Red Thread Studio: Slow Cloth, New Cloth, Art Cloth

Circles of Cloth: More Virtual Textile Travel

I have travel on my mind . . . especially places near water. Here's a dream trip: The Textile Society of America is having its annual symposium in Hawaii in September this year, and the theme is textiles as cultural expression. This sounds like a fascinating event, probably well worth figuring out a way to go.

Other temptations: The Maiwa workshops, and the Organic Exchange conference in Portugal in October for the organic cotton industry.

And if nothing else -- though it's mostly been a homebound year so far, except in my mind, there is a chance that I could go to Brazil  in the fall to speak about sustainable textiles and apparel. I was lucky to go for the first time a few years ago to attend an organic and sustainable products conference there that's run by some wonderful people, and we stay in touch to this day. The conference that year was in Rio de Janeiro, a city of great wealth and beauty alongside great poverty; like most magical places, it's a little dangerous and very seductive.

At Bangles & Clay, a blog that's part of a nonprofit organization called Nest, there's a post about Coopa-Roca, a sewing cooperative in Rio founded by Maria-Teresa Leal (the English-language Web site for Coopa-Roca itself is here). Leal founded the cooperative as a way to utilize the sewing skills of women living in the profound poverty of one of Rio's worst favelas and create decent work opportunities for women raising families in violent slums. Now the clothes of Coopa-Roca are seen all over the world, and despite many challenges, it's been a success story in the midst of all-too-common despair in these neighborhoods.

There are stories like this in many places, and room and need for many more. Each one is different and unique, and each one comes down to a chance for people to celebrate their textile and craft heritage and skills, often at risk of being lost, and to have work and fair pay.

The Coopa-Roca women use recycled garments and fabrics and traditional knitting, crochet and patchwork techniques, including yo-yos -- fuxicos in Portuguese. I love seeing the resurgence of yo-yos -- like many children, learning to make a yo-yo was one of my first sewing lessons. And I love that it connects me to women and children worlds away through something as simple as a needle, thread and a circle of cloth.

Armchair Textile Travels on Sunday Morning

Acey of Sparkling Lotus-Land and Nichobella has written a wonderful review of African Textiles by John Gillow. This book looks magnificent . . . it's expensive but not all that much more than a tank of gas these days, even in my 17-year-old Honda, and will certainly last longer and inspire more. After reading her review I realized that a book I'd checked out from the library last week, called Traditional Indian Textiles, was also by John Gillow. He seems to have a new book forthcoming on Indian textiles as well.

John Gillow is a true global textile explorer (John, wherever you are, do you need an assistant?) and has an incredibly wide-ranging fascination for history, culture and aesthetics seen through the textile lens. As more and more textile traditions are lost, research like his becomes more important.

If Indian textiles interest you, I also recommend Tradition and Beyond: Handmade Indian Textiles, which seems to be more available now. I found my copy at a local store that stocks used and unusual new books, and I'm so glad I bought it. It too was a splurge at the time, but I've never regretted having it for even an instant.

This blog by photographer Claude Renault has a wealth of beautiful photographs of India, and you'll get a feel for the color palette and human emotion of the country seen through an artist's eye.

It's amazing how rich with pattern and color and design the world is. These treasuries of pattern and color in India and Africa contrast quite a bit with the book I'm reading on the Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic, where colors are subdued, pattern is very subtle, and restful space is paramount.

And if you'd like some world music to go with your textile journey, I've been listening to the beautiful Rise by Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar's daughter. The music is rooted in traditional Indian structures, yet modern and eclectic in its sensibility and very accessible to Western listeners. The song Beloved is transcendent.

photograph of Indian textile by Celeste Goulding.

Art, Design, Service

I think it bears repeating -- pay a visit to Lisa Call's blog to read about the design principles she's adapted from the Expeditionary Learning School framework. The final principle in the series is service and compassion. The whole series is inspiring -- and is very compatible with  Slow Cloth, with attention paid to diversity, service, reflection, nature and creativity. Lisa's last post really struck me, as I've been thinking a lot about service.

My family did not have much of a culture of giving or community, so I've come around to this concept mostly as an adult. I think a lot of people in the world feel they don't have enough themselves, not enough money or time or whatever, and when you feel you don't have enough, it's hard to conceive of service. But maybe that's when it's most important -- to claim the abundance we all have in this time and place and do something for those in need.

There are a lot of textile people actively engaged in service, from the Michigan woman who collects sewing machines to send to people in New Orleans building back from Katrina (sorry, I can't find the link right now but I'll keep looking) to people all over the world working to make sure that women have a living wage through sewing or other crafts. Then there are all the people who use their sewing or knitting skills to make blankets and hats for those in need in cold winters, or for babies and children who are ill. We can all teach others our skills if they're interested; that's one of the great traditions of needlework of all kinds.

I hope in some small ways this blog contributes to a better and stronger community, and I'm searching for more ways to be of service.

Musical Interlude and Fabric Vegetables

Music is important in my life, though I don't have a gift for it myself. I've put in my petition for a beautiful singing voice in my next life. In this life, though, I can enjoy and support the musical gifts of others and let their music inform my art. One of my best jobs ever -- in terms of content, if not pay -- was working for e-town in its early days, where I got to meet some of my musical heroes. Here's what's on my musical radar right now:

• I saw a young singer-songwriter named Anais Mitchell at a house concert here in Boulder, and I'm completely smitten with her songs. She's a true artist and frighteningly talented, also hardworking and charming. If you have the chance to see her live, take it, and you'll be able to tell somebody about it when she's really famous. To keep this on-topic, she has a poignant song about wearing a dress her grandmother made and the generational seismic shift, called I Wear Your Dress -- here are the lyrics:

This is just to tell you that I wear your dress sometimes
The one you made with gold brocade and the empire waistline
You fitted to your figure when it looked just like my own
That was Jersey in the fifties, and the women stayed at home

So you laid your paper pattern on the table in between
The silverware and napkins and the Harper's magazines
From a slow suburban season that is nothing but a dream
To your granddaughter

This is just to tell you that I wear your dress sometimes
I wear it down to the bar in town and dance around all night
Talking and joking, swearing and smoking like any stranger in a crowd
And nobody stares, nobody cares to tell me I'm not allowed
I am allowed

And my body, by the letter of the law, is still my own
When I lay down in the darkness, unburdened and alone
With the liberty you've given like the clothing you've outgrown
To your granddaughter

• Not on-topic, but I'm going to tell you anyway: for those of you who remember Delaney & Bonnie ("Only You Know and I Know"), Bonnie Bramlett has a brand-new CD out, and my dear friend and gifted artist  Steve Conn wrote the title song. It's called Beautiful, and it's a gorgeous, sad song -- I like 'em that way -- about one of those deeply intimate, painful moments in a relationship when your soul is laid bare.

Okay, back to textile art and craft and my attention-deficient Internet wandering. I was looking at designer Lena Corwin's blog this morning because I'm interested in her forthcoming book, Printing By Hand. That led me to these wonderful recycled fabric scallions and other vegetables by Sian Keegan. I have a total weak spot for whimsical fabric fruits and vegetables, and for fabric with food prints too -- I even bought a Japanese craft book a few months ago just for the endearing fabric pears on the cover. So maybe this is just the day to get an errand or two done, put in some time with work, and then crank up the stereo and make a pear.

Time Waits for No One

My father used to call me "Miss-elaine-eous" and I must have been eleven or twelve years old before I realized that he was making a play on the word "miscellaneous." So here are my MissElaineous offerings for today . . .

• The Maiwa Textile Workshops for 2008 are up, and they look completely inspiring. Workshops are 2-3 days; the schedule begins in September and goes through early November, so there are a lot of opportunities to find your way to Vancouver. I'd love to take the blockprinting workshop and The Expressive Stitch. Well, really, I'd love to take almost all of them.
• Have I written yet about Permacouture Institute here? This is a new nonprofit organization with a very creative and activist sustainable textile and Slow Cloth orientation. I spoke by phone with founder and executive director Sasha Duerr today -- this woman is amazing and will make some positive waves in the textile world, I'm sure of that. She's an expert on natural dyeing and has a special interest in edible dye plants (cabbage, beets, onions, etc.) and all the possibilities inherent in being able to grow things that will both feed us and color our fiber without harm to the environment. We talked about her work and about some of my ideas for taking the Slow Cloth concept to new levels. . . . everything is possible, right?
• I've been meaning to link to a blog post by UK biologist and textile artist Mags Ramsay on The Character of Cloth. I love the work she's doing with indigenous African textiles -- very beautiful and with a great "spirit cloth" sensibility.

That's what I've got today. Off topic, this week has been a continuation of a pretty intense and unrelenting healing journey -- I've been prescribed physical therapy for my neck, and Monday was the first visit. I wasn't quite prepared for the tremendous amount of grief and sadness stored in that area that the bodywork released. Though in practical terms the therapy is necessary for some dental work to be successful, on another level it's evidently part of a lot of ongoing work I'm doing on old emotional issues - according to Dr. Christiane Northrup, at 50 all of your unfinished business from childhood MUST be resolved if you're to stay healthy, and it will rear up like an immovable elephant in the room if you don't. I'm finding that to be all too true, and it turns out my unfinished business is a doozy.

Finally, I have a colonoscopy scheduled on Friday as the follow-up to March's illness. I tell you this not to give you Too Much Information, but to encourage you to get this test if you are around 50, and not be embarrassed or put it off. I know, I don't feel old enough for it either. On the inside, I'm about 16 -- rebellious, darkly romantic and trying to figure out what to be when I grow up. But on the outside, time waits for no one (or Tom Waits for No One, as we fans say) and we must attend to our bodies. We are all of the nature to age, as the Buddhists say, even if 50 is the new 30. I hope the procedure will be as dignified and painless as possible.

And hey, where are the Fiber Artists for Obama? They seem to have let their blog go dormant. They ought to be celebrating today. Fiber art in the White House! I'm sad for the way Hillary has sometimes been treated, and  proud of her for the most part despite some missteps. But we do need a change, and no one has set a fire in young voters like Obama has since Bobby Kennedy, and I'm all for that (I was and still am a John Edwards fan, too, and I truly hope there's a place for him in Obama's cabinet after a November victory). Like me, this country has a lot of healing to do -- the old ways just aren't working.

I hope you, cherished readers and all who find their way here, are also healing from anything that ails you. Onward we go.

In the Meantime

By the end of the week, God willing and the creek don't rise, I should finally have my high-speed Internet issues resolved. Liberation. NOW we'll see some blogging, people. It's not like I live in the backwoods -- hardly -- but there are peculiarities in my little microcosm that have made it a challenge.

Meanwhile, a few links and photos of unexpected pleasures this week. If I were in England this week, I would try to find my way here, to the Stroudwater Textiles Festival and Symposium. For the rest of us, that link will take you to a page that has further links to several very intriguing artist sites. This looks like an extravaganza for those of us with the Slow Cloth orientation.

Maggie Baxter from Australia is an exhibiting artist at Stroudwater whose work looks quite amazing in the multicultural Slow Cloth vein. She doesn't appear to have a Web site of her own, but you can read about her collaborations with textile artisans in India here.

My friend Betsy sent me a link to Digital Threads, a project of the Textile Museum of Canada. This is a rich and beautiful Web site that focuses on some very innovative, forward-thinking textile projects, but also has links to past exhibitions that explore a very full range of textile arts from traditional to contemporary.

Arlee sent a link to Pleasure-Purpose, a Toronto exhibition that is "an attempt to navigate craft and question its contemporary role." It seems like the textile world just continues to explode in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia . . . maybe it takes the past or present influence of a Queen.

But then there's Japan too. My brother and mother went to the new International Quilt Study Center museum and sent me a beautiful package from the gift shop: these Japanese fabrics from Kasuri Dyeworks and Stitch Dissolve Distort by Valerie Campbell-Harding and Maggie Grey. If you love Japanese textile arts -- or stunning displays of skill and beauty -- definitely visit Jane's blog on Japanese embroidery. She left me a lovely comment here -- thank you, Jane, and thank you for your subtle, gorgeous work.

And last of all for today, my dear friend Lisa went to New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Festival and brought me a God of Love. I've had a few of those in my life in mortal form, but never one of fabric.

Here he is, very powerful, slightly alarming -- because love should be a little dangerous -- and completely enchanting:

 

Mental Gridlock

My next scheduled post on the Slow Cloth list is the topic of Beauty. I was all rarin' to go on it last week, and e-mailed someone with a very popular and charming blog about using one of her photos. Though she said yes, she was so curt and unappreciative about it that the photo's beauty was diminished for me, and I no longer want to use it. There are other beautiful images to choose from, but it derailed me, so here I am a week later. The topic of beauty is coming, and in the meantime, in the words of the walrus, let's talk of many things.

I've had a sense of mental gridlock with this blog lately. I want to write about so many things, but it seems now as if it should be two separate blogs -- one on sustainable and organic textiles, clothing, and companies (that would probably replace the dormant Organic Confidential), and a second for art, craft, culture, and the Slow Cloth concept. What do you think? That would mean two new blog names -- there actually is another Red Thread Studio, and in any case, I think that name is no longer quite right for the me of today, rather than the me of some years ago when I first heard the legend of the red thread.

On the green side of things: My report, The International Market for Sustainable Apparel, was published; you can read the press release here and the abstract and table of contents here. These reports sell to businesses for alarming amounts of money, but have no fear, the money goes to the publisher, not me (though I was paid to write it and grateful for it!). It's out of the price range for individuals, but if you have specific questions I am more than happy to answer them and recommend other resources that are accessible. In any case, I hope it may help in my search for the right work.

Sadly, one of the most innovative and risk-taking sustainable apparel companies folded this week, unable to secure enough financing. NAU was trying to achieve very high levels of aesthetic beauty, high performance, and sustainable materials and production, all packaged in a Slow Fashion design philosophy, but they may not have been flashy enough for today's standards. There is a long way to go in this market, despite the indisputable successes and media attention of 2007.

And then the NY Times had a silly article about Sarah Jessica Parker's clothing line, in which nothing sells for more than $8.98, but of course they claim there are no sweatshops involved because the factories are monitored. By whom? According to whose standards? How often? I think the reporter failed to do the job on this story, as he keeps asking how clothes can be made at this price but never really answers the question. And it's a good question. I'm not sure it's possible without some exploitation of resources and/or people.

On the art and craft side, I found the True Stitches blog, another kindred spirit. I especially loved her post about the level of critique on craft blogs and the unspoken rule that you can't ever say you don't like something. I'm so glad someone spoke up about this. I'd much rather have someone respond honestly to my work than just tell me it's great all the time. As I said in my comment to this post, aren't we smart enough and tough enough for real dialogue? I'm a marshmallow underneath my curmudgeonly exterior, but as long as it's not a personal attack, I'm fine with people not liking everything I do and with collaborative process and conversation.

Finally, thanks to Judy Martin, who linked to me on her wonderful Judy's Journal blog (she has more than one, actually, with very intriguing and inspiring work), and welcome to new readers coming here through Judy. I love connecting to all these Canadians, as I am Canadian-born, though raised in the U.S.,  and just may end up back there or somewhere else if the election doesn't bring some new hope to this country. And off topic, I know (or maybe it's not,  but that's another post) but don't even get me started on more news this week about horrific acts of violence and abuse toward women and children. Surely we can do better.

Tomorrow -- back to art and fabric and beauty. Thank you for coming by, and for your patience with me with this long post, and the time between posts. I'd like to be posting daily, with more pictures, and I'm working on it.

Apropos of: Expressions of Culture

Right on time, the New York Times has a review of some very culturally expressive textiles at the New York Historical Society. The exhibition is "Woven Splendor from Timbuktu to Tibet," and the article is "All the Colors of the Rugs the Nomads Walked On." There are lots of interesting quotes about the makers of these textiles in a desert culture that relate to my previous post.

I especially love that journalist Glenn Collins talks about some of the objects being "seemingly so much more glorious than they need to be." In a sense he's right. Knee pads for camels could probably have been quite ordinary and gotten the job done. But isn't that the whole history of textile arts? We are driven to add color, texture, decoration, beauty and symbolism, and to express ourselves and our communities. We may not strictly need those things to survive a day in the desert, but we do have a need to create them where we can in our lives. Cultures that suppress creative expression don't appear to do very well in the long run.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that Slow Cloth means replicating these forms just as they were, but looking at them with open eyes and minds provides a lot of inspiration and appreciation.

Elsewhere, here's a fun blog for those of us who just plain love fabric and pattern: TrueUp.net.

Arte Y Pico Award and Blog Love

The lovely Arlee at DesignJournal blog has selected me for an Arte Y Pico award for creativity, design, interesting material and contributing to the blogging community. This is just so nice -- thank you, Arlee. I appreciate it so much.

There are 5 rules attached to this award and they are :

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.
4) The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award (blogger in Uruguay).
5) To show these rules.

So now it's my turn to pass this award along to five other bloggers. You may know these already, but if not do visit.

1. Sara at The Fabric of Meditation. First of all, I'm in awe of anyone who can blog so well in two languages. Second, her work is always a wonderful surprise.
2. Harmony's The Journey is the Prize blog about organic fabrics and the world of sustainable textiles. Harmony is a highly creative fabric designer, great businessperson, and all-over nice person who walks her talk very gracefully.
3. Dijanne's Musings of a Textile Itinerant never, ever fails to inspire and move me. She'll probably get this award many times over. Dijanne truly works from the heart and makes you feel like a close friend, though she has many thousands of readers.
4. Deidre's Abstractions blog -- as noted here, I've been a fan of Deidre's paintings on quilted surfaces for a long time, and now her blog is a chance to learn more about her thinking and process.
5. Pilar's Deux Frontieres blog is a brilliant journal of culture, art, textiles, design and life in Paris. Ahhhh. In some of my favorite alternate universes I'm living in Paris or London or another great capital of culture and society, but not today, at least not in this dimension of reality -- so I'm thankful for the blogs that take me there.

In other blog news: As I've mentioned, I write posts for EcoSalon.com. EcoSalon has been picked up by the blog aggregator Alltop.com, so I've spent some time using Alltop. They have pages for the top blogs in many topics, including green news and products, fashion, design, art, books, and a new page for crafts where both In A Minute Ago and Spirit Cloth are featured.

Finally, I've added an abbreviated version of my 10 Qualities of Slow Cloth to the sidebar. As promised, I'll begin my series of posts expanding on this list next week.

Mesmerizing Maiwa Podcasts

I've mentioned Maiwa and the workshops and symposium that Maiwa hosts. This is slow and authentic textile Mecca. Now Maiwa has added a series of podcasts to the Web site, excerpted from previous workshops and lectures, that looks completely fascinating. Topics range from ancient mummies to Slow Cloth in India to shibori to a series on The Working Traveler. You can subscribe via iTunes or an RSS feed. This really looks like a tremendous resource and inspiration and after my Very Slow Modem gets busy downloading I'll be listening all day tomorrow while I write about the sustainable clothing consumer (yes, we're getting close to the end of this study, finally).