Evelyne Alcide, Port Au Prince, Haiti, Seisme (Earthquake), 2010
(Santa Fe, NM - March 15, 2011)—The Arts of Survival: Folk Expression in the Face of Natural Disasterexplores how folk artists helped their communities recover from four recent natural disasters: the Haitian Earthquake; Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast; Pakistani floods; and the recent volcanic eruption of Mt. Merapi in Indonesia.
Opening July 3, 2011 in the Museum of International Folk Art’s ‘Gallery of Conscience,’ The Arts of Survival will be the gallery’s second annual exhibition. Last year’s inaugural exhibition Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities showed the successful efforts of women folk artists to raise their communities from the ravages of war and worse to build clinics, provide education, and the basic necessities of life. The Arts of Survival runs through May 6, 2012. The Arts of Survival opens International Folk Arts Week and culminates with the 8th Annual International Folk Arts Market running July 8 - 10, 2011. Highlights of the week will be artist demonstrations, artist talks, lectures, and more.
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This timely exhibit comes from one of the places I long to visit, The Museum of International Folk Art. Maybe this will be the year! You can find more information on this page.
The Arts of Survival.... Such an appropriate title to describe our times. It seems like the world is exploding all around us. The exhibit zooms in on Haiti, which is still suffering so much from its earthquake last year, and now we have Japan. There are no words to express the horrible tragedy that continues to unfold there. It is absolutely awful. A friend of mine is convinced that this is the beginning of the end, referring to the predictions of the Mayan calendar of 2012: total destruction of the world.
I do not feel so pessimistic. Yes, there is a lot of chaos in our world right now. There is nothing we can do about natural disasters except to help the survivors, pick up the pieces and try to be smarter about where we build, what we build (nuclear reactors on earthquake prone land?), and how we impact this earth with our consumerism. Then there is all the chaos caused by human friction: protests and confrontation all over the Middle East (and Wisconsin !!!!), human slave trade, the continued subjugation of women and children, poverty and starvation caused by greed and mismanagement of resources. It goes on and on and on... Survival can definitely become an art!
How do we handle all of this? One can be tempted to just shut the news off and go about life in a little bubble, a cocoon of personal happiness.
I think that the way to respond and to feel like there is hope is to pick a couple of issues where you can feel like your time, money and energy will make a difference. Perhaps one that is local to where you live and one that has an international focus. Giving leads to receiving and as we engage with the other, we find ourselves and realize that we are all connected.
Artists have recorded history through the ages: the good the bad and the ugly. We have had war and natural disasters all along our human story. Recording these through the survivor's narrative has such an important role in our future as one thing also remains constant: we forget. We don't learn from our past mistakes. We keep seeing the same dynamics played over and over again in history: power, greed, oppression. And, out of the ashes, come those voices of hope. I know I will want to see this exhibit and if you can make it, I'm sure that you will, too.
The Arts of Survival: Folk Expression in the Face of Natural Disaster
If the story of cotton is sung out in tears and lament, the story of silk makes for epic movies of conquest and desire. As a fiber, silk's resilience, strength, luminosity and sheen made it a coveted material in long times past and continues to hold us like a magnet in today's fashion industry, even with our short attention span. I don't think I knew what a time consuming and fragile operation it was to work with the silk worms until I read one of Pearl S. Buck's novels. I can't remember which one it was, but the care of the mulberry bushes, which feed the worms, was carefully described. As my passion for textiles increased, stories of the Silk Road, also captivated my interest.
The route between China and Europe first started through the desire to conquer the unknown territories lying west of the Han dynasty:
"In 138 BCE, Zhang Qian (pronounced JANG-CHYEN) set out through the tall stone gates of Chang’an, the capital of Han dynasty China. He rode at the head of a caravan of 100 Han soldiers, riding into the dusty, unknown lands to the west. Zhang Qian was an officer of the Han imperial guard and he had volunteered for a critical mission. ... In the end, Zhang Qian’s adventures led to the start of a long march of merchants across great stretches of land and through wide spans of history. The trade links which resulted from his first trek and later expeditions opened regular trade between China, India, the Roman empire and all the areas in between."Monkey Tree
That route became traveled by rugged, determined merchants for centuries. The merchants carried many treasures, but of these, silk was the most prized, thus naming the route as "The Silk Road". One of my favorite books, Textiles of Central Asia by Janet Harvey devotes a section to the importance of silk to the trade:
"So great was the value of the knowledge of sericulture that legend has it China kept the secret for over two thousand years, until the day came when silkworm eggs were smuggled out of the country. We learn of a Chinese princess who was betrothed to the King of far-off Khotan. Apparently he was a king with knowledge and forethought, for the envoy sent to escort his bride was told to advise 'the Royal Princess of the East' that 'her new country possesses no silk or quilting, and has neither mulberry nor silkworm. These will be needed if she is to have clothes made'. The princess supposedly left China with eggs of Bombyx mori and seeds of the white mulberry hidden in her headdress. Once established in Khotan in Eastern Turkestan, and doubtless elsewhere beyond China, sericulture spread westwards along the trade routes to become a lucrative home-industry for town and village households throughout Central Asia." (page 57)
Turkotek is a wonderful online resource for anyone interested in Asian textiles. Members show each other photos and help determine origin, technique and history around the pieces. They are extremely knowledgeable and make for a fascinating read.
Mystery and Intrigue Around Silk
Even as silk made its way to other countries, it was often horded by the royalty and nobility. Commoners were relegated to cotton or cotton/silk blends. In time, it became established as a cottage industry throughout Asia. Although factories have standardized cultivation of the silk worm and mulberry trees, it continues as a mainstay industry in many of the areas where silk has been grown for centuries. This video shows a Bengladeshi group working with silk:
Jim Thompson, an American who came from a family of textile producers, saw this kind of production in Thailand and became very interested in marketing Thai silk to interior designers and high end decor outlets. At that time, Thai silk had been dying out and his efforts revitalized the industry making Thailand one of the centers of the most beautiful silks found today. Jim Thompson founded the Thai Silk Company, still thriving today, built a beautiful compound and established a large collection of Asian art. There is a catch. Jim Thompson had also been a CIA agent during the war. Speculation leads some people to believe that his work with silk and his interest in art was actually a cover for his continued CIA work. His story ends as one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th Century:
William Warren writes about
Jim Thompson's mysterious disappearance.
The Unsolved Mystery: "On Easter Day, 1967, American businessman and founder of the modern Thai silk industry James H. W. Thompson disappeared while supposedly on a stroll in the jungle-clad Cameron Highlands in Central Malaysia. The circumstances were unusual, and led to a massive search and investigation. Neither Jim Thompson nor his remains has ever been found…
After he vanished, Jim Thompson became the subject of a second legend, a mystery that has never been solved. The facts were first recounted by William Warren in 1970 in his book The Legendary American. Today, many people in Thompson’s circle are no longer living. Now the author, who knew Thompson well, is able to write more freely. This revised edition contains new material on Thompson’s private life and his alleged role as a CIA agent, drawn from interviews with people close to the events. The result is this definitive account of a true-life mystery of international proportions." Description from The Jim Thompson House Museum Shop
Other books have been written about his disappearance, but nobody knows what really happened...
Francine Matthews is one of the speculators who embraces the CIA theory in her book The Secret Agent. She says, "Thompson is believed to have quit espionage entirely around 1948 in order to become a silk trader. But when I looked at the map of Thailand—and later visited Khorat myself—I guessed that he'd journeyed into the hinterland so often in those early Thai years in order to run agents for U.S. intelligence. By 1949, the communist Mao Zedong was triumphing to the north and the colonial wars of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos were just heating up. Revolt was everywhere, and revolt was of concern to Washington. To shroud his covert activities from scrutiny in Bangkok, particularly after the authoritarian coup of 1947, Thompson needed a plausible cover job. One of the few things the dust of Khorat will grow is mulberry trees. Mulberry trees feed silk worms. And to Jim Thompson's delight, silk was a product he could promote the world over."
As she investigated the book, Francine Matthews tells one of Thompson's peers what she thought about his death, "I told her that I thought Thompson had never ceased working as a spy, and that when he journeyed to Malaysia on that final weekend of his life, he intended to meet someone—an agent, a contact, perhaps his killer—in the jungle of the Cameron Highlands. I said I believed that he possessed a vital piece of information the Thai government wanted suppressed: the identity of the regicide who had shot the young king of Thailand, Rama the Eighth, on June 9, 1946—paving the way for an authoritarian coup. I added that I thought Thompson had threatened to reveal the details of that old tragedy, and had been silenced as a result."
Thompson's story does not end with his disappearance. Six months after his death, his sister also meets with an untimely end. She is murdered during a burglary, which many think was an attempt to locate Thompson's will. After her death, the Thai government seized his art collection in Thailand, but his house was made into a museum, the second most visited tourist destination in Thailand.
Silk Sweatshops
Given the labor involved in silk production, how is it that we can today get a silk shirt at Walmart for under $20? Seems to me that a low price like this is a certain indication that its provenance is not a good, happy place under a mulberry bush. Instead, it most likely comes from a sweat shop, forced or child labor, located somewhere where real costs are not being counted in to the final price. Yes, China has had a terrible history concerning sweatshop and forced labor. But, the United States also continues to harbor horrible scenarios where workers are chained to their sewing machines, locked into rooms and not allowed access to the outside world, and forced to give their labor for nothing. Stories about these atrocities periodically make the news and most are within the garment industry using either Mexican or Chinese immigrants as virtual slaves.
Google "fair trade silk" and you will come up with hundreds of links to silk products made by fair trade groups around the world. One of the most interesting efforts I had heard of several years ago was a group working in Colombia. They were trying to find an alternative to the cocaine industry that would bring in as much revenue for the small farmer. I couldn't find the original group I had known about, but I saw that other groups have continued the effort.
Silk production comes with internal problems concerning its harvest which bother vegetarians, vegans and animal rights activitists. TreeHugger ran an interesting article entitled : Is Silk Green? which looked at these issues to determine the value of silk within the green movement. If you look at it, make sure to read the comments as well. In order to harvest a coccoon with one long continuous thread, the moth inside must not be allowed to exit the coccoon, so it is killed by exposing the coccoon to a heat source. Some fair trade groups allow the coccoon to exit and thus need to spin the fibers, raising the cost of the thread. But, to many small groups in remote areas, silk production is a viable industry that allows families to make a living on their native land while maintaining family structures and cultural traditions. Certain breeds of moths also no longer survive in the wild as development encroaches on their terrain. Thus, in my opinion, cottage industries working with silk provide us all with both a wonderful material and a connection to an interesting past.
The lesson here is, if you buy silk, buy fair trade. And, watch your back. Don't go around giving away any local secrets to men in black...
