Maker Spotlight: Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Name: Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada
Home: Berkeley, California
Makerspace: Slow Fiber Studios Workshop Space in Berkeley, California
Day job: President of the World Shibori Network and Founder of Slow Fiber Studios

Shibori : Natural Dyeing : Ikat Weaving : “Slow Fibers”

Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada is an artist, curator, and scholar in the practice of shibori (resist dyeing) and Japanese kimono. She is president of the World Shibori Network, founder of Slow Fiber Studios, producer of the Natural Dye Workshop film series and the Arimatsu Narumi Shibori documentary, and co-chair of the 10th International Shibori Symposium (10iss) in Oaxaca, Mexico. She earned her B.F.A. in Kyoto, Japan, an M.F.A. in the U.S., and is an Adjunct Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China. She has authored and co-authored several books, such as Memory on Cloth: Shibori Now and Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped-Resist Dyeing, amongst others. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery, and the New Edge at the Muskegon Museum of Art in 2015. She has been active in the education of shibori and natural dyeing through workshops, travel programs, and lectures around the world. Yoshiko has long advocated for the practice of ‘slow fibers’ which includes sustainability, tradition, and design innovation in natural dyes, resist dyeing, and the re-use of material in different parts of the world.

You can find Yoshiko online on
Her Website | Instagram | Facebook

Image of boats on a river in Kerala from a recent Slow Fiber Studios travel program to India.

Yoshiko Wada demonstrating the Indian resist-dye technique of lehariya with a student.

Degummed silk dyed in indigo from a workshop at the Kaneko Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.

Scarlet Letter, from the Skin Dress Series by Yoshiko I Wada.

Skeins of yarn dyed with cochineal, drying in the sun at a workshop at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens in Berkeley, California.

Yoshiko in Arimatsu, Japan with shibori artisans who she has worked with for more than 30 years.

Coca Cola Kimono by Yoshiko Wada.

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