Ara Kinue (1926-)
Ara Kinue was born on Taketomi Island in 1926. She migrated to Taiwan along with her family when she was three years old.
She was raised in Keelung and had never lived in Yaeyama until the whole family repatriated to the home island after WWII.
In 1971, she established a company dealing with Yaeyama's traditional textile art, Minsa (Minsa ori). The company promoted the recovery of Yaeyama's traditional textile art while Yaeyama islanders had virtually stopped producing traditional textiles for their everyday use. As Yaeyama's tourist industry developed after the 1970s, Minsa textiles grew to be popular as folk art, and her company became very successful.
Today Ara Kinue is recognized as the artist who revived and promoted Yaeyama's traditional art and has received numerous national and prefectural prizes.
