We thank you for Support Upcycle Culture

We thank you for sharing the support Upcycle Culture.

The upcycle culture create beautiful, fun and appreciative days for people. As a proverb says, a contented mind is a perpetual feast, the time with appreciation to what we have satisfied our needs. At the same time, because of its characteristic, upcycle culture opposed to the value of modern society. Upcycle culture is inefficient, time-consuming, expensive and slow.

In order to live in this society, we have to overcome these opposite criteria. Unfortunately,  being efficient, productive, cheap and fast is strongly valued as a success. And, we, of course, need a piece of success to get financial stability. Therefore, your support to what we do is very much appreciated for us continue to focus on Upcycle Culture.

 

We do not want to be a business entity. We would like to continue to be artists.

Can Sashiko (and Upcycle Culture) be a good business?

I used to be a manager in Sashiko business with more than 10 full-time employees and more than 30 craftsmen (outside manufacturers and craftsmen). In order to pay salary and satisfy the checks, I focused on numbers with sacrificing the result. I was raised in a Sashiko family. I knew the beauty of Sashiko. However, I didn’t like the Sashiko Business because of its contradiction.

Sashiko is all about hand-stitching with appreciating fabric. By nature, it is unproductive and expensive. No matter how fast Sashiko artists can stitch, machine-stitching is much faster. However, a machine cannot make the exclusive value we appreciate throughout Sashiko. I knew that Sashiko wouldn’t be a good business.

Regardless of the contradiction, my parents and I tried to survive with Sashiko in the market. The keyword was “sharing” instead of “keeping it secret.” Some say that we had to keep the tradition secret to protect. We believed we only could protect the tradition by sharing. After my father had passed away in 2013, my mother and I started a project called “Sashi.Co” with continuously believing what we agreed.

 

We would like to be artists.

My mother and I do not focus on financial numbers much. We purchase the best vintage fabric from the antique market and we spend all of our time to create the best-out-of-our-ability Sashiko arts. However, it means that we need to work at the part-time workplaces to earn money for daily necessaries. It is difficult for us because we would need to make more and more Sashiko art to share what we love, Sashiko stitching. My mom has a pile of vintage fabrics and her mind is filled with ideas. I am always trying to find time to make online tutorial videos to share the Sashiko techniques.

My mother would like to be a just artist. I would like to focus on sharing Sashiko, and ideally, I would like to just stitch, too.

 

A possible solution for this dilemma.

My friend, who is also an artist, introduced me a possible solution for this dilemma. It is “Patreon” – an Internet-based platform that allows content creators to build their own subscription content service. We once thought of using a cloud funding platform, but Sashiko isn’t speedy enough to entertain the possible participants. We believe, this patreon platform, could help us to have a unique community for Sashiko supporters on top of sharing the free online tutorials regarding Sashiko.

 

Support Upcycle Culture

 

This is a direct favor for you that we ask, to Support Upcycle Culture.

By you becoming a patron for our project, we will have financial stability to work on what we really want/need to. In return, we promise you to keep working on enriching the Sashiko contents including tutorials, videos, articles, books, materials, and more and more on your request.

We sincerely appreciate your support in advance.

 

Purchase genuine products, supplies, and materials

Above, by introducing Patreon, we had asked the very direct support to us. It is the method of Support Upcycle Culture by supporting us, Keiko and Atsushi Futatsuya.

However, please do not forget that our goal isn’t to get money. Our goal is to share the upcycle culture so we can make the market, which leads us to be proud of what we do more. Another way of supporting upcycle culture is to purchase the genuine products. There are many choices in the market thanks to the internet. There are always cheaper option to take even in getting the necessary supplies and materials for hand-crafting.

When you purchase materials for your hand-making project, please make a research if the company is making the products with genuine love to the product. Sparing some of your time in the short research will contribute to the upcycle culture by supporting the companies which contribute to the Upcycle Culture.

As you can see, our store handle only genuine products, supplies and materials. For Sashiko, we only provide the things we daily use for our project.

 

Share what you love. The best way to Support Upcycle Culture

At last but not the least, we want you to share what you love to do in upcycle and repurpose days. This is the best way to support upcycle culture. The more people get know what we do to appreciate upcycle and repurposing, the bigger our movement will be.

The bigger movement is beneficial not only because the market get bigger, but more importantly, it also expands a group of people who we can share our passion. It is so wonderful opportunity to share what we do to people who share the same value. I am so thrilled to host workshops because I can meet the people who can share the same passion. I want to share the passion and the fun of sharing it.

 

Another goal of mine is to make a community for the upcylce culture. Share what you love and join out team. We support upcycle culture.