The Okinawa’s traditional craft called Bingata is a dyeing method that is considered to have developed during the Ryukyu Kingdom period around the 14th to 15th century. The Bingata cloths were used for women’s formal clothes in old times, whose glamorous colors and patterns attracted royal families, clans as well as people in foreign countries. In this modern age, it has been loved as crafts and accessories that can be easily used in people’s daily lives, and artists and craft studios have created their unique Bingata art crafts of their own.

“Maeda Bingata Studio” is owned by a Bingata artist Naomi Maeda who majored in dyeing at Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts and trained at “Shiroma Bingata Studio.” You can make an reservation to experience the coloring which is part of the Bingata technique. The studio is located five minutes by car from Okinawa Expressway Kanetake IC.

The class takes two hours. You will use a small frame for the hand coloring so you can make a tote bag out of it or put it in a picture frame for your home decoration.

Choose your favorite out of 12 kits including buttons with patterns of leaves of Taimo, a type of taro which is a specialty of Kanashiro-cho, birds, and cherry blossoms, or traditional patterns.

Add varies colors by following your artistic sense while using coloring samples. By adding layers of dense colors on top of pale base colors, you will have a beautiful shading effect called “Kumadori” which is very unique to Bingata.

It must be very much fun to find out you will have a totally different finished art piece by the way you use your own colors even if you use the same kit with other people.

After finish adding your colors, you will take it home and dry it for about a week, then wash off the glue paste (the light blue square part shown in the photograph.) for a finishing touch.

It must become a very precious experience for Okinawa repeaters to get a very special item of their own to use for a long time while having hands-on experiences of Okinawa’s traditional craft making. It sure will offer one of the scenes as a long-lasting memory of their tours.

Basic information

Address	7965 Aza-Kin, Kin-cho, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa
Car parking	Available (10)
Open Hours	10:00〜18:00 * Reservation is required for the class.
Fixed Holidays	Saturday, Sunday
Contact Details	Maeda Bingata Studio
Telephone	098-968-4463