Red Thread Studio

Building and Rebuilding

I know you probably think I've disappeared forever... not quite.

First, in honor of my 2010 blog readers as well as all the members of the Slow Cloth group on Facebook, I've made a donation to Women for Women International. It's just a small gesture, but I hope you accept it as my thanks to you for reading, for being patient when I write nothing, and for being out there in the world. Women for Women helps war survivors in some of the most ravaged countries on the planet; they help to educate women and girls, and in some cases provide them with things like sewing machines and fabric and dyestuffs to help them earn a living as they rebuild their lives.

I know I have at least some men in the Slow Cloth group, and maybe a few readers here; my choice of a women's cause isn't meant to exclude you. The education and success of women and girls is important to every one of us; they have less power in much of the world than men do, and the consequences of war are greater for many of them. There are so many textile-related, truly wonderful organizations that deserve support; this is just one that resonates for me, and I've mentioned others on the blog, so I encourage you to share what you can with organizations that are meaningful for you, or just do what you can locally to help others. It's been a tough year for a lot of humans on the planet.

Second, I'm on vacation from work until the new year, and I'm hoping to relaunch my blog during that time on a different platform. It'll be called Art Craft Culture, and I'll share a link as soon as it's ready. I know I've been threatening to do that for a while, and I've had to think a lot about whether I should blog at all. At least for now, I think I want to keep on. The new blog will still include a lot of information about textiles, but I hope to broaden the categories as well, to include more art in other media, high and low culture, and, well, whatever else I decide to write about.

It's hard to believe 2010 is almost over. I didn't even begin to accomplish what I'd hoped; I keep thinking that it's been a first-chakra sort of year; for those of who do yoga or other Eastern practices, or know the work of Carolyn Myss or other spiritual teachers, you know that means it was more about getting by and maintaining a foundation than branching out, creating, acting powerfully in the world. I'm trying to acknowledge all that's been good, let go of what's no longer useful or productive, and see if I can move the energy up into the second and third -- and fourth, the heart chakra -- in 2011.

I send you my thanks for being here, and wishes for a beautiful holiday season and new year. Let me know what you're planning for 2011!

Full Cold Moon

Turn that TV off now baby

I'm so low I don't even sing

Tell me something about my country

Tell me one good thing

King and Malcolm, lamb and lion

Setting Alabama free

Thirty thousand angels flying

From Montgomery

Put that paper down now, baby

I'm so low I don't even sing

Tell me something about my country

Tell me one good thing           

                - one good thing, by anais mitchell

The full moon is beautiful in the sky, bringing a bitter cold front with it. It seems like winter has already been too long, and I'm dreaming of beaches. It's hard to believe that December is here, and the next full moon -- a Blue Moon and the Wolf Moon -- will be at year's end. I don't really know what to think about this year. It's been full of disappointments for me, yet I'm not sure the whole story has unfolded yet. It's been full of progress, too, though it feels too slow. And it's been full of hope; on some days that feels foolish, and on other days, powerful.

I drove to work today behind a van with this bumper sticker: I'll keep my freedom & money & guns, and you can keep "the Change." That's their bad punctuation, not mine. I've been behind this vehicle before; we seem to be on the same schedule. It's pretty much a guarantee, if I see it, that it's going to be a bad day. And now I've just listened to the president that this woman hates announce escalation of a murky war, and I wonder if this pigheaded moron in the van is happy now. Of course not.

It doesn't seem as if humans will ever transcend hatred, war, and violence. But fortunately, we'll also never stop creating, envisioning, loving, and happily, stitching.

A few links I've had bookmarked:

• The wonderful Tai Gallery in Santa Fe has revamped their Web site and it's full of beautiful textiles and bamboo baskets, with many of their gallery publications viewable online. There are dozens of amazing ancient and modern textiles, and the photos can be sent as e-postcards to your friends. Here's one:
  Mantle, Chimu Culture
  Peru, North Coast?
  Late Intermediate Period, 1000 - 1476
  Design: Bold blocks of pelicans and tuna fish motifs in a bright palette of red, yellow, blue, white and brown.
  Technique: Slit tapestry, warp and weft camelid fibers

And another:

Heirloom textile

Made in Gujarat, India
Collected in Sulawesi, 17th century
Technique: Resist and mordant dyed handspun cotton

• I think Jude scooped me on this one, but the new community Hand Embroidery Network has launched Needle, a new online magazine for traditional and contemporary hand-stitched embroidery. It's beautiful; go see.
• Britex Fabrics, the legendary brick-and-mortar store in Union Square in San Francisco, finally has a blog and online shopping for some of its ribbons, trims, and buttons. I lived near the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Street back in 1986 with Dave the Drummer, and worked in downtown San Francisco, not far from Britex. I used to walk there on my lunch hour. I'd rarely buy anything because the choice was so magnificently vast that I couldn't ever pick just one thing. On the weekends I'd paint silk fabrics for a designer named Connie Romweber and shop closer to home at the much funkier Mendel's on Haight Street and Satin Moon. What a luxury it was to have so many great fabric stores.

The Dying Art of the Sari

The Dying Art of the Sari. "As the popularity of the traditional Indian garb has plummeted in India's cities, so has work for the tens of thousands of weavers who make them." This is a TIME magazine story that has a familiar ring; women are trading in their saris for contemporary clothing. I understand the desire to wear modern clothing, but the sari, like the kimono, has lasted for centuries because it's a functional, beautiful, elegant design that provides a canvas for endlessly varied designs. Instead of becoming museum artifacts, I hope this textile legacy can remain alive and thriving.

Here's another one -- Earthly Hands, Heavenly Designs is a new documentary about the dying traditions of Persian rugmaking. These photos of rugs on the sands of the desert are dramatic and poignant. Fibercopia has Iranian textiles on her mind too.

Hand/Eye Magazine for Global Textile Explorers, Navajo Rugs, and Restful Stitches

Hand/Eye is a very exciting new magazine about global textile explorations, sustainable textiles and craft, and the relationship between culture and craft -- the same topics covered here. Yes, I certainly do plan to submit story ideas! I'm not sure if there is a print edition, but the online edition looks very rich. I discovered it through email from L'Aviva Home.

Also in today's discoveries, a wonderful slideshow with audio on Navajo weaving from the New York Times.

I apologize for the delay in new posts -- I started this post days ago -- I'm adjusting to an intense new schedule. I'm lucky to be working in a job where I'm immersed in at least some aspect of textiles and crafts all day. Still, my diet is off, my yoga is off, I'm trying to rebalance and it's taking a lot of energy. Yet my creative urges are stronger than ever -- to sew, stitch, paint, write, design, and explore. I just need to find the energy. I feel off track somehow, like I'm not doing anything well.

Some days I can't get enough of the most complex surfaces, with layers, embellishment, printing, beads, transferred images, coins, many colors and textures, whatever it may be. Other days I want to rest my eyes on the most elemental structures -- a beautiful fabric with a line of stitching.

Kirsten Hecktermann's earthy, restful work (and go to her site and check out the amazing spoons and bright clothes, too):

 

 

From Sally Campbell Home Textiles (via Fibercopia):

 

Though it's hard to know if the producers of imported textiles are fairly paid, Sally Campbell says that all her products are handmade; here is her statement: "I travel to many remote communities, working closely with the artisans. Different areas in India specialise in different crafts. I work with women who create exquisite applique work in the desert near Pakistan, natural dye block printers in Rajasthan, village weavers in Bengal and Hyderabad, and women who do intricate hand embroidery in Lucknow. Like other Western designers working in India, I am hoping to keep these ancient crafts alive as we compete with the manic rush to modernisation."

These textiles are produced for commercial sale, but of course if you want the most real, soulful, one-of-a-kind stitching, you look to the artists; Jude's work always comes to mind first, and today, she too writes about a simple line of quilting. It must be in the air.

I'm going to go rest my eyes with actual stitching. Really sorry for the slow posting and the crankiness  -- it's a good thing I don't Twitter, or any followers would have been subjected to a rant of irritation for days now --  I'll try to keep it to a minimum on the blog!

S-words: Sustainability, Slow Cloth, Slow Fashion

I haven't written much about the world of sustainable textiles and clothing lately, but here are a few interesting links:

• Anaka has a provocative post, Giving Crafts a Bad Name, on her Getting Down To It blog for BrassTacks Madras. Her caveats apply to everyone who makes handmade goods; quality still matters, and is too often left out of the craft equation these days. Scroll down to the April 30 entry (for some reason I'm not able to isolate a link for the post). Anaka works with artisans in India and is able to thoughtfully critique what many of us in the West romanticize about traditional textile techniques:

Most craftsmen will argue that handmade goods can never have the same perfection as a mill-made product. That is true, but there is a line (and it is not such a fine line) between the charming irregularities of a good-quality handmade product and a downright substandard job. Pressed further, the craftsmen will tell you that good quality (“the way our ancestors used to do it”) is no longer possible because it either costs too much or no one is willing to do that kind of painstaking work anymore.
With my understanding that good craftsmanship is possible (because I have seen good craftsmen produce outstanding work), it really gets my goat when traders or even some craftsmen prefer to blame the craft rather than take the effort required to improve their quality.

• Rajboori makes beautiful, colorful silk quilts and home textiles using silk that they say leaves the silkworms unharmed. I've frequently said that I'm more concerned about human rights and labor issues in silk manufacturing than about the silkworms, but let's assume, so our heads don't explode, that people making "peace silk" are committed to ethical human labor as well. Rajboori has an interesting blog here. While they're a little self-congratulatory -- okay, a lot -- they are making beautiful products that seem to be made with a Slow Cloth attitude: "The designs would be contemporary but the artisanship would be traditional." (The link came from Fibercopia.)

• I struggle with the S-word -- sustainability. It means nothing and everything. This helps: Charles L. Redman, director of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, where President Obama recently gave the commencement address, offers these five elements of sustainability to the New York Times' dotearth blog: 

1. Awareness of the challenges facing us and the interconnectedness of the world and of our actions
2. Creativity to deliver innovative solutions in technology, business and social relations
3. Stewardship of limited and precious natural, human and cultural resources
4. Institutions that are flexible and effective because they continuously learn, adapt and provide leadership
5. Values that enhance equity, justice and inclusiveness

•  The beautiful Resurgence magazine has published "The Tyranny of Trends," an essay by Charty Durrant, former fashion editor of The Sunday Times, the Observer and British Vogue. This is a wonderful treatise on the economic, social and psychological costs of fast fashion, and the need for a true paradigm shift to a Slow Fashion model. I'm quoting one paragraph here but I really encourage you to read the whole thing:

Modern fashion is made from many seemingly incompatible ingredients, but the cornerstones are built-in obsolescence, fear of humiliation, and sexual attraction. Warmth, comfort and personal style have for the most part taken a back seat. As the ‘trend frenzy’ deepens, we can see that fashion is no longer about style and self-expression: it is primarily about judgement – self-judgement and judgement of others. A toxic media reporting how women ought to look, and celebrity obsession further enforce this strange new paradigm. Our self-image is distorted and it is now an indisputable fact that our collective psyche is in deep pain. 

(The link came from my beloved Alabama Chanin blog.

Housekeeping:
I realize this could have been four separate posts - this week I'm going to try to switch to shorter, more frequent posts to make it easier on everyone. Also, a few weeks ago I turned off the annoying Capcha function for comments, hoping to get more of my readers to reveal themselves. Now the toxic spam is showing up, and I'm not getting any more comments than usual, so I will give it another day or two and then likely will have to turn Capcha back on. Sorry, but that's how it goes. And please do comment!

Life continues to be really strange but interesting. I think things will settle down in the next few weeks; I'll be very busy but at least the path will be a little more defined. I'm looking forward to the Surface Design Association conference, from which I plan to blog later this month; please do let me know if you'll be there.

photo of golden silk fibers by woowoowoo. Some rights reserved.

Sari Quilts

"The world is madly beautiful and art is the alchemy." Sara

In a 12-hour space, turtles have appeared twice in my world in some fashion, so I await the third visit. The enchanting Peggy Markel, global culinary adventuress and wonderful writer, took this photograph, below, of two old and beautiful creatures in the Italian countryside. 

In Native American lore, Turtle Medicine bridges earth and water, what is "real" and what is imagined. Turtle is a nurturer and protector. From this site: If you have Turtle medicine, you value both the power of the earth, the waters of the earth, and the magic of the heavens, for Turtle symbolizes both the grounding quality of earth energy, and the magic of the mystical.

I've been light on textiles lately, but I want to share these vintage sari quilts from the Sundance catalog. Now, I think I'm fairly immune to marketing eye candy, but I am pretty much a slave to the mystic-cowboy/cowgirl Sundance aesthetic, and a new catalog is always a gift. (And I say slave lightly - I generally don't care for the language of addiction and disempowerment, for lack of a better word, in art and craft conversation. But that's another post.)

Anyway. The jewelry, the furniture, the leather, the carefully edited artisan goods - being a buyer or designer for Sundance would be a dream job, and living with some of these objects would be so lovely. The collection of sari quilts uses vintage cotton fabrics and the pieces are hand-stitched in India:

Sundance is also offering some unusual patchwork rugs. This one is made from Turkish carpets:

The catalog also has a red patchwork kilim rug that's very beautiful.

There's also this lovely Jaipur quilt hand-stitched in Rajasthan:

These are modern constructions, not the same as the patchworks you see at Sri Gallery, for example. But they're simply wonderful to look at.

We All Will Be Received

For reasons I cannot explain

There's some part of me

Wants to see Graceland

And I may be obliged to defend

Every love, every ending 

Or maybe there's no obligation now

I have reason to believe

We all will be received

In Graceland. 

paul simon, graceland

This song has been running through my head for two days now. The best part of this strange interlude here in Washington is walking through the city in the mornings and evenings to go to the office, headphones on, getting the whole visual city experience with my own soundtrack. When I get to work, it's hard to leave my rich sensory universe and return to the present reality of an office and a (not Macintosh) computer. 

And I like being between the worlds on that walk, where no difficult decision about moving is imminent. It's not so much that I don't want to leave Boulder under any circumstances; far from it. But I'm not sure at all that this scenario is the right one to move for. I'm still hoping for some compromise that will allow me to do the work from home for a while, and that may even be best for all concerned.

It's raining here today again; it rains so rarely in Colorado that it's usually a fine excuse for what I call an introvert's day, a day when there's no pressure to go out and be perky while engaging in athletic activity (something I usually ignore anyway). While you probably couldn't call retreat like that on every rainy or gray day here, I'm in need of an introvert's day, so I'm laying low. A good day for blogging.

We all will be received.  I've been working a lot with the idea of receiving - how hard it can be sometimes to simply be open to what's available to you, and let it in. And also to be received by others, for them to let me in, to trust me. How to let people know what you need, and that you need them, without being, ugh, needy. I never saw a moment of a model for that in my parents, two people as closed off emotionally as they could be, and as determined to shut down any expression of my own emotions. Some days it seems as if all of life is about healing what happened in the first ten years, and then making amends for all that you unconsciously did after that. 

My traveling companions

Are ghosts and empty sockets

But I've reason to believe 

We all will be received

In Graceland.

Back on topic . . .

Back on topic, Suzy Mendes, the fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, wrote a column about the Sustainable Luxury Conference in New Delhi that echoes a Slow Cloth and Slow Fashion manifesto:

But suppose that luxury were separated from fashion, with its constant desire for change and built-in obsolescence? Then the essence of the luxurious would be a private joy in something that was crafted to last.

The sari is a fine example of the enduring power of a piece of cloth . . . at its most tranquil and beautiful, the sari is an object of desire that is nurtured and passed on to the next generation. It has an image that any luxury company would long for.

The spirit of the sari is not the only thing that India has to offer high fashion. How can powerful brands teach anything to a country that understands the luxuriant greenery of a Mogul garden or the delicate craft that goes into a hand-loomed shawl?

Two different strands are converging in fashion: a yearning for lasting value and an urge to know more about the way that fabrics are sourced and clothes are made. This is the sea change in a fashion world where the fate of the planet is becoming more of an issue than the latest foibles of  celebrities.

You don't have to subscribe to a lot of hyper "eco-chic" marketing to understand this. I think this sensibility bodes well for every artist and designer working with cloth, whether in the context of fashion or art or just making beautiful and interesting things. 

Craftsmanship, artisanship, is a source of joy and beauty and meaning; it can be a lifelong pursuit on its own merits, encompassing all the soul and authenticity we yearn for, without having to be the ugly stepchild to Fine Art or anything else that's mostly a construct of society, if we can only restrain our egos that want something different.  (photo, right: Russell Boyce/Reuters)

The designer Manish Arora with models during Wills Fashion Week in New Delhi. 

(J. Adam Huggins for the International Herald Tribune )

 

Celebrating India and Shooting Stars

I'm still wrestling with my deadline this week, but my open windows of sites I want to link to are piling up, so here are a few, and forgive me if this post is a little rambling.

• In honor of Slumdog Millionaire's unlikely ascent to the top of the entertainment heap, and the absolute, sincere joy and curiousity on the Indian kids' faces last night at the Oscars, here's Indian By Design, a very beautiful blog full of contemporary art, textiles, architecture and ideas from the  subcontinent.
• A few more for India. I've mentioned this one before - I'm a big fan: Anaka's BrassTacks Madras blog. Anaka has a small but growing clothing company based in India, and her thoughtful blog chronicles her experiences as a sustainablity-minded entrepreneur with a love of beautiful textiles and intelligent fashion.
• Amazing photographs of India here -- the colors are just astonishing. 

Hmmm, I guess I should go see the movie. Next week.

I also want to link to Judy Martin's wonderful post called New Art History. Judy considers the idea that "19th century quiltmakers were artists and knew themselves to be," instead of the modern notion that these women were just scavenging scraps of fabric and making do,  and that any art on their part was almost accidental. Traditional quilting has such a bad name in some textile art circles -- so much so that at least one very popular art quilter/blogger refuses to call her quilts quilts, and my comment on her blog, saying that it was really a shame that this was the state of things, was deleted for not supporting her marketing goals. Seriously. (And as an aside, please always feel free to be honest in your comments here -- I promise you that you won't interfere with my marketing goals.) Maybe, to Judy's point, if we saw old quilts less as mending and more as true creative efforts, we could take some of that quilt stigma away. 

Finally, Harmony (who'll be speaking at the Surface Design Association conference in May) sent a link to the work of fiber artist Carolyn Kallenborn. A professor at the University of Wisconsin, Kallenborn makes very powerful garments and sculptures that are drawn from, she says, moments of transformation. An exhibition of her work opens this week at the Quincy Art Center in Quincy, Illinois. This garment is made from 40 pounds of river rock and taffeta:

It made me think of the idea of 2009 as the mineral year -- the year of what remains when everything has been burned or washed away. I thought of that, too, reading Dijanne's accounts of the Australian fires. 

And tonight's the night to see the green two-headed comet Lulin! I have no idea what that's all about, but here's a song for it:

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of you

You're trying to break into another world

A world I never knew

I always kind of wondered if you ever made it through

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of you. 

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of me

If I was still the same

If I ever became what you wanted me to be

Did I miss the mark, overstep the line

That only you could see . . . .

I saw a shooting star tonight

Slip away.

                   Bob Dylan, Shooting Star

Under the Full Wolf Moon

Tonight the Wolf Moon hangs close to the horizon and lights up the winter sky. The idea of wolves at the door is too close for comfort for so many people these days. But wolf medicine is powerful in Native American and shamanic lore, bringing great loyalty, integrity and intuition, and a strong need to protect the family and community. Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park in 1995, and you can learn more about that here. 

I've decided to make a small postcard-size textile piece for each full moon this year, so I will work on that tonight, though I'm also knee-deep in deadlines for the current market research report, which keeps the wolves away (just barely) from my door, so this is a working weekend. 

I do have a few links to share. Arcadia is back from hiatus with several new posts on Fibercopia, and I'm so glad she's back, as she always has some amazing textile discovery. Her newest post is on Lost City Products, and do go read her posts and then visit Lost City's site. These fabrics are exquisite. The company was founded by Afshan Durrani, who studied at FIT and then looked for a way to use the textile traditions of her native India that are in danger of extinction; here is a part of her manifesto:

Lost City is driven by the desire to create the most beautiful hand embroidered fabrics in the world by employing artisans who would otherwise lose their livelihood. We believe that the extinction of the rare skills possessed by families that still earn their living working with needle and thread would deprive the world of a highly evolved art form that has existed for over five hundred years.

Most especially, visit the Process page on the site. There are several slideshows of the design and embroidery steps, and I dare you to watch them without being almost irresistibly moved to get up and draw or stitch.

Here is one Lost City fabric, called Jewel, with this note on its inspiration: "16th C. Mughal writing set. This stylized floral spray is taken from a Nephrite jade writing set embellished with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds set in gold. Northern India, circa 1700. Embroidered on a black silk ground in tones of ruby red, emerald green and gold wire."

Doesn't that infuse this ordinary day with astonishing beauty and romance? These fabrics are luxury purchases. . . just one pillow would be a treasure. Oh, and Lost City has a blog, too, that will take you to some magical places. 

There is more beauty to be had at Ruth's new and improved Impulse of Delight Web site, where she sells her lovely handmade jewelry and hand-dyed yarns. I especially like this Fire Within necklace, and this Ancient Eye necklace has me imagining an entire belly dance costume designed around it, in layers of turquoise and lapis blue and coral and gold.

It's hard to come back to reality from these sites, but I must . . . I have another fun link but I'm waiting for permission to post the pictures, as they're not commercial.  

In honor of the Wolf Moon, I leave you with lyrics from the wolves themselves, Los Lobos. I met these musicians in my long-ago days working at e-town, and they are some of the most talented, soulful, generous and down-to-earth humans I've ever had the pleasure of meeting -- you can hear all of that in their music.

Standing in the pouring rain 
All alone in a world that's changed 
Running scared, now forced to hide 
In a land where he once stood with pride 
But he'll find his way by the morning light 

Sounds across the nation 
Coming from your hearts and minds 
Battered drums and old guitars 
Singing songs of passion 
It's the truth that they all look for 
The one thing they must keep alive 
Will the wolf survive? 
Will the wolf survive?
      -- Los Lobos, Will the Wolf Survive?

A Gift from India

I'm working on those new posts, as promised . . . I'm sure my productivity will improve when I can stop biting my nails and watching the campaign news. Meanwhile, yesterday was my birthday, and my friend Betsy the Artist gave me a spectacular gift -- though we agreed that we should co-own this textile, as her mother bought it on the street in India and it just seems like something that should be shared. Betsy doesn't have a spot for it in her current home, so I am the lucky recipient of it for now. And so I share it with you. There are endless interesting details in this large embroidered patchwork piece, so I'll take more pictures for later. And it has hundreds of magical shisha mirrors, so I feel both protected and inspired by this joyful piece.  Click on any photo to enlarge.