Ofukuro-san

The rice is gone. The paper sack still has places to go.

After finishing the rice her family sent, Ringo Jōsan would fold the empty sacks and send them back, assuming they would be used again. When she learned they were being thrown away, she happened to need a light bag for her handmade dolls and accessories. She folded, glued, and sewed a rice sack into a tote.

At a market, someone noticed the bag carrying her work and asked to buy it. Ofukuro-san began as something she used herself and became something she continued to make.

Opening Up a Paper Sack, Sewing It into a Bag

The first rice sacks she used were made of three layers of kraft paper, intended for transporting and stacking rice. To turn them into everyday bags, Ringo Jōsan reworked the base, opening, and handles. The finished bags she sells are made primarily on a household sewing machine, using the heavy thread commonly used for jeans.

The four corners of the base and the points where the handles meet the body are reinforced from inside with kraft paper tape. Each bag also has an inside pocket.

Rice-shop printing, folds, and scuff marks may remain on the paper. Where the original lettering and images appear depends on the source sack. Even bags of the same design may not look exactly alike.

The Original Printing Becomes Part of the Bag

The red 土佐米 lettering, rice-shop logos, and illustrations of cows, pigs, and other animals all come from the original sacks. Once the sacks become totes, the words and pictures that identified the contents become details to look for when choosing a bag.

Today, the paper sacks come from several sources. Plain bags and those featuring original rice-sack graphics use recovered rice sacks. The Red Tosa version uses new rice sacks from 米家 in Kochi. The “優良家畜” (Quality Livestock) and “Purple Cow × Orange Pig” versions use surplus-stock paper sacks, known as ロス袋. According to the maker’s product descriptions, these source sacks are unused, though they may have variations such as misaligned printing or patches of missing ink.

Another version uses recovered rice sacks treated with three coats of persimmon tannin. The tannin is brushed onto the paper and left to dry, for a total of three applications. The finished brown gradually deepens with time, temperature, and exposure to ultraviolet light. The original printing remains inside the bag.

Learned at Home, Shared with Others

Ringo Jōsan grew up watching her mother sew clothes for the family and later made clothes for her own children. When she returned to making, her daughter Rin was five and her son Jō was three. She joined their names and ages to form the Japanese artist name Ringo Jōsan, intended at first as a temporary name. It has stayed with her ever since.

The name Ofukuro-san also has a family connection. Fukuro means “bag” in Japanese, while ofukuro is a familiar word for “mother.” Watching her work with rice sacks, a friend said, “お袋さんも、喜んでくれてるでー。” The remark also means “Your mother must be happy, too.” It brought her late mother to mind and later gave the work its name.

When her son was in elementary school, he watched her making bags and wanted to try. She worked out a method that required no sewing machine: glue the paper with white glue, secure it with staples, tap the staples flat, then fold the opening back to hide them between the paper layers.

She later shared this method through workshops and a making guide. While continuing to sew her own work, she also gives people with no sewing experience a way to make a bag from a rice sack they have at hand.