Cherry Blossoms at Sewaritei
Sewaritei in Yawata, Kyoto, is a nationally famous cherry blossom site. Every spring, around 1.4 km of cherry trees bloom along the river.
This artwork began in 2016. It took three years to complete. The inspiration came from a photo I finally captured in spring 2018, after years of trying.
Later that year, a typhoon damaged about 90% of the trees. I wasn’t aware of this at first. But by spring 2019, I had already finished the embroidery based on my 2018 photo.
That same year, I was invited to exhibit at the “Sakura de Ai Hall” by the Yodogawa River Park office. It became my first public photo embroidery display.
This work unintentionally documented the cherry blossoms before the damage. It resonated with many people, evoking shared memories.
In 2020 and 2021, I held solo exhibitions. This piece marked the beginning of my artistic journey. It gave me the motivation to continue.
For more information about the Sakura Deai-kan facility, please visit the official website: Sakura Deai-kan Official Page (Japanese only)
Work Specifications
- Production year : 2019
- Size: 75 cm × 95 cm
- Embroidery technique: 2,743,359 stitches / Photo Embroidery
- Number of thread colors used: 52
- Embroidery machine: TAJIMA TMFX-1502 (1000×600) W
- Embroidery software: DG16, Embroidery PRO
About the Technique
From a technical standpoint, this photo embroidery piece, Cherry Blossoms at Sewari-tei, was one of the most challenging in terms of color expression.
The sky, in particular, was difficult to render. I had to first edit the image to capture the hazy tone of spring skies — a delicate, subtle color that required careful adjustment.
The cherry blossoms, although pale pink, could not be represented with a single “pink” thread. Their color contains layers of white and gray, and I had to choose threads that captured this nuance without disrupting the overall atmosphere.
While I had some idea of what threads to use for the cherry blossoms, the real challenge was finding a harmonious match for the sky. In photo embroidery, there are no threads that perfectly match the colors in a photograph, so the process requires an intuitive balance.
Creating this piece became my first unintentional experience of my artistic theme — “Embroidering Light.” I realized that expressing gradients in a landscape using thread is incredibly difficult. Unlike paint, embroidery threads come in limited color variations.
This was the first time I selected threads almost entirely based on instinct — something that has only happened a few times in my entire creative career.
I believe the thread combinations in this piece truly embody the idea of expressing light through thread. In fact, to this day, no other work of mine has reproduced the sky’s gradation as seamlessly as this one.
The experience of creating this work ignited a desire to recreate and surpass it — to once again capture light with thread. That desire continues to drive my creative work today.