Monday, October 22, 2007
Garlic !
Ah - spring - and nothing like a fresh garland of garlic. I just bought this one from a vendor who came to the gate a few minutes ago. Why would anyone here in Montevideo buy powdered garlic or crushed in a jar (with preservatives) when the wonderful fresh stuff can be had, so beautifully presented, and in such quantity for about US $8-50 ?We always have one hanging on the back of the kitchen door. I will give at least half of this one away - we can't get through all this, even though we eat a lot of it, there's still a bit of the previous one, seriously drying out now, from the same guy 6 months ago. Of course in addition to imparting wonderful flavour, fresh garlic wards off colds and the dreaded grippe, they say. We know it wards off anyone else too, if you have been eating a lot of it!
So -this is today's textile note - click on the image to get closer to the wonderfully plaited leaves that hold the whole thing together.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A Totally Memorable Exhibition
To the right is the catalogue for a wonderful exhibition I was fortunate to see in the new Musee
du Quai Branley in Paris, just a short walk from the Eiffel Tower.
The exhibition was of African artefacts, all of which showed some repair having been made. I had never thought before of how repairing something indicates it's value to the owner or to the community to which it belongs, but it does. And in addition, the aesthetic sense if altered, too, so that the mend may compete with the originally intended value. A lot to think about there. The pieces came mostly from the vast collection of the Branley itself, some from the Louvre and other sources. The curators remind us that museums usually select intact works from their collections to show, although at any time most museums hold plenty of other damaged or repaired material
There were fabulous items incluiding some some wooden, some precious metal, textile and some ceramic- and a huge variety of techniques were used in the mending processes. The cover illustration is a detail of a beautifully incised gourd vessel, standing about 12" high. It had broken for some reason - so holes were drilled and leather strips applied over the break and leather thonging 'sewn' or threaded through the holes to hold it all together. Naturally, when I saw this and a number of other examples of 'sewing' I was reminded of work I am interested in doing such as this example, above left, which I first blogged on July 4th last.
This exhibition was a real inspiration to me to continue to explore in this vein, and I am currently samplising. I have some leather thonging and some string, and can see something 'rustico' with either tan leather or suede and have some of each very nicely stained and splattered...
du Quai Branley in Paris, just a short walk from the Eiffel Tower.
The exhibition was of African artefacts, all of which showed some repair having been made. I had never thought before of how repairing something indicates it's value to the owner or to the community to which it belongs, but it does. And in addition, the aesthetic sense if altered, too, so that the mend may compete with the originally intended value. A lot to think about there. The pieces came mostly from the vast collection of the Branley itself, some from the Louvre and other sources. The curators remind us that museums usually select intact works from their collections to show, although at any time most museums hold plenty of other damaged or repaired material
There were fabulous items incluiding some some wooden, some precious metal, textile and some ceramic- and a huge variety of techniques were used in the mending processes. The cover illustration is a detail of a beautifully incised gourd vessel, standing about 12" high. It had broken for some reason - so holes were drilled and leather strips applied over the break and leather thonging 'sewn' or threaded through the holes to hold it all together. Naturally, when I saw this and a number of other examples of 'sewing' I was reminded of work I am interested in doing such as this example, above left, which I first blogged on July 4th last.
This exhibition was a real inspiration to me to continue to explore in this vein, and I am currently samplising. I have some leather thonging and some string, and can see something 'rustico' with either tan leather or suede and have some of each very nicely stained and splattered...
I apologise for the layout - something to do with the positioning of the photos on the right this a time although it has been sucessful before .... and when I deleted a word or two it got rid of the image..... which I have replaced with one upl;oaded in the editing phase - I find such occasional quirks and whims of Blogger's unpredictable design ideas quite irritating at times, but since this is the third time I've tried to correct the layout! and dinner awaits, as they say in the Toyota ads - bugrit.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Beneath the Surface Level
On a members-only SAQA critique blog the other day, Kristin LaFlamme posted a work in progress, continuing with a theme she is following, of those of us who have nomadic lifestyles and the issue of putting down roots, or feeling the need to, or indeed feeling the absence of roots. She showed a pic of lots of little houses along the top with a huge void beneath, and talked of how she plans to go on, options, etc. I commented that her image reminded me of this work of mine, executed in 1985 or 1986, and said I'd try to find it and post it on this blog. so it's the subject today, as it has prompted me in several ways.We were living in a town we had lived some years earlier, the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. In our first stint there we had been living in a house up on a company mining lease. The lovely park-like setting for these houses was actually atop a slime dump (underground waste material) beneath which were large caverns remaining after ore had been mined decades previously. It always bothered me to think of what was below, and I was never so glad as when we drove off those leases for the last time. We went back, to live again, another company, years later - and then saw that what is now called the Super Pit, had already been started to mine the area beneath those housing areas. And they have long since gone. It's now a vast pit, kilometeres long and who knows how deep. (I'm sure there's masses of stuff to google on Kalgoorlie, the Super Pit, and related links - I haven't looked though)
How I felt about that time and situation was expressed in this stitchery, entitled "On The Golden Mile" and included in a solo exhibition of embroidery I had in 1987. The background was lightly spray painted, the minute stitchery done in either danish flower thread or single or double strands of stranded embroidery thread/floss. There's lots of running stitch, standard and and long stemmed french knots, and fly stitch used in various ways in the vegetation. From memory, the overall dimensions are about 16" x 14", and so the houses and trees are pretty small ! and very small by comparison with the vastness of the open cut pit that has already been commenced below.
It is one thing to look back over work done back in the past, not only from the point of being struck by amazement at doing this kind of thing (my eyes were so much younger then) but further thoughts develop, principal among them ideas on where I was and what I was then preoccupied with, and how these things tie in with where I am now. Interesting.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
"A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever"
That holds true for textiles as long as they have been properly cared for, of course.In France I could not resist this antique handkerchief/mouchoir, of hand embroidered linen batiste, from the late C19th I bought in the town of Bayeux, Normandy, where the antique dealer says she deals only in items purchased from north western France, mostly textiles and her stock cinluded some lovely lace edged things. Modern bobbin lace is made in that town, too, but I thought this piece was far more interesting and beautiful than even some of the most stunning and wonderful stuff the ladies down the road were making as we watched. It's thin and soft, I like to think that it has been well used and carefully washed and stored between airings down the years.
About 14" square, it is a soft cream colour, photographed against black background. It is in very good condition with just a couple of teeny holes that could be moth holes. The opaque band is another layer of fabric appliqued to the front using minute stitching, and the decoration of that band is rows of satin stitched dots. The hand embroidery of the whole piece is so exquisite that you are hard pressed to tell the right from the wrong side in any part of it.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Quilting Motifs -Inspiration Is Everywhere
Top photo: one of many ceilings we saw in ancient temples and tombs in Upper Egypt, decorated with a pattern of long-armed, five-pointed stars. The stars appear on on ceilings to ensure they will be present in the Afterlife of the pharoah for whom the tomb or temple was built.
Lower photo: a free machine quilted motif of that star pattern on a recent quilt made of sheer fabrics, which I hope to have selected into SAQA Icons and Imagery Transformations '08.
For several years I have occasionally taught a quilting class, "Quilting With Attitude"
, for hand and machine quilters, the core point of the class being that inspiration for the quilting on a quilt can come from many sources. Quilting of course is the functional constructional element that holds the layers together in a quilt designed principally to warm a body on the bed. Traditionally the quilting pattern is dominated by the shapes on the top which it tends to echo or follow, and large open shapes are then filled with decorative motifs, feathers, flowers and other linear shapes. The rise of free machine quilting in the 1980's was popularised by several teachers and writers including Harriet Hargreaves, perhaps best known of these. Using the machine in with a traditional quilt design, the aim is often to try to replicate the traditional quilting patterns. Despite the claim by some that this saves a lot of time, it has never appeared to me that the equation is equal - if the time is saved technical excellence has always appeared to have been compromised. If the impeccable technical standards that characterise most traditional quilts is achieved, it really does take about the same amount of time to include in the process properly fastened off and hidden quilting threads, anchored so that they will not unravel or pop as the quilt is used. This does not apply to decorative wall quilts of course. This need to rush quilting ('saving time' by machine quilting, or make a quilt in a is a day classes) is sadly a product of the fast-paced lives many Westerners lead today.
, for hand and machine quilters, the core point of the class being that inspiration for the quilting on a quilt can come from many sources. Quilting of course is the functional constructional element that holds the layers together in a quilt designed principally to warm a body on the bed. Traditionally the quilting pattern is dominated by the shapes on the top which it tends to echo or follow, and large open shapes are then filled with decorative motifs, feathers, flowers and other linear shapes. The rise of free machine quilting in the 1980's was popularised by several teachers and writers including Harriet Hargreaves, perhaps best known of these. Using the machine in with a traditional quilt design, the aim is often to try to replicate the traditional quilting patterns. Despite the claim by some that this saves a lot of time, it has never appeared to me that the equation is equal - if the time is saved technical excellence has always appeared to have been compromised. If the impeccable technical standards that characterise most traditional quilts is achieved, it really does take about the same amount of time to include in the process properly fastened off and hidden quilting threads, anchored so that they will not unravel or pop as the quilt is used. This does not apply to decorative wall quilts of course. This need to rush quilting ('saving time' by machine quilting, or make a quilt in a is a day classes) is sadly a product of the fast-paced lives many Westerners lead today. There's a lot more to think about too, as many 'art quilt makers' or quilted textile artists, (myself included) produce smaller sized works for wall decoration. Despite using modern materials, dyes, printing inks and digital printing processes, and this smaller decorative format, they aren't necessarily 'Art'.
IMHO, a well chosen quilting motif or pattern adds another design element to a quilt and can enhance the value of the overall design; and just as easily a meaningless pattern with no connection to the quilt or one that looks merely routine, easy, a no brainer, can reduce the impact of the whole piece. One of the most popular no brainer quilting patterns around these days is the meandering or stippling, where the quilted line wanders like a little maze, or like electronic circuitry over the surface of the quilt. Now, this could also be totally appropriate to the underlying design, but as generally used, isn't. Dijanne Cevaal recently published a book of all-over machine quilting patterns she has come up with, "Seventy Two Ways Not to Meander or Stipple - Ideas for Free Machine Quilting", now available in english and french, in book form and cd: for ordering information follow the link on this page to her blog (Musings of a Textile Itinerant) posted October 6, 2006. A great starting point for opening the mind to the potential for machine quilting. Well, you could also do some of them by hand, too.... let's be open minded about all this.
Labels: motif, pattern quilting ideas
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The Fabled Bayeux Tapestry
Decades ago when I became interested in the art of the stitch, embroidery, I learned of and became intrigued by the medieval stitchery known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Of course it isn't a weaving, it is a stitched wall hanging in today's terms, telling the story of the Norman duke William's conquest over the English king, Harold at Hastings in 1066. As it is a textile, and from what we know of its peripatetic history, it is a miracle it has survived so long, but the exact details of who commissioned it and exactly where it was made are no longer clear. It was probably commissioned by a bishop half brother of William,and was completed by about 15 years after the event. Stitched in wool on a narrow band of linen fabric, the figures of men and animals in a cartoon-like sequence tell how the battle came about and graphically portray the preparations and aftermath. One of my favourite scenes records the presence in the skies of Halley's Comet during April, 1066 - isti mirant - latin, presumably they are looking, stella, star. It has just occurred to me I could get an on-line translation of that and will re-write that bit if I am way out. Anyway I love the comet image, upper right hand corner.
So, on our last day in France we hopped on a train out to Bayeux and spent the greater portion of the day viewing the Tapestry and enjoying the rest of the small city of 15,000. The exhibiton gallery for the tapestry is in an old seminary building near the cathedral, and in a dimly lit almost dark gallery, the piece of work is displayed at something between hip and shoulder height, lit from behind. We used the recorded commentary devices and were just entralled. The stitches are simple, there are only 5 colours I think, and all the background is left plain. It is amazing the details that have been achieved with simple stem or outline stitch and the couching technique styled in what has become known as Bauyeux stitch. In just this scene alone, wonderful little details are included: the rays of the comet, the cobblestones underfoot, the different tiles on roofs of buildings, the upturned admiring or anxious faces -( is this a portent?) and hands pointing to the comet, there are some hair details and some of the men even sport horizontally striped stockings. It's beautiful, it's lively and it's over 950 years old. Just the enormous age of this fragile thing gave me an attack of going weak at the knees. I was quite overcome with the the awsome way this textile speaks to us down the ages since it was made. I didn't vote and I don't know if it was on the recent list of what people voted for as a Wonder of The Modern World - but it should be up there. DH, who knew almost nothing about it before I started campaigning for going to Normandy to see it , was visibly very impressed once he understood its history and importance as a historic textile and as a record of an event that changed the then known world and its subsequent history.
I have already seen the Overlord Embroidery, a 1970's applique work commemorating the Allies' D-Day Landing on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. It's now on show in a purpose built museum gallery in Portsmouth UK. The idea of course came from the Bayeux Tapestry - and it is utterly magnificent - textile enthusiasts continue to visit from all over the world, and rightly so, the whole work is charged with the emotion and memory laden images of that epic battle.
In the gift shop at Bayeux Tapestry Museum you can buy a scaled down kit of the tapestry, presumably the images are printed onto fabric and you can stitch your own - I must confess I din't examine that too closely. Since our visit I have heard though, that a well known textile artist has the Bayeux Tapestry in her sights as her next project, I believe to scale. Leaving aside any discussion of whether this is to be 'a copy' or 'a reproduction' , and whether the many mends and patches now on the genuine article are to form part of this contemporary work - my only question is 'What on earth is she going to do with it, and how will it be displayed without the benefit of a purpose built museum or gallery?' I guess I am actually wondering why someone would sew a replica, even to a smaller scale the dimensions are impressive - if all it can do is sit in a cupboard and be unrolled every now and then on show? And yet, this is the exact purpose of the actual Bayeux Tapestry nearly 1000 years ago: most people were totally illiterate, and this work was to tell the story of this hugely important historic event in images that all could 'read' and understand, and for the first half of its life it was displayed for a couple of weeks each year in the Cathedral Notre Dame de Bayeux, and the rest of the time was rolled and stored there.
Dr. David M Wilson, writing in his book "The Bayeux Tapestry" 1985 (p.13) says in this introduction:
"During the French Revolution the tapestry had many adventures: on one occasion it was taken from the Cathedral and used as a wagon cover; it was saved in dramatic fashion by a lawyer, Lambert Leonard -Leforestier. Later it was nearly cut up to make a float (for the goddess of Reason) for a carnival. It survived, however, and in 1803 was transferred to Paris at the request of Napoleon, where it was exhibited in the museum which bore his name. This exhibition was mounted as propoganda in relation to the prepartions for the invasion of England, and as such was an enormous success, politically and artistically, but with the striking of Napoleon's Boulogne camp and the abandonment of the invasion plans the Tapestry was returned to Bayeux." It was stored in Bayeux and another rural town during WWII and in 1944 went into the basement at the Louvre, and after one or two temporary exhibition sites since the end of that war, it is now permanently housed in a converted seminary near the town's Cathedral, back pretty well to where it started its journey.
Labels: Bayeux Tapestry, historic, medieval, stitched
Monday, October 01, 2007
Souvenirs With Meaning
What a nice french word 'souvenir' is - and in spanish 'recuerdo' or memory.Most of us associate souvenirs with tacky little doodads with "Made in (place being visited)" stamped or carved somewhere prominent on some object associated with the country being visited. So, for Australia than measns pretty well anything boomerang shaped, with or without a dotted surface, anything with the Sydney Opera House, Uluru, kangaroos, koalas playpuses, Vegemite... these and more are images or icons of Oz. In Egypt you have the choice of little leather camels, masses of little models of pharoahs sphinxs and prominent gods, pyramids of every size, technique and material you can imagine, metal cartouches to put on a chain around your neck and you can have your own made in about 20 minutes... all of these things say 'Egypt' . In Uruguay there are some wonderful souvenir thingies, including some really very nice hand made objects. Unfortunately here many are routinely spoiled by having "Made in Uruguay" or "Souvenir of Uruguay" painted or carved across them. There are little model candombe drummers, models of typical rural houses, some nice leather coin purses, sets of leather and wooden coasters with criollo designs, small table items like butter knives with bone handles - but many of them are 'branded' - it's something that always bothers me. I think, that like me, people buy something to act as an aide memoire of the time spent and experiences enjoyed while visiting somewhere. I don't think they are meant to present as proof that they were there. I am sure people would buy these things if they are not emblazoned with the name of the country/city. I have a thing about it.
As a maker of quilted textiles I always have my eye out in any direction where fabric lurks - here or abroad - you never know. In one nice little French town on our recent trip I spotted a table of bright, wildly printed fabrics, which turned out to be batik from the Congo. Most European countries had colonial involvement there and I imagine there is still trade, if these fabrics were anything to go by. In the pile I found this wonderful piece, featuring eggs chickens hens and roosters. Since the cockerel is the fauna emblem of France, an icon so to speak, although less in your face than the Eiffel Tower, and since they eat an incredible number of eggs judging by the menus we were faced with, I thought this wonderful 3 and 1/2m length of high quality batiked cotton fabric would be a good souvenir. What I will do with it is not really the point - but I will probably use it some time.
Labels: batik, Congo, fabric, France
