the South,” she says. “I have always wanted to design a line of textiles.”
She intentionally designed cloths that can be used at any time of the year, not just seasonally. They can wrap an object of any shape, even a wine bottle. “The main thing is that it fits inside of the cloth itself,” Tsuzuki says of the 27-inch hemmed cotton or polyester squares.
Wrapping requires no box, paper, tape, ribbons, or scissors. Instead, the cloth folds diagonally across what’s placed centrally atop it, and knots are tied at the top to secure it. “If you mess up, you unwrap it and do it again, rather than wasting paper,” Tsuzuki explains.
Yet furoshiki are more than sustainable packaging. They also are a means of connection, where the folds and knots symbolize thoughtfulness and friendship. “What I like is you’re sharing and teaching how to wrap with the next person,” Tsuzuki says.
“The aspect of transferring knowledge has always been very important to me,” she adds, noting how lessons are often shared between a parent and child, but not as frequently among friends.
“You’re giving the recipient a second gift that wraps the first gift, and the receiver can decide to keep it or give it to someone else,” she says. “And in that process, there’s teaching. I love that idea of sharing how you wrap it.”
What is Furoshiki?
The word furoshiki refers to both the Japanese tradition of wrapping an object in cloth and the cloth itself. Its translation—furo, meaning bath, and shiki, meaning sheet—goes back to its centuries-old origins in public Japanese bathhouses.
People would bring a family-crest-emblazoned cloth to bathhouses to hold their belongings and differentiate them from others. After bathing, they would spread the cloth on the floor to dry their feet.
Furoshiki eventually became a way of wrapping and transporting everyday goods. After the post-World War II influx of Western culture in Japan, shoppers instead turned to using disposable bags and paper. In recent years, one of Japan’s prime ministers urged a return to the tradition, citing the sustainability of furoshiki amidst rising environmental concerns.
“Japan is still very much a wrapping and presentation culture; it’s very important how you present a gift,” Tsuzuki says. “Furoshiki is sustainable and reusable, so it’s really had a resurgence.”
The furoshiki cloths in Tsuzuki’s Porch and Parlour Home collections are available individually or as sets of four at Furoshiki Collection. To view Tsuzuki’s artwork, visit yuritsuzuki.com or follow @yuritsuzuki on Instagram. To see Porch and Parlour Home’s products, visit porchandparlourhome.com or follow @porchandparlourhome.
