Drawing Tuesday - Barkcloth at British Museum, again

A chance to draw the piece I'd wanted to do - as "something completely different" after my finicky literalness last time -

It's from Vanuatu and includes sea urchins, lobsters, and a bird, as well as mythological figures. I hope this closeup gives and idea of the barkcloth quality, marks, and painting -

 My plan of attack was light lines to position the elements, then splodges of colour added with a waterbrush and soluble Stabilo crayon, and finally the outlines in marker pen -

Going over it three times meant I got to know it well!

And for good measure, here's a version I traced on the ipad -

Truer to the original perhaps, but not to the spirit of the thing.

With half an hour left, I turned to a piece representing a journey, from the Solomon Islands, early 1900s, a long tapering piece with a long thin line -

It's pale and rushed, but was interesting to see the buildup of the bands of patterning, some of which represented frigate birds, and bush tracks through the hills to an island refuge. The large figures are bonito fish.

And the rest - everyone was prolific! Apologies for the faintness of some of the images, my little camera just isn't up to it.

Janet K's headdress and strikingly bold patterining -

 Mags' spirit masks (she's posted in detail on her blog) -

 Janet B's bark cloth clothing -

 Sue had a field day with patterns -

 Jo drew in the Japanese Gallery nearby -

 Cathy went for the spirit maks too -

 Pictures of the pieces in this exhibition abound - google "bark cloth british museum" or just click here.

The exhibition is open till 6 December - access is via the Japan Gallery, 5th floor, north staircase.

Art I like - John Paul Morabito

I commend to you the work and website of John Paul Morabito, who is studying for an MFA in Chicago.

Also I commend to you what Judy Martin has written about his burned textiles, about the relation between creation and destruction.

"I work in repetition," John Paul Morabito says. "Finding inspiration in the devotional mindsets of religion and masochism I undertake monumental tasks often impossible to complete. Simple, seemingly useless actions are repeated to the point of absurdity and stopped only when the possibility of going on without end is suggested. The work is concerned with the impossibility of eternity."

Japanese linen

"The beautiful Yuzen-dyed Shirayuki towels comes from Nara, an ancient capital city of Japan near Kyoto, are made of a fabric that was once woven into mosquito nets called "kaya". These cloths are very soft, durable and absorbent and are perfect for using as dish cloths and wash/hand towels. Over time, the cloths become really soft and supple, and eventually they make great rags. The starch needs to be washed off before the first use. "

""Furoshiki" is a Japanese wrapping cloth that has traditionally been used for transporting gifts, clothes, grocery shopping, etc. Today, furoshiki is becoming very popular in Japan as "eco-friendly" material. Traditionally, "furoshiki" cloth is only to carry gifts and is not to give with a gift that is wrapped inside but to keep it and re-use endlessly. "

""Hana Hukin" is a beautiful cotton cloth made of pure cotton fabric formerly used as mosquito netting which is a specialty of Nara Prefecture, Japan. Mosquito netting fabric (kaya) has high absorbency and durability and is perfect in dishcloths. The cloths are large yet thin, easily folded for use and then spread out to dry. Over time, the cloths become soft and supple, and eventually, they make good rags. "

It's true - some fabrics do not "make good rags", and you end up buying paper towels.

(For more, much more, on "fancy" and traditional Japanese fabrics, and techniques, visit John Marshall's blog, johnmarshall.to/blog)

Painted shibori

Some samples, made with lots of running stitch, pulled up tight, and then painted with textile paint. The water seeps into the fabric (this is cotton) and leaves the pigment on the outside folds.

I pulled out the strings and reused them. Mindless busy-work!

Boro

Karen brought this lovely book in to college -

These repaired hemp clothes come from the north of the main island of Japan -
Worn and patched by the poorest people, they are now covetable and collectable -
This underskirt brings pojagi to mind -

Peter Collingwood

Sad to hear that Peter Collingwood has died. Known as a weaver, he qualified and worked as a doctor for a while. His online but unfinished autobiography makes delightful reading.

His 1998 book "The Maker's Hand: a close look at textile structures" is based on the objects he collected during 35 years of weaving life. Sometimes he just had to acquire something so he could decipher its puzzling technique. He says: "Although structure is all-important, the physical characteristic of an object is naturally also influenced by the material used in its making. The resulting interaction between material and structure is an absorbing study.

"Studying traditional objects in detail, not just admiring them, brings to light the ingenious ways in which their makers exploited the possibilities and overcame the limitations of both material and structure. Behind my magnifying goggles, looking closely, I feel I have made journeys into the minds of these skilled anonymous makers; journeys which have greatly increased my respect for them."
Page 104 shows "probably what is still my favourite textile"; he says: "Eating in his tent in the Jordan Valley in 1950, I only asked the Sheikh Abu Achmed Mansour where a woven hanging was made. I carefully did not admire it. But even so he signed to his son, who whipped out a knife, cut it down and placed it rolled up in front of me."

He has also written books on sprang and on tablet weaving. Here, he talks about split-ply braiding, "a technique originally tied exclusively to camel trappings" and there are photos of completely new interpretations building on this technique.

As with so many craftspeople and artists, there is no page for him on Wikipedia.

Transformation

Inspired by Deb Lacativa's "summer garden" and Jude Hill's work, as well as by Dijanne's "traveller's blanket", I've set about transforming what was once a stained tablecloth.It will stay in the tablecloth category, but move into the subcategories "special cloth" and "picnic blanket".
Once the front is done, the centre of the circle gets cut away and another patch added. Or not.

Why cloth?

The nature of materials is a little niggle that lives in my brain. Why are you or I drawn to choosing and using a certain kind of drawing medium, a particular type of cloth - or cloth in general, a particular kind of knitting wool - even that favourite pen, or by extension a certain mug for breakfast coffee and a different one for afternoon tea?
The question surfaced when I was reading about how sculptor David Nash chooses certain kinds of wood for certain projects -- because of his experience of what these woods will do, how they will behave.

Ceramicist Jun Kaneko too knows the properties and limits of clay and works with it accordingly.

In Inuit culture, and no doubt other traditional cultures around the world, the job of the artist (if indeed there is such a word in that tradition) is to release the spirit of the material, eg ivory or bone, that is being worked.

Weaver Sue Lawty produces another insight, in the catalogue to an exhibition called "The Fine Art of Tapestry Weaving": she is fascinated with "how a simple thread combined with the unique hand mark of the weaver, can have such a bearing on how a cloth looks and holds itself".

"The unique mark of the maker" underlies all art making, of course. The maker/artist, the material, the cascade of choices. The connections to tradition, the veering off into individuality. The combinations of circumstances.

It all keeps swirling around in the brain!

Starts this week

... and runs till 12 July, in Dudley (near Birmingham). Its 48 pieces measuring 30cm x 120cm include my "With Every Heartbeat", which started as a journal quilt --Also "north of Watford", in the autumn Cloth & Culture Now moves to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. I saw it in Norwich yesterday (its last day there) and found a revelation about what's being done with textiles in the Baltic states, which of course were occupied by the USSR for several decades. Textile traditions were one way of retaining national identity (in Estonia and perhaps Latvia and Lithuania too, singing/music was another) - but the works on show moved beyond tradition. Others of the 35 artists represented come from Finland, Japan and the UK, and the show includes 3D, which is not surprising, and video - which is.

Good start to a Saturday

How long does it take to make a recipe? A week to get around to buying the beans, another week to find a window of opportunity - and then you discover a vital ingredient is missing. So at 7am it was off across the road to Tesco to get olive oil ... and to discover that some of their school supplies are now on sale - including packs of erasers - needed for Visual Exercise 2, 30 Days of Cutting Stamps (in "Finding Your Own Visual Language by Dunnewold, Benn & Morgan). The book suggests cutting a stamp every day for a month - or six stamps during a sitting. At the bottom are some I prepared earlier -

The new erasers looked a bit small so I bought just one pack (at 36p). They're a bit fiddlier than those from Superstore in Pitt Meadows, which cost 99 cents for a pack of 5, but not impossible to use.

This morning I grabbed an old sketchbook, opened it at random, and used a few lines from an image on the page. Dabbed black Liquitex onto the stamp with a small sponge brush, then went to town on a bit of recycled sheeting, trying out variations from the rigid lines on the left to the helter-skelter on the right, thinking about patterning and negative space. The blobby bits where the stamp hadn't been cut away enough were initally annoying, but they have potential as adding some life to the patterning. Dyed, this could become usable fabric.
"Fagioli nel fiasco" is traditionally made in a chianti bottle (blown, not moulded) with toscanelli beans, garlic, sage, olive oil, and salt and pepper - slow simmered, and served with sausages or roast pork, or as a simple first course with bread. I reckon it will reheat beautifully.

Discharge - a taster

In the first day of Bob's workshop we used chlorine bleach and discovered the various colours we could get from the cottons we'd brought. You had to work fast applying the bleach. The next day was much more exciting - we used thiox and also formisol, which work on silk and wool as well as cotton. You didn't have to rush the application, as the colour appeared (along with the toxic fumes) when you ironed the now-dry fabric. Here it comes:

And you can somewhat control the depth of colour (or rather, of discharge) during the ironing. And then rinse out, dry, apply more, dry, iron more ... etc ...

X's

A bit of textile stuff, for a change -- screenprinted, then batiked. Not sure if I want to stitch these at all.


The rows of dots are made with a sponge brush, cut into "teeth"; the V shapes are done with a folded bit of cardboard.

Coincidence?

After seeing all that graffiti on walls and doors, I found some more while tidying up the "handpainted fabric" drawer. It's just daubs of paint ["mark making"], now - but chosen bits and be recombined and transcend their random origin.

Which gets me thinking, again, about randomness vs intentionality. About "going with the flow" vs taking control. About input and output.

El Anatsui

A Ghanaian sculptor who, with his helpers, makes "cloths" out of discarded liquor bottle tops. The exhibition at the October Gallery (till 28 April) makes the point that this raw material is related to positive things - having a drink with friends - or negative effects - the deleterious effects of alcohol.This ambiguity is the raw material of art!
I love showing people the spectacular huge "cloth" in the African gallery in the basement of the British Museum. And there's a photo of it in my picture files .... somewhere ....