Boro textile panels overlayed with wood tablet looms. “Boro means ‘rag,’ and it refers to mended or patchwork folk textiles, typically indigo-dyed cottons, meant to extend the life of the fabrics. It’s like our own way of using old clothes to make a blanket or a quilt. I have a lot from my grandmother, and the patches are from her clothes or my mom’s. And just like quilting, with boro textiles there’s a geometry to how you’re combining the colors and textures and patterns, but in a more Japanese way. You can almost see Modernist painting styles in their compositions. The panels we brought back — from the Meiji period at the turn of the 19th century — are all different sizes, but most people would hang them on a wall.”