Niki Tsukamoto

LOS ANGELES, CA — Located across the street from the Thien Hau Buddhist Temple in Chinatown, the Lookout & Wonderland workshop is a window into another world. It is a sanctuary nestled within one of Los Angeles’s most tranquil neighborhoods, a place where there is only one god: indigo.

Bathed in the muted light filtering through the windows,Niki Tsukamoto works without a computer, or electricity. She’s an indigo dye devotee; her hands are stained with the blue-green hue that is the signature of this mystical substance. Her singular focus is to preserve and perfect the timeless crafts of indigo dyeing and the fiber arts. Like the unassuming facade of her workshop, there’s more to this color than meets the eye.

“Indigo is woven into our evolution as a species,” says Tsukamoto. “Indigo is part of our DNA.”

But what is indigo, really?

The most accurate modern description of the color is its hex code, #3964C3. With this string of digits, the hue can be repeated endlessly on everything from computer screens to paint chips. But these six numbers can’t encompass the infinitesimal color variations and shimmering hues of true indigo. Left out are the centuries of rich history, and the devoted men and women who have made indigo their livelihoods.

We live in a jaded, impatient world, where hex colors can be mixed with a few simple keystrokes. But there was a time when the birth of a color was an event. Tsukamoto explains that indigo is a difficult dye to make, and she speculates that its discovery didn’t come by chance. Indigo dye is made from the leaves, not the flowers, of the Indigofera plant. Similar to sourdough bread, it requires fermentation with a bacteria-based starter called indigo white. The coloring process is then completed with oxygen. Tsukamoto explains that dyed yarns and cloths are initially a greenish color when removed from the vat, but on contact with air, they transform into characteristic indigo blue.

“It’s still magical to see it today,” says Tsukamoto. “Oh, it’s magic, but it’s also science.”

Some of the oldest indigo samples date back to a time whose history is all but erased. Much like the ancient form of the pyramid, this unique color could be found throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Prized for its rarity and beauty, indigo was used as a form of currency. After Vasco de Gama introduced the color to Europe in 1498, explorers crossed the seas to India and other parts of Asia in pursuit of indigo. In the 17th century, indigo became known as “the Devil’s dye,” and was banned throughout much of Europe. When it was decriminalized in the 1700s, it skyrocketed in popularity.

But after the Industrial Revolution, natural dyes fell out of favor as cheap alternatives grew in prominence. Today, artificial indigo is everywhere, and is the most common dye for denim and blue jeans. These synthetic dyes create harmful chemical byproducts and wastewater that pollute the environment and cause acute consequences in the areas in which they are manufactured.

“What’s happening to indigo is quite ugly—it devalues the history, the work, and what people do,” says Tsukamoto. “It’s harmful to the craft if we don’t give indigo the respect it deserves. It will disappear.”

Her courtship with the fiber arts began as a child. Growing up in the Midwest, she learned sewing, knitting, and needlepoint from her mother and grandmother. One of her first experiences was working with a simple tea leaf dye.

“It was part of the culture there,” she says. “I was lucky enough to have those women in my life.”

Her fascination with indigo also has otherworldly roots. While traveling in Japan, she found an indigo-dyed jacket that a friend told her was haunted. At first, Tsukamoto didn’t believe it would affect her, but shortly after wearing the jacket, thoughts of indigo consumed her. She was possessed.

But indigo is an elusive muse. Even in the age of the internet, it’s difficult to find accurate information about the dyeing process. Procuring an actual recipe is even harder. Those who know the secrets of indigo often hold them close, passing them down to a select few. This only adds to the color’s allure.

“The world of indigo is very much like baking— people keep their recipes to themselves,” explains Tsukamoto.

She tirelessly sought out books on indigo, and asked indigo masters to let her apprentice with them without success. It wasn’t until, after finding an out-of-print book on indigo dyeing, things began to fall into place. “People started bringing me indigo,” she says. “I wasn’t talking to anyone about it… it just started coming to me—things began to align.”

Considering indigo’s connection to the mystic and healing arts, these happy coincidences hardly seem accidental. Tsukamoto chose a craft steeped in history and, perhaps, just a little bit of magic.

Her current work reflects and honors the traditionof indigo dyeing, but adds a contemporary edge. While honoring the color’s rich past, she works to keep it a relevant part of the present and to lay the foundation for its future.

“My mission for this work is to have people reexamine what they put on their bodies and what they bring into their homes. Using medicinal dyes ayurvastra, the ayurveda of dyeing is not only feeding people’s minds, but their bodies as well.”

Tsukamoto and her husband, painter Yusuke Tsukamoto, create thought-provoking fabric flags together. Their most recent exhibition, “Absolute Magnitude,” uses dyed fabric flags to communicate universal narratives without words. Tsukamoto describes this process as a way to explore the concepts of personal reality and collective consciousness through color, iconography, and nonverbal communication.

Despite her passion, Tsukamoto is not a jealous lover of indigo. She has spent countless hours immersed in the color, but refuses the title of indigo master. “I’m just an artist who happens to love indigo,” claims Tsukamoto. But she herself is a rare hue, a kind of blue.

— Written by Veronica An
— Photography by Ashley Guo
— First published in [ Issue 1 ]