With spring, the season of tensan begins.
The tiny eggs laid in late summer pass through the winter. In spring, they hatch, and another year begins.
They feed on sawtooth oak leaves, grow in the wind and light, and eventually spin their cocoons among the leaves.
Each year, as we watch them, we record the time of silk raised in the mountains.
Traces of Tensan in This Land
We have heard that tensan were once raised in several places across this area.
Even today, we sometimes come across groves of sawtooth oak, as though traces of that time still remain.
When we look at these oak fields, we sense more than the trees themselves. The presence of work carried on here over many years still seems to linger.
From a Tiny Egg, Growing Closer to the Colour of the Leaves
Newly hatched larvae are astonishingly small and fragile in appearance.
Yet as they feed and shed their skin, they gradually grow closer to the colours of the mountain.
By the third instar, they blend so closely with the leaves that they can be difficult to find.
By the fifth, their appetite grows stronger, and the time for spinning a cocoon draws near.
Watching this change, it seems that the tensan are not simply growing larger, but gradually becoming part of the landscape around them.
What Remains Among the Leaves
In time, the tensan spin their cocoons among the leaves.
Whenever we find one of these yellow-green cocoons in the mountain, we pause to look, even though it happens every year.
As the adult moths emerge, mate, and leave their eggs, the tensan season draws towards its close.
The end of one year is already the beginning of the next.
Looking at the tiny eggs that will remain still until the following spring, we wait for another season.
From Cocoon to Thread
Not every tensan cocoon becomes thread in the same way.
The parts that can be drawn out in long lengths are reeled. Those that are difficult to reel are spun into thread at the studio.
Value lies not only in what can be reeled. The parts that cannot be reeled have an expression of their own.
Carrying those differences into the cloth is also part of the way we work with tensan.
A cocoon raised in the mountains becomes thread, and eventually part of a cloth.
When we follow the tensan through the year, we begin to see, within the finished cloth, the long time that came before it.
Learn More About Tensan
Our introductory page explains what tensan are and the qualities of their silk.
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