TAFA Market Focus: MarketPlace: Handwork of India

 

TAFA is having its first public event during the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah.  We are excited to introduce TAFA to the public at large and are hoping to raise funds for our new website.   We have a silent auction and raffle, both available to online participants and a member exhibit and vendors.   These are ways in which you can donate to support our efforts.  This blog will feature the works and vendors during the time leading up to our show.  You can see all of the TAFA Market posts in one place by clicking on this link. 

Today's TAFA Market focus zooms in on:

MarketPlace: Handwork of India

Visit MarketPlace on TAFA

MarketPlace: Handwork of India. Fair Trade Fashion

I still remember the first conversation I had with Pushpika Freitas, the visionary director behind MarketPlace's success.  We were at a fair trade conference out East somewhere.  Maryland?  Over 20 years ago, we were young, bright eyed and bushy tailed, full of dreams of how our ideas could make an impact somewhere, somehow.  For Pushpika, those dreams centered on job creation in one of the largest slums of Mumbai, then called Bombai.  Fast forward all those years and we are seasoned, less idealistic, but still at it, each working doggedly to make a change.

MarketPlace: Handwork of India's clothing is 100% cotton, dyed or block printed by hand and then accented with embroidery.

Pushpika's initial efforts focused on making quilts in India and selling them in the U.S.  She soon realized that in order to really create jobs for a greater number of people, apparel offered more opportunities and a larger audience.  MarketPlace, based in Evanston. Illinois (just north of Chicago) is the marketing arm of SHARE, based in Mumbai, India, produces the fabric and garments for sale.  You can read the story of how MarketPlace developed on this page.  The 1980's was a time where many non-profits, non-governmental organizations, churches and individuals, began to shape the fair trade movement, looking at how handicraft production and agricultural products could empower communities around the world.  MarketPlace was one of the pioneers in this movement and has developed a model which can be replicated by other groups.  Although MarketPlace has continued to make some items for the home (throws, pillows), its signature lines are the dresses, pants, and tops that any MarketPlace addict immediately recognizes from a mile away.  Participating in TAFA's Market actually makes sense for MarketPlace and completes a full circle from quilts and back to the quilt audience.

MarketPlace: Handwork of India works with women in Mumbai as well as other communities in India.  Some men are also employed.  They also make a special effort to find special jobs for the handicapped.

Now that the fair trade movement has some decades under its belt, the question of impact and success is raised.  How does one measure whether a project has really made a difference in a specific community.  Pushpika and I visited this question once and I remember her expressing how difficult it is to deal with the issue in terms of monetary rewards.  There are cultural and societal barriers that want to keep poor women in their place.  A husband may feel threatened by a woman making more than him.  Women have been provided with services that they might not otherwise access, such as loans for health care and home repairs.  Pushpika said that the real measure will be seen in the next generation, in the children who are growing up with more opportunities, better sanitation, access to health care, and with mothers who are an integral part of something they can be proud of.

Visit MarketPlace: Handwork of India's website.

Working with apparel involves many challenges.  MarketPlace sells through its mail order catalog and website, introducing two new lines every year, Spring and Fall.  That means getting samples ready on time for photo shoots, producing the fabric (all hand printed, batiked or dyed), getting the garments made, and so on.  There are always hurdles along the way.  Yet, year after year, they have stuck to it.

MarketPlace made a conscious decision not to be trendy, per se.  They have a distinctive look that has evolved over time.  But, for those of us who love the MarketPlace clothing, there are also old favorites that will always be made, only in different colors and fabrics.

MarketPlace clothing is extremely comfortable and lasts a long time.  They have also always kept the larger woman within their circle, offering sizes up to triple X.  I'm a big Viking and love how my MarketPlace clothing fits me.  Many of my things are getting threadbare after years of good service and I am looking forward to picking up some new pieces next week.

Reversible coats and jackets by MarketPlace: Handwork of India.

This apparel business has natural casualties in terms of unsold products.  For some reason or another, beautiful garments like the ones in this post, remain unsold, taking up space.  So, the good news for all you who will be coming to our TAFA Market is that you will get to buy the past season garments for half off!!!  That is an incredible deal and we hope that Katherine, MarketPlace's staff person who will be here in Paducah will drive back home with an empty car.

I am so pleased to have MarketPlace as a TAFA Member and that they are making this effort to be a part of our show next week.  Not only because of our long history as friends and peers, but because I really believe in what they are doing and because I can stand behind the product and say, "This is great.  I wear it, love it, and want more."  

I worked for MarketPlace for a stint many years back.  We had this idea of trying to help local efforts in Chicago with product design and marketing.  The challenges there were very different from the ones Pushpika has dealt with in India.  But, that is a long story and a subject for another post.  Meanwhile, we each move forward and hope that our efforts make this world a better place, one that has a foundation of beauty and mutual respect.

TAFA Market Focus: MarketPlace: Handwork of India

TAFA Market Focus: Jefferson Street Studios

"Quilt Reflection I" by Robert Davis

TAFA is having its first public event during the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah.  We are excited to introduce TAFA to the public at large and are hoping to raise funds for our new website.   We have a silent auction and raffle, both available to online participants and a member exhibit and vendors.   These are ways in which you can donate to support our efforts.  This blog will feature the works and vendors during the time leading up to our show.  You can see all of the TAFA Market posts in one place by clicking on this link. 

Today's TAFA Market focus zooms in on:

Jefferson Street Studios

Visit Jefferson Street Studios on TAFA

"Limbo", Art Quilt by Helene Davis

Bob and Helene Davis are two of my favorite people in Paducah.  I don't see them very often, but when I do, there is always a feeling of "home".  Both are members of our Paducah Fiber Artists group and often host our meetings at their home and studio on Jefferson Street.  We are all disappointed when Bob fails to make his expected chicken dish...  And, I am constantly reminded of them in my home as they have been extremely generous to me over the years.  When I first moved here, they gave me a couch which I use daily.  I also have fabric, thread, books and other odds and ends they have given me.  

Helene and Bob will each have two pieces in our TAFA Market show, all four shown here.  Helene is way up there, if not at the top, of my list of favorite art quilters.  She has mastered surface design, always coming up with unexpected results that ooh and aah us at our meetings.  And, I love the way she quilts!  Tight, close rows of machine stitching that make her quilts stiff, almost rug-like.  Helene also works with clay, creating gorgeous pieces that compliment her textiles beautifully.  I have found that many of us have had this marriage of interests, fabric and clay, which I find very interesting.  I worked with clay before moving into fabric and like to think that clay actually taught me how to sew.  I knew the basics and had done quite a bit of embroidery before my years with clay, but I learned how to see in a different way once I had done dimensional work.  

"Missing" by Helene Davis using her dyed fabrics.

Bob and Helene purchased a late 1800's industrial building which they renovated into a drop-dead gorgeous home, studio and gallery.  They have been our drop off site for packages arriving from our other TAFA members who are participating in the TAFA Market.  The back of the space is Helene's dyeing and sewing studio, the middle area houses living quarters and the front is the gallery.  Bob gets the monster garage.  Both are avid gardener's and have landscaped the outside beautifully.  They turned an eyesore into a must visit stop if you come to Paducah.

Inside the gallery at Jefferson Street Studios, Paducah, Kentucky.

If you are coming to Paducah for the AQS Show or for our TAFA Market, you must also stop by at Jefferson Street Studios.  Helene's quilts will be available for sale, along with her hand-dyed fabric and consignment items from some of our Paducah Fiber Artist members.

Bob is the people person and eclectic in his endeavors.  Coming from an engineering background, his quilts are precise and exercises in color and structure, where Helene's are organic and experimental.  Bob also does a lot of photography around town and has worked on an ongoing project where he reduces images of people to line drawings.  He has captured many of the local artists in this way and I hope that he someday publishes a book on them.  He did the drawing at the left of me four years ago and I almost kissed him because he made me look so young!

Bob is another of those people who has worked with clay.  He has made thousands of porcelain beads and has a display case of them at 212 Broadway, just around the corner from our TAFA Market.  You will have to stop in there, too as HeART of Healing Gallery, another TAFA member, and myself also have permanent booths there.   HeART of Healing specializes in vintage kimono and molas from Panama.

Jefferson Street Studios has started to show other artists in their gallery with excellent results.  They are just outside of the LowerTown boundaries, the artist neighborhood in Paducah, and I believe that their presence will encourage other art related studios to move into that area.  Take note:  If you are coming to Paducah, you MUST visit Jefferson Street Studios.  If you are not coming to Paducah but would like to purchase one of Bob or Helene's pieces pictured here, email me.  We can ship it to you after the show.

"Quilt Reflection II" by Robert Davis

Jefferson Street Studios:  1149 Jefferson Street in Paducah, Kentucky.

TAFA Market Focus: Jefferson Street Studios

The TAFA Team's Catalog of Shops: Jewelry and Accessories

Freeform hats and bags by Rensfibreart

TAFA: The Textile and Fiber Art List was launched in February, 2010.  As it has grown, now over 200 members, so have the members who have Etsy shops.  About half of us use Etsy as our retail platform.  We decided to organize as an Etsy Team (a program Etsy has for sellers to organize under themes or locations) and set up a blog where we can talk about what is important to us and where we can show off our shops.  The blog has eight pages of shops, divided into themes and serves as our Team Catalog.  Although many of us sell things that do not fit neatly into those categories, most of us do have a focus.  I am introducing each of those categories here, hoping that this will encourage you to go over there and shop, shop, shop, until you drop!  These eight pages have over 100 shops, filled with wonderful eye candy that will surely delight anyone who appreciates all the many techniques and traditions that are found in the needle and textile arts. 

Today's focus:  Jewelry and Apparel

Vintage Miao textile incorporated into a bag, by dazzlinglanna

Picking images for this post is not an easy task as there are so many beautiful pieces in our Jewelry and Accessories page.  This is one of the places where you can really see how people are exploring techniques and interpreting them into their own designs.  You will find functional items like scarves, bags, purses, hats, cuffs, gloves, necklaces and bracelets.  Our members are felting, dyeing, painting on silk, reclaiming old textiles and fabrics, knitting, beading, weaving and of course, sewing.

Hagar of Gilgulim recycles old ties into beautiful jewelry.

TAFA is an international organization, exemplified by our members on this page.  Hagar is Israeli, Jutamas of Dazzling Lanna lives in Thailand, Rosemary of Plumfish Creations and Renate are both in Australia, Morgen of Inkyspider  is Canadian, Marina hails from Puerto Rico, Inese is in Latvia, Dolapo of Urban Knit is in the United Kingdom, Lilou works with weavers in Cambodia and so on.  Of course, quite a few are based here in the United States.  The diversity of our members, both in the techniques they are exploring and their cultural influences makes for a fascinating collection of colors, textures, and designs.

 Lilou, a fair trade group working with weavers in Cambodia.

The big challenge for all of us is that nobody really "needs" anything we are selling.  And, in this awful economy, buyers have been tightening their belts and holding on to their money.  Yet, is not beauty something that our spirits crave?  An accessory from one of our shops will certainly cost a lot more than a bauble that is sold at Walmart.  But, the right scarf, hat or necklace can not only finish off an outfit and make it complete, but also makes a statement of support for the worldwide handmade community.  It ties us to our historical roots represented by the techniques we promote through our work.  

 

 Wraps by Inese, our TAFA member in Latvia

 

Click here to visit our Jewelry and Accessories Page in our TAFA Team Catalog of Shops.

And, while you are there, click on the other tabs to see our other Team member shops.  We aim to be the best in textiles and fiber art on Etsy!

All TAFA Team members are also members of TAFA: The Textile and Fiber Art List.

Interested in membership?  Click here for more information.

The TAFA Team's Catalog of Shops: Jewelry and Accessories

Print Your Own Fabric with Karma Kraft!

Have you ever wanted to design your own fabric?  I've thought of many ideas that I would have liked to explore, but never really researched it.  I received this email today, introducing Karma Kraft, just such a printing operation.  There is no minimum yardage requirement and the prices and quality seemed fair.  They also offer a variety of fabrics, including organic cotton and silks.  The only downside that I saw is that they are a North Carolina operation (formerly a center for producing textiles in the United States) operating out of China.  I would have been even more excited if they were a US operation...


The email is reprinted below:

_______________________________

New Website Allows Users To Design Their Own Custom Fabrics and Patterns.

KarmaKraft.com proving popular for novice crafters, professional designers and more.

www.karmakraft.com

(Raleigh, North Carolina) – It’s a unique online service that has been used to create custom fabric for innovative clothing, pillows, wall art, handbags & purses, bedding, table linens and even surfboards. KarmaKraft.com is a design-oriented digital fabric printing company that allows anyone to upload their own fabric design online to create digitally printed 58-inch custom fabrics. 

“You design it, we print it,” says KarmaKraft.com founders Susan Lu and Scott Jeffreys - in three simple steps:

1) Upload the design to www.KarmaKraft.com

2) Select the desired material or product you want

3) Purchase as much or as little of the custom fabric as needed

       

What makes KarmaKraft.com different and unique?

KarmaKraft.com eliminates the costly set-up fees and minimums that are imposed by traditional printing methods. KarmaKraft.com also eliminates the need to understand Photoshop or other advanced computer-aided design (CAD) systems to get a design printed. Upcoming designers, homemakers, small business owners, and graphic artists now have the ability to print their own design with no color limitations, on a wide variety of fabric qualities such as cotton, linen, silk and more.

KarmaKraft.com can help anyone from novice crafters to professional designers create their own signature designs. They even offer custom cut and sew services to make items like pillows, pet beds, scarves, tablecloths or personal apparel and more -- all with custom-designed fabric. KarmaKraft.com even offers a “Designer Gallery” under the “Fab Favs” section of the site where designers can post their fabrics designs: http://karmakraft.com/fabfavs.aspx

KarmaKraft.com uses reactive dyes for their cotton, linen and silk qualities and disperse dyes for the polyester. Most digital printing companies just use textile pigment dyes for their product. Printing with reactive and disperse dyes makes the fabric more vivid in color, washable and softer in hand than other digital printing companies offering pigment dyed fabrics.

The KarmaKraft.com custom fabrics range from $20 - $32 per yard and there is no minimum order requirement. KarmaKraft.com’s professional cutting and sewing services range from $10 - $18.

For more information go to: www.KarmaKraft.com

Print Your Own Fabric with Karma Kraft!

Ecological Arts by Rebecca Burgess

"The role of Ecological Arts is to create art in order to understand and revitalize natural systems. Founder Rebecca Burgess has been a teacher and artist for many years."

As an environmental educator and textile artist, I am consistently looking for ways to engage students and the public in hands-on textile arts techniques that move us one step closer to living in greater harmony with the planet.

Ecological Arts offers a series of workshops
on using natural dyes and weaving.

I created EcologicalArts in 2004 as a way to house the sustainable textile arts processes that I was both creating and learning from other artisans around the world. Inspired initially by villages like Pejeng, Bali, and Sukhonakon, Thailand, places where women grow and spin organic cotton, raise and ferment indigo, and work cooperatively to produce beautiful finished goods. These villages illuminated sustainable textile production for me. Upon returning home, I felt the calling to start my own tradition.

California Fleuristic Province, home of Ecological Arts.

I live in the California Fleuristic Province, it is among the 25 most bio-diverse places on the planet. I felt there must be species here, in my homeland, that I can use for color- and thus avoid the carbon footprint incurred from ordering all of my dyes from overseas, or even out of state. In the process, I have become a natural dye harvester, restoration gardener, and an unintentional steward. I prune, I weed, I replant, and I seed- it's all a part of the harmonious and reciprocal process. Stewardship and dye work are now hand-in-hand activities for me. My garden is both a restoration site for native and useful dye plants, and an experimentation zone of Indigo, prairie wildflowers, and pokeberry.

From plant life to yarn color, dyes by Ecological Arts.

While there are still dyes such as cochineal, and logwood, whose colors I have not found sustainably harvested substitutes for, I was able to find and create recipes for every color of my hearts desire. And, there is still a lifetime of experimentation left in the fields and hillsides of my homeland.


As a canvas for these natural colors- I connected with the local sheep ranchers, angora producers and organic cotton farmers. These relationships have given me the opportunity to economically support local fiber producers. They create some of the highest quality raw materials in the world, and yet their origins are at most 70 miles from my home!


These processes I undertake are nothing new in history, they are in fact quite ancient, and yet- I feel that every moment of creating with nature’s raw materials is a novel experience. The permutations and possibilities for what a textile artist can do with the resources within his or her community is truly stunning.

Yarns by Ecological Arts.

Rebecca Burgess graduated from UC Davis in Art History, and while in the central valley spent time studying at DQ Native American University. Searching for art outside the academic canon, she found a Native American basket weaver. The artistry, ecology, and function of the native baskets became her inspiration. While traveling throughout the United States, and Asia she found remnants of ecologically focused textile art traditions.
Through each investigation she became increasingly inspired to begin a local tradition within her own bio-region. Ecologicalarts was born in 2004. An organization dedicated to creating, reviving, and teaching, art forms that utilize resources to promote thriving eco-systems.

Rebecca is a member of the Fiber Focus Group, has a blog, website and sells on Etsy.



Find more photos like this on Fiber Focus

Ecological Arts by Rebecca Burgess

Karoda's Quilted Poetry: The Design Element of Words

Words on Fabric, Postcard by Karoda

by Karoda (aka Karen R. Davis)

I never thought of myself as a visual artist until a few years ago. My first calling was that of a poet which I embraced at a young age, but after years of dealing with pulmonary disease as an adult, I found myself in a space of not being able to hear the poems inside of me. Hearing is essential to a poet. Instead I started dreaming in images and seeing inspiration in quilt designs in architecture, from reading literature, etc. What I was dreaming and seeing intuitively I knew to be quilts. Much of where I started in 2003, when I jump-started this journey for the 2nd time, felt like learning to walk when I really wanted to just dance (similar to those teen-age years when I wanted to grow up too fast). I often was side tracked by responding to the work of other quilters and what I liked…I wanted to try every technique and not miss any of the fun. I worked small, not wanting to commit in size to a technique that I hadn’t mastered or enjoyed. I still have much of those small studies around wondering what I’m going to do with them.

Words, dye and circular quilting as design elements.

Juanita Yeager, my quilt guru, had planted the idea of doing “series” work and keeping a journal and working a bit larger. I begin to pay attention more closely to my body, thoughts, and emotions and what I responded to with passion. Quilts with text, particularly hand writing, excited me. After seeing the quilts of Angela Moll, it still didn’t strike me to do it in my own work. The turning points started at the end of 2007 when poet Estella Majozo invited me to be a part of the Artist-In-Revolution Poet’s series, a community arts project conducted from her downtown studio. I had the month of December and although it had been many, many years since I did a public reading, I didn’t have any new work to share and was somewhat reluctant, but that experience showed itself to be the fire I needed to begin my second series work, aptly named Poetry Series. I immediately started writing my poems onto my hand dyed cloth in hues of red, green, yellow. The colours where chosen to align with the African American cultural flag except for the yellow which is the colour for spirit based on the flag Rastafarians made world famous. These colours communicate vibrancy and life to me. Drawing upon my culture and heritage, making the collective meaningful in a well integrated way personally, has been a preoccupation since my early teen years and something I committed to developing as I matured and this is being interjected to what I do visually.

Superimposing layers of dye and letters, with an applique focal point.

I wanted this series to come from the deepest part of my interior and in order to make sure I stay in that space, I answer questions I pose to myself around why and what for each step in the process for The Poetry Series. Allowing some words to show through and others not, I ask myself why and what does it mean to me…when stamping on the circles, I repeat the questions, and so on for the following layers. I know that it will never be possible for the viewer to know all of my answers or most of them, but that is not why I do it. I have to answer the questions as a way of getting and staying in the interior space I want these quilts to emerge out of.

"Answer the questions..." Words exploring design.

The second fire for The Poetry Series came while attending a workshop with Leslie Morgan and Claire Benn in Ohio where I learned how to print and write using dye paints and how to evaluate my work to achieve more complexity in the layers I put on my fabrics. The third fire came when I took a very basic intro class in casual lettering with Laurie Doctor. In the workshop with Morgan/Benn I was working with freedom and a wide range of motion in writing and with Doctor it was more about focus and control...opposite skills that provide me a wider range in selecting how to place my poems on the cloth.

Words in the background, giving form to pattern.

My daughter asked me what was the point of writing for it not to be legible. I’m not interested in the poem being completely legible or read in its entirety. For me, that would be a book. I’m interesting in my handwriting being used as an original design element and the viewer seeing the writing as a clue for the quilt’s foundation and as part of the mystery in it. Handwriting is so personal. People can identify you by it. Handwriting is a very intimate and experts in the field can infer personality traits by examining an individual’s handwritten marks.

"Handwriting is very intimate."
-Karoda

Also, the making of these quilts is the embodiment of Sankofa, a concept that translates into knowing where you’ve been in order to progress forward. As I read and re-write my poem onto fabric, it becomes an act of breaking open the seal on my present and future in merging the literary and the visual.

Word and quilting swirl.

So far, I have 3 studies and one completed quilt and two laying on the cutting table that need a binding, and fabrics on the design wall being auditioned for the next one. While working on this series, I’ve concluded that constructing poems and constructing quilts is very similar…weighing the pauses, periods, and words in a poem, its rhythm and texture, and evaluating the effectiveness and intent of a poem is no different from weighing the hues and values of colour, the spaces, shapes and lines, the rhythm and texture, and the effectiveness and intent of a quilt. I don’t know or want to know where this will lead, but I know I’m committed to writing on my cloth and using my poems as a foundation for a long time to come because it feels like the me I love the most.

Bringing the elements together in color and quilting.

***the quilts in the Poetry Series can be viewed at my website and I have documented my journey in my blog.




Find more photos like this on Fiber Focus

Karoda has been an active member in our Fiber Focus Group. Clicking on her slide show will take you to her page there.

Karoda's Quilted Poetry: The Design Element of Words

Cross Cultural Collaborative: Textile Workshop in Ghana!

Kente cloth strips sewn into a larger textile.

Fiber Artists!!!

Come join us in Ghana!

Aug. 2 - 15, 2009!!!!

by Ellie Schimelman

Ghana is known for it's rich history of art and culture and although it has adapted some Western ways, Ghana still has spectacular festivals to celebrate it's heritage. Part of each festival is a durbar which is comparable to a parade where all the important people, like chiefs, dress in their regalia. This is where you can see Kente cloth in all its glory. Even if you don't know anything about Kente, when you see it you know that it is special.

Asafo flag, appliqued and embroidered.

"Dancing the flag"

Each year we organize a workshop at our cultural center in a suburb of Accra where participants can learn to weave Kente, stamp adinkra, learn about Asafo, do tie and dye, batik and other fabric decorations which are taught by master artisans. This is a unique opportunity to experience African textiles in the context of their culture. Participants visit galleries, museums, cloth markets, crafts villages and dealers in antiquities.

Many traditional approaches to cloth are being lost because young artisans want to be modern and don't want to do the tedious work required to be authentic. There is a saying in Africa that each time an elder dies a library is lost... and each time a traditional artisan dies a technique is lost. There was a time when it would take a Kente weaver 3 months to weave a piece. Now, many weavers rush to get cloth ready for the 5 day market. Another reason we offer this workshop is to show indigenous artisans that their traditions have value and should be continued.

Adinkra stamps from Ghana

Sometimes the Ghanaian artist will find a modern way to work with the traditional techniques. An example of this is making the symbols on adinkra cloth using silk screen. This is certainly much faster than the traditional stamping of the symbols onto the cloth. Each way has a different look and it's up to the buyer to decide which one they prefer.

A man wearing adinkra cloth in Ghana.

There is no doubt that there are universal connections in art. In reference to African cloth, all you have to do is look at the quilts of the Gee's Bend artists. African cloth has always had symbolic meaning. Men and women taken from Africa to the diaspora had memories of cloth designs and the meanings they carried. It's easy to see how African American story quilts retain traces of African fabric techniques.

If you'd like details about the textile workshop please download a brochure at http://www.culturalcollaborative.org and any questions can be directed to aba@culturalcollaborative.org

If you come to Ghana, we'll give you an African name. Many people are named after the day of the week on which they were born. Aba is a female born on Thursday.

About Ellie Schimelman:

I graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a minor in apparel design and a major in art education. Always drawn to African art, I decided to see it in Africa and by a process of elimination chose to start in Ghana. I had really wanted to go to South Africa, but because of Apartheid, decided not to. Ghana was a good choice... English is the official language and the culture is intact.

One thing led to another, and now 20 some years later, I am the director of Cross Cultural Collaborative, with a mud house next to the ocean, about 50 Ghanaian children who call me Mami and a mission to introduce people from different cultures to each other through the language of art. The photo shows Aba House which has eight guest rooms.

My fantasy is to someday visit every African country....

Keep in touch with us through our blog!

Cross Cultural Collaborative: Textile Workshop in Ghana!

Sherry Shine's Beautiful Portrait Quilts

The 44th President by Sherry Shine

“The 44th” was created because of a speech that Barrack Obama gave back in March of 2008. He spoke about this not being White America or a Black America just the United States of America. That is when I knew he would be the next President of the United States and exactly what kind of quilts I wanted to create to honor him. I used black textile paint and grey charcoal pencils with a white background. The red border fabric is meant to symbolize all of the sacrifices we have made over the years in this country about the issue of race and ethnicity.

-Sherry Shine

"Mr. President", an Obama quilt by Sherry Shine

Sherry Shine certainly shines through her quilts! (Hmmm.... wonder how many people play on her name like that...) Sherry joined our Fiber Focus group awhile ago and quickly earned recognition among us as a talented quilter and figurative artist. Her quilts often use a minimalist color palette, favoring the grey tones seen in the Presidential quilts. But, they can also use bright colors, as in "Chronicles of a Journey" or her market series, vendors who look like they belong in a Haitian story.

Sherry's quilts go beyond technique to me. They have a beautiful calm to them, a tenderness towards both their subjects and to the rest of humanity. The word "lovely" could be used here, ringing true. It's a pleasure to meet Sherry and to begin to enjoy part of her journey with her.

"Chronicles of a Journey"
A Civil Rights and Black History Quilt by Sherry Shine

I asked Sherry to share a bit of her process as an art quilter:

"I have always used my own instinct as an avenue to express my creativity. I became interested in exploring the process of how to create quilts and their history through a lecture I attended many years ago and began creating quilts shortly after that. I have always had the ability to draw and became fascinated with the idea of joining the two together. I work on one quilt at a time in order to give it my undivided attention. The connection of the artwork and quilting continually fascinates and challenges my expression as an artist. I know that quilting has developed tremendously over the years and that in the past quilts were used as a necessity. But, it seems that the art form took on its own style through the talents of many gifted artists. Quilts have created a piece of history all on their own where the artists of today and future generations will want to be a part of them.

I currently live in East Orange, New Jersey, with my husband and two sons. I work on my art on a daily basis. Please visit my web-site: www.artbysshine.com"

-Sherry Shine

Whole Cloth Quilt by Sherry Shine

Find more photos like this on Fiber Focus

Our Fiber Focus Group is open to anyone who loves textiles and fiber art. Many of us are artists, but some are customers, interior designers, or dealers. Join Sherry, myself and others in this creative group!

Sherry Shine's Beautiful Portrait Quilts

For the Love of Indigo: Miao Tradition in Blue

Contemporary Miao Batik Indigo Cloth, $30

If you had to pick one main background color to show off all the other colors in the rainbow, what would it be? The Miao have picked indigo, and I have to agree with them: the deep blue enhances and compliments all of their rich textile traditions perfectly. Many other cultures have used indigo dyes around the world for centuries. But, while this labor intensive technique slowly dies out in many places, the Miao continue to use it today, still preferring the old ways to commercial alternatives available on the market.

Miao Indigo Cotton Cloths on Etsy
I just listed a few Miao indigo batik and tie-dyed cloths on Etsy. Click on the photos to take you to the listings. If these have been sold, search the store as I try to keep them in stock. (I also often carry embroidered Miao textile remnants. Search the store using the keyword, "Miao") These cloths use traditional techniques, but are contemporary pieces aimed at export for the Western market. Intended as tablecloths, they are perfect center pieces for quilts. The soft cloth and their designs lend themselves to easy quilting.

Miao Indigo Tie-dyed Cloth with Embroidered Accents, $30

The Miao tend to live in remote mountain areas with limited agricultural use, thus making a living through their textile productions has become their main form of sustenance. Their traditional techniques involve batik or tie-dye, a long process, using indigo and other natural dyes, then layers of applique and embroidery. These cloths are a simplified version of what they would make for themselves, allowing us to enjoy their beauty at an affordable price. As the Miao become more savvy about the value of their work, their costumes increasingly command higher prices, allowing many of them to access better health care, education, and other resources.

Who are the Miao?

Miao Woman from Peace on Earth

Gina Corrigan has written a couple of books on the Miao living in Guizhou Province, China, home to the largest concentration of Miao.

Books mentioned in this article:

In Miao Textiles from China, she describes how the Miao, the largest ethnic minority in China, are thought to have arrived into Guizhou as migrants from the Yellow River basin around 5,000 years ago. Their history has been fraught with persecution by the Han majority, poverty, discrimination, and migration, including flight into Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. (The Hmong are ethnically Miao, retaining similar textile traditions and oral history.) The Miao are divided into four main dialect groups and many subgroups, dialects so different that they often cannot understand each other. Yet, their textiles are their common language and indigo the color of cultural coherence.

Indigo wreaths and butterflies.

Indigo Central to Miao Cultural Expression
Of indigo, Corrigan has much to say, starting with:
"The most common dye in Guizhou is vegetable indigo, usually made by women, which is used on all base fabrics. ... In September the leaves are collected and soaked in barrels of water for anything from four days to two weeks, depending on the ambient temperature. Once fermented, the leaves are taken out and lime is beaten in to introduce oxygen. After several days, the indigo pigment precipitates to the bottom. The water is then drained off and the dark blue indigo paste scooped out into baskets lined with leaves. If sealed, this can be kept all winter, and some families make indigo paste to sell at market.
Domestic dyeing is also usually done by the women, who reconstitute the indigo paste with ash and water in a wooden dye vat, found in most Miao households. Rice wine is added to encourage fermentation, which gradually reduces oxygen in the vat. The dyer tastes the vat every morning to see if it is right for dyeing. Both hand-woven and bought fabrics are dyed, normally in the warmer months of September and October. They are dipped and aired many times to build up the dark blue colour, sometimes for as long as twenty-four days." (pages 13,14)

David Newbegin has a wonderful collection of photos he took in Guizhou, not necessarily about the Miao. Many are of people in their daily tasks and routines or dance performances while others show the gorgeous landscape of the region. I encourage you to visit his collection, but here are some of his photos with Newbegin's captions specifically related to indigo dyeing:

A Dong lady dyeing cloth, which the Zhaoxing villagers weave themselves, with indigo solution. The cloth is dipped and aired many times to build up the darker colour.

Various shades of indigo dyed cloth being aired along the river frontage in the Dong village of Zhaoxing in Guizhou Province. The cloth is dyed many times to produce a darker blue colour. Also rice straw ash and pigs blood is added to the indigo solution to produce a black or brown colour.

Miao lady in Biasha (Basha) village in Guizhou Province applying the finishing touches to another dress. The women wearing pleated skirts with white insets are married.

My little source book for Chinese crafts, Arts and Crafts of China (pictured in the Amazon slide show above), offers a bit more technical information on the art of dyeing indigo:
"Today, it remains almost exclusively the minority peoples who preserve the traditions of planting and cultivation to assure a steady supply of natural vegetable dyes. The ubiquitous lancao (indigo) in widespread use throughout China is especially popular among China's sourthern minority peoples, such as the Miao and Buoyei. Although synthetic indigo has been used in China since the early twentieth century, natural indigo remains the preferred choice among many minorities.
Mordant dyes are especially popular for the rich, permanent colours produced when bonding occurs between the fibre and dye compounds. This may result from soluble matter being released naturally by the plant during boiling, as is the case with tannic acid released during the boiling of sumac or gall nuts, or from the addition of special mordant substances in the preliminary or post-dyeing baths. The most common chinese mordants are alum and potash, which are obtained by boiling hemp or rice straw. Their use in varying amounts allows a broader range of tonalities to develop amont textiles submerged in the same dye." (page 15)

I found a video on YouTube that shows some of the dyeing process:

Miao ethnic people dyeing cloth with indigo colouring - 2007

When I think about it, I realize that I, too, pretty much live in indigo.... blue jeans, my daily wear, the older the better! Maybe that is why I am so attracted to the Miao language of blue, or maybe it is simply because it is so beautifully rendered.

Miao Indigo Butterfly Batik

For the Love of Indigo: Miao Tradition in Blue