The Omnipresent Sound of the Loom

After a week and a half touring through Bhutan’s villages and cities, the thwap-thwap-thwap sounds of prayer flags flapping in the brisk mountain wind becomes the norm. As you near the many temples and chortens, the click-click of prayer wheels being whirled clockwise also fill the air as old men and women murmur mantras in hopes of obtaining merit. Around them the pigeons add their coo-coos as if they, too, seek merit from up above. But listen closely and underneath all these sounds is another quieter sound that barely registers but is omnipresent. Click-click-whir. Click-click-whir.

The sound of a hand loom being spun. Bhutanese women often sit before these looms for hours daily, weaving clothing, scarves and other items mainly for personal consumption and sometimes for sale. Most of the looms I saw in use were fixed vertical frames with pedals and a leather backstrap to support the woman’s lower back. The fibers mainly used were of silk and cotton, though the weavers are also known to use sturdier yak hair to make more durable water-resistant items such as tents and coats.

Whether in a weaving factory for women, an arts and crafts school where young girls are taught to refine their weaving techniques, a small shop where the proprietor’s daughter weaves for sale or even to a mountain top where a woman weaves in solitude, the craft of weaving in Bhutan carries on through the fingers of generations of women.

At the crest of a mountain, a young woman in her 20’s cheerfully spins out fabric. As we pass by, she encourages us to look over the few goods she has to her side. Most of the scarves she has made are rough as the silk comes from silkworms that are allowed to escape, preventing the silk from being unrolled smoothly and breaking coarsely instead. In the Buddhist tradition, the killing of any animal, including silkworms, is forbidden. She releases her hands from the loom and spreads her hands before us, holding all ten fingers aloft. Ten days. That is how long it takes her to make one scarf. She smiles shyly at us, her teeth not yet rotted from chewing betel, and returns to her work.

In Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, we visit a famed arts and crafts school where young girls work hard to master the craft of Bhutanese weaving. These girls are mostly aged 17 to 25 and come from all over the land, though most are from the east where the weavers are regarded as the best. Competition amongst weavers is spreading in Bhutan and these young girls hope to take home grown skills and develop them into something more akin to fine art.

Bhutan is still remote and not well-travelled. Bhutanese women are especially shy, as young girls giggle when walking by in vibrant kiras, the traditional dress for women and girls, dipping their heads and sneaking peeks at us from the corners of their eyes. At a local festival, several young girls dress in their finest kiras, hoping to look as beautiful as possible and attract the eye of a young gentlemen suitor.

When we visit a small handicraft store in Paro, I literally stumble over a young woman sitting on the floor, her back braced by the leather strap as she diligently threads and pulls the silk between the loom bits. In soft, broken English, she explains that she is working on an especially high quality kira. When I ask her how long it takes her to make one kira, she struggles with her answer and our guides assists.

“Two to three months,” he tells us, his hands clasped behind his back. “For one kira.”

“How long does she work every day?” I ask, looking uncertainly at the compact dirt floor and the cramped space of the storeroom. A brief discussion follows.

“Nine to ten hours,” he announces.

“Nine to ten hours?” I ask in disbelief. I am certain he has misunderstood.

He bends closer to the woman and they exchange soft words. He stands up straight and repeats himself. “Nine to ten hours a day she work,” he says firmly.

“Does she take a lunch break?” I ask in horror.

He translates the question for her, and the proprietor of the store joins in their laughter.

“Only for a few minutes,” our guide says. “Just to eat quickly. She is from Mongar, in the East,” he adds as if that explains everything.

Later that night at dinner, our guide reveals that his mother is also a weaver.

“Of course,” I say aloud, remembering that he too is from the east of Bhutan, from a town called Trashigang that is even more remote than Mongar.

“My mother weave her whole life, but only for the family,” he explains as he dips a ball of rice into a fried beef and cheese dip. Popping it into his mouth, he chews slowly and says, “Now she cannot see anymore so she stop weaving. She would like for me to buy her glasses.”

“Will you?” I ask.

He shrugs, popping another butter, cheese and rice combination into his mouth. “She has 62 years now. I tell her she is too old. That it is better if she just goes to the temple to do her prayers with the other old people.”

Astonished, I tell him that’s crazy. Of course he needs to help his mother if he can. I also try to explain that 62 is really not that old.

“Maybe I buy them for her,” he finally relents. “But I know that if she can see with these glasses she will not stop weaving. Then her eyes only get worse and worse. And I will again have to buy more glasses for her. And so it will go. She will never stop weaving as long as she can see. This is how it is.”

Jody Madala is a world traveler and contributor to HAND/EYE Magazine.

A photo essay

Having worked throughout Central Asia on artisan business development for more than a decade, I've found that the hands of the artisan touch everyday life in Central Asia in a way that is unique to the region:  sheared sheep provide wool that is felted by hand into yurt dwellings, men throughout Central Asia wear embroidered skull caps that immediately identify their area of origin through their shape and pattern, rounded loaves of bread that bear delicate pin-pricked floral patterns in their centers are cooked in tandoor ovens made by local potters, women embroider suzani to pack into ornate, brightly painted trunks until their wedding day as part of their dowry, glazed handmade tiles adorn mosques and madrassas and gleam in the sun. The landscape, which varies from mountain peaks to steppe and dessert, is punctuated with vibrant color from people's dress, turquoise tiles and pottery, embroidery, carpets, painting and other ornaments.

The set of images you see here are from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It is easy to see specifically how the rich variety of textiles -- ranging from everyday dress to intricate embroideries used only for special occasions -- offers a true feast for the eyes.
Image descriptions:

A Hazara woman wearing traditional dress embroiders in Kabul, Afghanistan.
 
Embroidery made by returning refugees for sale in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The embroidery stitch known as Hanjar dozi or tar shumar is a thread count stitch often done in an all-over diamond pattern.
 
Women watch a concert in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
 
A market vendor shows off his gold embroidered wares in a market in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Originally reserved for the emir, gold embroidery is now widely used on everyday objectsÖ including tea cozies!
 
Embroidered skullcaps immediately identify the origin of the wearer. In this case, the caps are embroidered in the style of Shakrisabz, Uzbekistan in a scorpion pattern, which is said to protect the wearer from harm
 
Machine embroidered cushion covers for sale in Shakrisabz, Uzbekistan. The Soviets collectivized everything, including embroidery, and large machine embroidery factories were created in this region of Uzbekistan. Today the machines have been dispersed to private individuals and womenís organizations that continue producing goods using distinct Shakrisabz patterns.
 
In the southern village of Boysun, Uzbekistan, two hours north of the Aghan border, a master weaver teaches two apprentices to weave.
 
The hands of the master weaver are strong and skilled.
 
Two women in the Surkhandariya region of Uzbekistan show off the tradition of ìok en kilim,î which is unique to the southern region, where strips of embroidery are combined with strips of hand woven kilim carpets.
 
Rolls of hand woven ketene silk in rainbow hues for sale in the Tolkuchka market, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
 
Market women take a rest from selling in the green bazaar in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Handmade puppets await their performance in the puppet theater in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Hajer Massaoudi’s Woven Accessories

Hajer Massaoudi greets her guests at her workshop in Tunis, Tunisia, they are ushered in at sunset and crowd around her small work table. Time is tight as is the space. Antique garments are lined one wall. Tea is offered and a laptop is produced. Hajer shows the garments that she’s amassed over the last several years and after the first few, encrusted with hand-made details and alive with color though fading, she almost forgets why she has these American visitors viewing her work. Tight on time, the team has to review Hajer’s collection of palm fiber accessories and make a very important selection, and it is getting late. The Americans have two more stops to make and the light is leaving fast.
 
Originally a dress designer, Hajer’s vision is to lead a renaissance of traditional arts and craftsmanship in her homeland of Tunisia along with her brother, Mohamed, who is housed next door collecting Tunisian artifacts and designing and creating home décor.
 
Hajer is one of the lucky few who have been chosen along with eleven others artisans to go to New York City for a craft event sponsored by the Tunisian American chamber of commerce (TACC). The event is geared to introduce these artisans to the American market in hopes of garnering them some sales, exposure, and publicity.
 
In Hajer’s woven reinterpretations, traditional palm fibers and sisal are woven into high-end hand bags and totes lined with hand woven cottons, wools or silks that are often dyed naturally with vegetable dyes such as henna, pomegranate and turmeric. Then they are expertly trimmed with finely hammered copper accents that she designs. Elegant and contemporary, they are evocative of tiles and arabesques seen in ancient architecture or leafy vines found climbing the walls in Sidi Bou Said. She collaborates with teams of men and women adapting their rich traditions into thoroughly modern styles.
 
The TACC team ponders the entire collection. It is hard to make a selection, and they want them all: the round ones, or maybe the rectangular ones, definitely the square ones, and certainly an assortment of large and small sizes. There are those with hammered handles and those trimmed with hammered beads and long flowing hand-made tassels. Copper metal trims finished in bright nickel for an inviting silver luster, run along top edges, and outline the bags like delicately framed artwork, or are centered for maximum impact.
 
Their selections are finally made; and they don’t leave much behind, for Hajer’s work is just too beautiful. Once the Americans leave, the sun sets over the dusty Tunis roads. They comment amongst themselves about beauty woven into the fiber of mesmerizing Tunis, the awe-inspiring craftsmanship that is has been part of the country heritage and tradition for centuries, and the honor to have met a 21st century master of her craft.
 
To view Hajer’s work, please visit Carthage Handcraft Show, November 30th through December 3rd at the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington Avenue, #504, New York, NY 10016.

Collaboration, decoration, and folk fabric

Ghana is home to several large ethnic groups, including the Ashanti, who live in and around the city of Kumasi. Many Ashanti villages specialize in craft production, with men performing most of the tasks. Techniques are usually passed down from father or uncle to sons and nephews. Each piece is usually a group effort rather than the work of a single artist. A very special village, Ntonso, northeast of Kumasi, is home to both printed adinkra cloth and the Boakye family, who work very hard to keep the tradition alive.

Although hand-woven cotton was utilized in the past, today pieces of machine-woven fabric are joined together by hand or with a sewing machine and then hand-printed to produce large adinkra cloths that are stylishly wrapped around the bodies of women and men attending funerals and other special events.

Dark Adinkra aduro pigment is made in Ntonso by soaking, pulverizing, and then boiling the inner bark and roots of the Badie tree (Adansonia digitata) in water over a wood fire. Once the dark color has been released, the mixture is strained, and then boiled for several more hours until it thickens.

In preparation for stamping, cotton material that has been sewn together into a large square or rectangle is folded lengthwise, with one edge exposed. A thin layer of foam rubber is laid over a few boards, then the top and bottom of the strip are nailed in place, then parallel and perpendicular lines (printed with a comb dipped into adinkra duro) divide the cloth into sections. After choosing several appropriate symbols from a chart, the corresponding stamps are selected.

The placement of the motifs is first determined by stamping in the air just over the fabric, then after the spacing has been figured out, the stamp is dipped into the colorant, excess is shaken off, then one edge is placed on down and rocked across the surface to the other edge. The same stamp is then re-dipped into the colorant and printed, over an over until the section has been filled.

After printing the first part of the fabric, the nails are removed, the printed section is moved over and another section is revealed. The new top and bottom edges are tacked to the boards and then printing continues, while the finished part rests face up on the ground to dry.

Adinkra aduro is not colorfast, so after being washed, it is refreshed with another dye bath and then reprinted.

Not everyone can afford to buy traditionally prepared adinkra, so several production techniques have developed to meet the demand for less expensive adinkra. Pricier adinkra is still printed with hand-carved calabash stamps and adinkra aduro onto fine cloth. More affordable adinkra is screen-printed onto less expensive fabric with water-based ink. Both printing techniques feature old and new adinkra symbols that represent a variety of proverbs, beliefs, and philosophies. Another trend is to embroider together several pieces of commercially printed cloth into large adinkra-styled cloths.

Adinkra symbols are very popular in Ghana, not only do they appear on cloths, but they are also incorporated into jewelry, advertisements, and even architectural decoration. My favorite place to see them, though, is on the adinkra that I purchased – the black one being printed in the photos here and the white one on my web page at http://iweb.tntech.edu/cventura/Adinkra.htm.

Dr. Carol Ventura is the art historian at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville. Her interest in art, crafts, and history has led her to find and document craftspeople around the world. Her home page at http://iweb.tntech.edu/cventura/ includes links to wood, fiber, glass, clay, and metal crafts and their makers.

Collaborations with WomenCraft

In 2009, German designer Alexandra Joy Jaeckel used her design talents and expertise to  design a beautiful line of hand-crafted baskets and gourds. She collaborated with WomenCraft, a fair trade social enterprise which partners with artisans throughout Western Tanzania. Her volunteer trip to Africa enabled her to work directly with the artisans, expanding their product line by designing a traditional, yet modern collection. The goal was to help distinguish WomenCraft in the marketplace. Alexandra says, “It’s the most rewarding task for me to design ‘with people for people’.” She adds, “Working together with artisan communities allows me to combine my extensive product design background, strong interest in color and material trends with my handcraft skills.”
 
While working with rural Tanzanian and Burundian women, Alexandra utilized traditional coiling techniques, while incorporating natural fibers such as bamboo sticks, gourds, and brightly colored Ugwafu grasses. She also experimented with weaving twisted Kitenge textiles into these pieces. This resulting fabric is a common form of dress worn by many East African women.
 
Alexandra has a talent for designing decorative, yet functional pieces. She moved away from the traditional flat woven patterns and was interested in creating three-dimensional designs to dramatize the product’s appearance. These products were meant to be timeless, so only the smallest of adjustments need to be made to stay up with the latest color trends.
 
In order to familiarize herself with the region, she researched and gathered information concerning Tanzania’s cultural background, handicraft traditions, and the environment. Upon arrival, she spent quality time with the master artisans, understanding the artisan’s skills and taking note of the materials available. Her goal was “to develop a mutually respectful and trusting partnership which fostered fruitful interaction and open dialogue.”
 
Ideas for this collection were influenced by Tanzania’s array of natural materials and simplistic beauty. For example, the “Kata” basket was inspired by the Kata, a woven ring that is commonly used to balance a bundle of firewood or bucket of water on top of one’s head. The “Kuska” basket means twist in Swahili inspired by the plaits seen in African hairstyles. The “Joey” collection combines the dried gourd with vibrant Kitenge textiles taken from the practice of carrying bundles wrapped in fabric.
 
Alexandra started out with baskets and expanded into gourds after realizing how incredibly time-consuming it was to weave a single basket. When working with these artisans, she found there to be a mutual exchange of ideas. She adds, “WomenCraft artisans taught me how a dried gourd must be prepared in order to get a shiny surface and how to punch holes into it with a hot needle. I showed them how to add the crocheted rim. In return the artisans came up with a new design on their own adding a woven basket rim to it.”  She concludes with, “The most rewarding and exiting part of the creative process for me is when the development becomes truly collaborative…when we inspire one another.”
 
Alexandra is the founder of Design Guide, which offers consulting services, tailored the needs and requirements of rural artisan communities. Please visit www.productdesign-guide.com and www.womencraft.org for more details.

The Textiles of the Mapuche

The Mapuche people say, “We are part of nature, and nature is part of us.” They are a culture rich in tradition and religion, settled throughout the lush forests and mountain terrain of Southern Chile and Northwestern Argentina. For countless generations, weaving has played an integral role in the lives of Mapuche women. This ancient craft is being revived with the help of Cholchol, a Chilean based non-profit organization, empowering over 200 women artisans. These textiles are more than beautiful pieces of art, but centuries of history that speak of the Mapuche’s profound connection to their land.

These woven fabrics were traditionally made as functional pieces in soft, earthy colors including blankets, ponchos, blankets, and shawls. They are rich with motifs, telling ancient stories about their close relationship between the living and their ancestors. Women incorporate symbolic abstract figures, which are represented by diamonds, zigzags, geometrical lines, crosses, medicinal plants, stars, eyes, snakes and more. For example, geometric eyes symbolize are the window of one’s soul and diamonds signify containers used for storing and distributing ceremonial drinks. These symbols capture concepts of union, community, spiritual forces, charisma, levels of prestige, and the earth's elements.
 
The Andean cross is commonly represented on the “Trarikan” ponchos worn by “lonkos” or chiefs. This is an intricate weaving and dying technique otherwise known as “ikat,” which is passed down to specific weavers within a community. These ponchos are particularly sacred and respected, embodying a sense of pride, status, wealth, masculinity, social ranking, and adulthood. They are often given as gifts and used for various ceremonies. This garment is distinguished by the interlocking geometric patterns, representing “the infinite.” They are exceptional in their bold cross pattern of black and white and occasionally seen in shades of red and deep purple. Black represents the color of a noble man and the deep red tones are associated with authority and blood, a sign of life energy.
 
The most commonly seen Mapuche technique is called the “Nimikan,” which is widely practiced today. Both techniques are made on a vertical loom called a “Huicha Huichahue,” which means “standing on the floor”. All patterns and symbols come from one’s mind, where the weavers become architects, mathematically dividing and calculating the number of horizontal and vertical threads used on the loom.
 
The weavings are not only unique in their iconography, but in the connection that is made between the artisan and their work. Johanna Perez Ray from the Cholchol foundation says, “When a women completes a weaving, it is like giving birth to something.” They take pride in this craft and feel it is important to be a part of the process from start to finish.  A spiritual bond is formed as all materials are sourced from one’s land, from the fruits and vegetables used to make their natural dyes to the sheep that they raise for their wool. These pieces are cultural expressions which are regaining value, and therefore allow the Mapuche women to work from home, reviving and sustaining their traditional ways of living.
 
For more information, please contact Johanna Perez Ray at Johanna@cholchol.org or visit www.cholchol.org.

Japan’s NUNO pushes textiles into the future

NUNO in Japanese translates simply to ‘cloth’—an uncomplicated word that lacks pretension. Textiles created by NUNO Corporation may appear simple but are synonymous with innovative textiles that are an amalgam of traditional techniques, complex technologies and new finishing processes—as you would expect from this Tokyo-based conceptual think-tank for textiles.

Reiko Sudo and Junichi Arai founded NUNO Corporation in 1984 in Tokyo. As Creative Director since 1987, Sudo has steered it to international prominence, producing cutting-edge fabrics. The company is small, comprised of 12 ‘NUNO members’ all of whom are designers. The studio follows an egalitarian approach. Everyone participates and does all parts of the business. Everyone is involved in the design process, there is a sharing of concepts and ideas that are then implemented and put into work. The company has no mills or factories of its own; production comes about as a result of interlinking local weaving and dyeing communities throughout Japan. NUNO has a flagship store in Tokyo’s Roppongi area, and retails at additional outlets in Japan and internationally.

In its twenty-seven year history, NUNO has produced over 2000 original textiles, 40 of which have been acquired into the collections of major museums around the world, including MoMA, V&A, Cooper Hewitt, and the Tokyo National Museum.

Traditional fibers of cotton, linen, silk, and wool are meshed with synthetic polyester, copper, stainless steel, feathers or newspaper, or intertwined with banana fibers. Yarns with different shrink ratios are woven together and then heated to produce sculptural, dimensional textiles. Burmese newspaper is melded with transparent polyester; stainless steel is sprayed onto polyester fabric. Chemically reprocessed Okinawan banana fiber is coated on cotton and machine woven into jacquards inspired by African Kuba cloth. Rust from deliberately oxidized iron panels is transferred onto rayon fabric to create a beautiful surface patina. These are just a few examples of the boundaries that Sudo and her team have broken through. There are no limitations.

The result? Textiles that are un-paralleled, unique, dimensional and of course beautiful. Most of the collection is mass-produced in mills, while preserving the spirit of handmade textiles. NUNO also has relationships with artisan weavers and dyers who have preserved Japan’s age-old skills. They have been able to create a link between tradition and technology through the support, flexibility and intuition of these artisans when experimenting with their new approaches.

Among NUNO’s recent introductions, “Origami Pleats” originated from one NUNO member’s habit of folding up lunch receipts into beautiful little origami shapes. This inspired Reiko-san, so folded a polyester fabric at sharp angles, dyed it in three separate hues, and then pleated it with a NUNO-patented process. It is all done by hand, and is such a remarkable textile that examples of it are owned by no fewer than eleven prestigious museums around the world.

“Phosphorescent Baby Hair” is a textile that stores sunlight during the day and glows at night. It is made from natural minerals and inorganic substances that will emit light almost indefinitely.

Most recently, Sudo and her team are involved in an innovative project close to Sudo’s heart- the development of “Kibiso” silk. In 2007, Reiko-san had visited Tsuruoka, one of two existing silk producing areas in Japan. In a corner of the mill were piles of silk “roughage” called “kibiso”, the rough outermost hull of the silk cocoons that is traditionally discarded. Resilient as spun metal and dense as bone, Kibiso fibers are secreted by the silkworm to form the outer shell of the cocoon. The stiff texture boasts important properties: it is almost pure sericin protein. Non-toxic, hypoallergenic and antioxidant—hence its inclusion in many skin care products- it is now known that sericin excels at blocking out harmful UV rays. It was “love at first sight” and she was inspired to do something with this ‘waste’ and took some home and began experimenting. She approached a couple of mills with the project, but the fiber was too dense and it was not possible to produce industrially.

During that time, Reiko-san met Natalie Chanin at a conference in New York. Inspired by Chanin’s “Alabama Chanin” project of organizing local seamstresses, including retired folk, to produce handmade apparel, she started a kibiso hand-weaving project amongst the local, retired women of Tsuruoka. This was successful and they started producing some bags of kibiso silk for commercial sales.

Using her philosophy of finding new directions and pushing limits, Sudo persevered and has devised a couple of new directions of using kibiso—chemically re-engineering it and creating a gel to print on the surface of fabrics, thus giving the fabric a UV coating and secondly, spinning kibiso fiber floss with organic cotton fibers to make a UV-safe blend. In Spring-Summer 2010, NUNO began selling six different kibiso fabric. One is now in the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, as ewll as two other US museums.

NUNO hopes to get funding to expand research and production of kibiso. They want to cultivate ecological awareness and responsible use of resources amongst end-users and to spread kibiso-making techniques to other silk-making countries. This direction in creative recycling, paired with cutting-edge design, is a signature of NUNO and its vision of a better world—one fabric at a time.

For more information on NUNO, visit www.nuno.com. Author Seema Krish designed for NUNO for several years before creating her own textile line. Visit www.seemakrish.com.

Gizella Warburton’s contemporary textiles

If you were to ask me to describe my work and the materials I use in a few brief sentences. I would say the following:

‘trace and echo ... mark and resonance ... materiality and meaning'

Contemporary textile and mixed media pieces for interior spaces.

Framed, hanging and sculptural artworks and installations. Developments include works on slate and weathered wood grounds, printed and woven elements, and sculptural forms and vessels.

However, my work is more complex and it explores an intuitive response to linear, textural and light detail within landscape and surface. These abstract compositions evolve through the tactile and contemplative process of drawing with paper, cloth and thread. Mark making is an intrinsic part of my practice: shadowed, scratched, stained, scarred, pierced, wrapped and stitched.

My relationship with creating is visceral: I “feel” where the work emanates from, where it is leading and as I ‘see’ it. The materiality of cloth, paper, thread, wood and paint connects me to an innate human urge to make marks—to decipher the meaning of our physical and emotional landscapes, and the transient nature of the warp and weft of our lives. The slow tactile intimacy of stitching is my mantra.

After I received a first class honors degree in Printed and Woven textiles at Manchester Metropolitan University, my practice has its origins in stitched cloths. Techniques are not “formal” and, though undoubtedly rooted in embroidery and patchwork, I experiment with numerous processess and refine them, seeking to describe the way elements have imprinted themselves in my mind.

Fragments of materials are brought together in a similar way to collage or assemblage, with tiny holding stitches to capture layers. I then create gestural marks with threads, paint, charcoal, etc. Dyeing and printing and techniques may be included, and I occasionally embellish areas. Recently I have reintroduced weaving to my practice and sometimes use felting and papermaking techniques.

Developments in my three-dimensional pieces have challenged me to find ways to make the forms I conceptualise, and to consider the compositional relationship of materials, as in my two-dimensional collage based pieces.

I am drawn to materials that suggest a fragile balance; strength and legacy, yet susceptibility to wear and tear, permeating them with their own intrinsic tactile qualities.

I have always found ancient and humble textiles and primitive vessel forms particularly compelling; the raw and worn simplicity of the weaving, stitching, binding and repairing bear the patina of our human histories.

Japanese boro textiles, Indian kanthe cloths, and the simple quilts of the Saami beggar caste; these fragments of cloth and thread hold traces of the rhythms and movements of human hand and thought, time and place.

A line changes in relation to the materials it touches, as it travels, encircles, wraps and pierces, and  the fibers, creases and shadows of paper, textile, stone, and eroded surfaces, form their own linear traceries. The harmonies or tensions created by the way a line meets, crosses, disappears, or is interwoven with others, resonates with my own experiences of relationships and places.

As part of a new venture initiated by Creative Twinning and Design Factory, two organisations who support the development of Contemporary Craft in the UK, I have been selected to exhibit work at the Textile Arts Center in Manhattan in October 2013. This event forms part of a wider mission in conjunction with Parsons New School of Design in New York, who are hosting a “Craft Conversation” with British and American craftmakers and artists on October 10th.

This new relationship promises to be an exciting and enriching opportunity to share dialogue around  approaches to making, and to explore possibilities for collaborative projects “across the waters.”