Traveling Through with David Prior · Thursday, July 30, 2026
Needleman reflects on her research trip to Japan, which deepened her interest in craft and travel. She highlights how Japanese culture reveres craft, with artisans often dedicating their lives to mastering techniques passed down through generations.
“Probably this is how I really got into researching around craft and traveling to places using craft as a way into a place. So Japan was the first trip, and I was doing a story on a catazome indigo dier So it's a kind of stencil on fabric and indigo.”
“Where you know the craft is revered. Well, exactly is exactly what I was gonna say, is in the National Treasures, Right, It's like intangible heritage exactly.”
“And he had, you know, an indigo dive that in the backyard and he'd been doing his craft for I don't know, thirty or forty years. Didn't feel he was a master and was so connected to his dive that he you know, he couldn't go to his son's wedding because with these dive outs, you have to watch the fire and make sure the temperature and mix the indigo.”