Devon Guild Summer Show

The Summer Show, the annual exhibition of work by the Devon Guild of Craftsmen membership is on at their Bovey Tracey gallery until 4th September 2016.

This year’s show has no specific theme and features a particularly wide range of exciting work. Wai-Yuk is represented by her “Taunton Kimono”.

The Summer Show Private View

If you have the chance to be in South Devon over the next month, try to get along to see a very fine selection of the best in contemporary craft.

The Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Riverside Mill, Bovey Tracey, Devon TQ13 9AF
Open seven days a week – 10.00am to 5.30pm.

Antwerp Kimono Show

Last weekend we travelled to Antwerp to see an exhibition of kimono by the late Japanese master Itchiku Kubota. Kubota is one of my favourite artists and the chance to see some of his pieces that I only knew in reproduction made the trip a must.

The exhibition was small with just eight kimono, six from the “Symphony of Light” series (the “Universe” set) plus two from his “Mount Fuji” series. The works were fabulous, which I knew they would be, but sadly the quality of the display was very poor with untidy hanging and lighting totally unsuitable for this type of work. The main light came from an internal paved courtyard but this caused so much reflection on the glass that you could only really see the piece directly in front of you. Fortunately we were permitted to take photographs, which is normally strictly forbidden in Kubota exhibits.

Reflections on the glass made viewing very difficult!

The “Universe” set of kimono represents a mythical dragon within Mount Fuji breathing out flames and magma. They form one amazing continous image which was impossible to photograph but I have put together a set of individual photos to show the effect.

The Universe set from “The Festival of Light”

The complexity of the shibori work is amazing

The subtle areas are among the most beautiful

One of the Mount Fuji kimono

The hand-stitched shibori textures are breathtaking!

The other Mount Fuji kimono

Kubota would spend as much as a year working on each kimono

The exhibition runs until the 19th June at MOMU – The Antwerp Fashion Museum. Antwerp itself is not a city I had ever considered visiting but proved to be a very pleasant and enjoyable destination.

Major Ikat Exhibition

A major exhibition of IKAT textiles has just opened at the Brunei Gallery, in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Organized by the World Crafts Council, this marvellous show is well worth a visit by anyone with an interest in traditional textiles.

Ikat is a technique where yarn is dyed with multiple colours prior to weaving so that patterns arise from aligning the yarn colours during the weaving process. Yarn is most commonly dyed using a tie-dye or similar resist technique. Because the production techniques are both painstaking and time consuming, Ikat textiles are among the most expensive of all fabrics. Variations on the Ikat technique can be found all around the world.

The Brunei Gallery is a beautiful venue and deserves to be much better known. It is only a 3 minute walk from the British Museum. In addition to a program of changing exhibitions, there is a permanent collection and a beautiful Japanese roof garden.The show features examples from some ten countries in the Asia-Pacific region, plus items from Latin-America, the Middle East, West Africa and Europe.

As well as the textile displays, on specific event days there are live demonstrations, a symposium and film screenings.

The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 to 17.00. Closed Sundays, Mondays and Bank holidays. Admission is free.

For more details, see the Brunei Gallery website

Ironwork in Florence

When the family took a short break in Florence a couple of weeks ago we were all struck by the amount of wrought ironwork attached to walls and covering ground floor windows. Much of this ironwork dates back to renaissance times but the tradition of using metal in attractive and interesting ways continues today.

Wrought iron bars covering the ground floor window of an old building

In medieval and renaissance times Florence was a turbulent place, with civil unrest, invasion and religious upheaval all being regular hazards. Measures to keep unwanted intruders out of your property were essential.

Over time the window coverings became less utilitarian and more decorative

 

Wandering the streets of Florence you see many variations of the blacksmith’s art

A more modern take on the window bars concept

During the renaissance, streets and buildings were lit by burning torches inserted into brackets on walls. Different designs of bracket can be seen throughout the old city.

Bracket for a torch

Later these torch brackets also became much more elaborate like this dragon

An elaborate lantern

The metalwork tradition continued when new kinds of street lighting were introduced

Many interesting balconies continue the public metalwork tradition

Kaga Yuzen Dyeing

Yuzen Dyeing is a traditional process for decorating silk which uses a paste resist made from glutinous rice to contain dyes within desired boundaries. It can be thought of as a sophisticated production version of the western “Serti” technique for silk painting. While Yuzen dyeing is carried out in many parts of Japan the most famous traditional area of production was the “Kaga” region, an old province, now part of Ishikawa Prefecture on the North coast of Honshu.

Restrained, traditional Kaga Yuzen Kimono at the Kanazawa Museum for Traditional Products and Crafts

Kaga Yuzen production was centred in Kanazawa and the decorated Kimono silk from this area became famous from the eighteenth century onwards. The distinguishing features were highly naturalistic designs based on plants and animals and a colourful but strictly limited palette.

During our visit to Japan this year, Alex and I travelled to Kanazawa to see what we could learn about Kaga Yuzen dyeing as practised today. Our first port of call was the city’s Museum for Traditional Products and Crafts. This was a very interesting place to visit with some great exhibits by young craftspeople but it only had a few Kimono and very little information.

Kaga Yuzen features fine white lines between the blocks of colour and often has fine shading within the colour areas (Click to enlarge)

Our next port of call was Kaga Yuzen Traditional Industry Centre, a sort of co-operative education and marketing effort for all the local producers. Sadly this featured the same disappointments we encountered at a few other venues in Japan: no photography permitted and a distinct feeling that they only really cared about you spending time in the gift shop buying the quite pricey and often slightly tacky souvenirs. Still, the displays did feature many Kimono including some with very dramatic and unusual compositions. We were also able to sit and watch a lengthy TV documentary on Kaga Yuzen dyeing. One thing the displays at this Centre made clear was that today’s Kaga Yuzen dyers have now largely abandoned the traditional restricted and restrained colour schemes in favour of much more exuberant, sweet and perhaps even syrupy hues.

The Kaga Yuzen Traditional Industry Centre had lots of Kimono on show but was disappointing

The next day we went to a privately run Kaga Yuzen studio, the Nagamachi Yuzen Kan. Here we were made very much more welcome with photography positively encouraged and a helpful guide who tried hard to be informative, despite speaking little English. I suspect that this studio makes most of its income through teaching but it had a large gallery full of Kimono on display. The sweet, bright pastel colours were again in evidence but the technique shown was superb.

The Nagamachi Yuzen Kan had a large gallery space and a welcoming atmosphere

A design drawing.

The Kaga Yuzen process can be summarised as:-

1. The design drawing is transferred to the silk over a lightbox using fugitive ink that will wash out.

2. The design is outlined in very fine lines using a bag of rice paste and a fine nozzle similar to that used in cake decoration

An artist’s work table. Note the heater set into the surface to dry the dyes

3. The individual areas of colour are painted in. Artists use an electric heater to quickly dry the dyes so that they do not run and work on the different sections of Kimono fabric simultaneously.

Artists work on several pieces at once. Bent bamboo strips with pins in each end are used to stretch the silk

4. The fabric is given a short steaming to fix the painting before all the design areas are coated with rice paste resist.

5. The fabric is stretched and the background is rapidly coloured in using a large brush.

The black background was painted after the design was fixed and covered with resist

6. The fabric is given a final steaming to fix all the colours

7. The silk is washed to remove all the rice paste and excess dye. Formerly this was done in the local rivers but now this only happens during festivals and special events to entertain tourists.

8. After drying and ironing the finished fabric is made up into a Kimono.

A finished Kimono

Wai-Yuk Kennedy – Kaga Yuzen artist!

Threads of Silk and Gold

Last weekend we travelled to Oxford to see a groundbreaking new textiles exhibition at The Ashmolean Museum. “Threads of Silk and Gold – Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan”, presents textile pieces using traditional Japanese skills but made primarily for a Western audience. (Sadly, there was no photography allowed in the exhibition but I did sneak a couple of snaps to give a flavour of the show.)

Cover of the beautiful catalogue

Japanese art and crafts were hugely popular in the West between the 1870’s and the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912. Textiles were part of this export trade but have been little studied until now.

Although there are token exhibits of weaving and Yuzen dyeing, this is an exhibition of Japanese embroidery. Ranging from superb exhibition pieces and large artworks to examples of what are frankly “tourist kitsch”, the craftsmanship is uniformly superb and shows a level of hand labour that is now unimaginable.

Detail of Cranes and Wisteria – Size 201cm x 279cm (Ashmolean collection)

This screen of cormorant fishing is the star of the show

Many of the largest pieces (up to nearly 4 metres high) were exhibition works for various World Fairs, or were produced for the richest foreign tourists to take home from their visits.

Detail of the Cormorant Fishing showing the free stitching technique

Detail showing the fire basket. This is painting with stitches!

I have long loved Japanese embroidery but always felt that there was a stiffness and very “rules-driven” approach to its execution. With the notable exception of the Cormorant screen, this is still visible here but where the designs are so grand and original the end-result totally escapes any limitation from the fact that every feather on every bird is executed using precisely the same stitch technique. Indeed, the whole exhibition is an object lesson in the possibilities and limitations of craft techniques;  the truly original works exceed the limitations of technique while even the best craft skills cannot rescue the dreadful pot-boilers.

Detail of the peacock shown on the catalogue cover. (Photo of catalogue illustration)

Outside the exhibition was an education exhibit on Japanese embroidery techniques (where photography was allowed) and on the day we visited there were also embroiderers staging demonstrations.

Many exhibits feature 3D embroidery. This is a modern imitation

Demonstration piece showing basic stitches

Techniques for couching gold thread

Modern, embroidered handling-piece

Silk-weaving is now the only affordable substitute for large fully-embroidered pieces

“Threads of Silk and Gold” runs at the Ashmolean until 27^th January 2013. For more information see the Ashmolean website

New textile jewellery set

I’ve just finished a new set of jewellery, which includes a blue-green brooch and matching earrings. The wing motif was brought to mind by a photo of Isla on the ferry to Orkney, where she looks as though she could be an angel tumbling to earth. The light, luminous colours also draw from the wonderful Orkney light.
I’m now planning to add to the set with a neckpiece, let me know what you think!

New brooch and earrings inspired by wings and Orkney

Isla-the-angel tumbling to earth aboard the Orkney ferry

The Suzhou Silk Embroidery Institute

My daughter spent last summer working in China. Of course, I could not resist the chance to go out and visit her there before she came home. Alongside seeing many wonderful historic sites, I had the chance to fulfil a long-time dream in visiting the Suzhou Silk Embroidery Research Institute.

Sadly, I had the misfortune to have my camera stolen right at the end of my trip so I lost all the wonderful pictures I had taken, but by chance, I also snapped a few pictures with my iPod while at the Embroidery Institute. Though these are not much good as photographs, they at least give some idea of what I saw on my visit.

Embroidered flower detail

Situated in a classic Chinese garden, the Institute was founded in the 1950’s as a
centre of excellence for Chinese embroidery. The skills maintained and taught
there include traditional approaches but also the innovations brought to
Chinese embroidery by 20^th century pioneers such as Shen Shou (1874–1921) and Yang Shouyu (1896-1982).

Legendary Suzhou embroidery master Shen Shou

Shen Shou was a famous embroiderer and educator who transformed her subject by bringing in aspects learned from painting (including western painting),
Japanese embroidery and photography. When she was sent on a study tour to Japan organised by the government, she became the first Chinese woman ever to
undertake such a role. The influence of Shen Shou is still strong today and can be seen in the way the embroiderers treat light. This is very impressionistic and clearly relates to photography in a way that takes it far from traditional approaches.

Craftswoman embroidering cranes

Today, all tourists with an interest in embroidery are given a warm welcome at the
Institute but its products are only available to the very rich. In the early
twentieth century Shen Shou produced renowned embroideries for the Dowager
Empress of China and for European royalty. One hundred years later the Suzhou
Institute still supplies clients of a similar profile (a commission for the Dutch
royal family was in progress when I visited.)

Embroiderer surrounded by carefully shaded silks

As well as the actual embroidery, all the silks are dyed on the premises to the precise shades required.

The quality of the work is astounding and the embroideries of traditional subjects, particularly those drawn from nature are awe-inspiring. At the same time I am left with a feeling that so much concentrated talent could achieve more. A little too much of the subject matter is very safe and often blatantly sentimental and I find it troubling that immensely talented young women should be spending many hours copying photographs of rich people’s pets. Even so, I will always treasure my visit and the chance to see such exquisite craftsmanship.
I am still sad about my lost photographs though!

Related Posts:
Bonsai Tree Hand Embroidery
Crafts of India – Hand Embroidery

Working on double-sided embroidery (more like weaving!)

Working on double-sided embroidery (see the shuttles)

Embroiderer surrounded by carefully shaded silks

Craftswoman embroidering cranes

Amazing embroidery of peacock feathers

Sketched-out stage of embroidery

Stretching work on a frame prior to embroidery

Racks of beautiful coloured silks were everywhere

Early stage of embroidery

Embroidered flower detail

Legendary Suzhou embroidery master Shen Shou

New Textile Brooches

Here are some photographs of three new brooches I have been working on. Each one uses slightly different approaches to adding surface detail and embellishment. I hope that you find them interesting.

Textile brooch finished with raised metallic hand embroidery

I was searching for a fresh way to create a focal point on the above brooch. My first attempts were not satisfying me so I tried some raised work in metallic thread. I will want to live with it for a little while before I decide how I feel about the effect but it is a little bit different.

Textile brooch finished with velvet appliqué

I love the way that velvet contrasts with other fabric surfaces. I have acquired a large range of coloured velvet materials and I am using them more and more on my jewellery pieces.

Textile brooch finished with appliqué and small glass beads

Just recently I have begun using appliqué in a slightly more “aggressive” manner. Normally, I rely on the shapes of the textile pieces themselves to generate movement in my work. With strongly contrasting appliqué I can generate other lines of movement that interact with the overall fabric shape.

Textile brooch finished with raised metallic hand embroidery

Raised metallic embroidery is topped with a small bead

Detail of the embroidery on the blue brooch

Back view of the blue brooch

Green and blue brooch with velvet appliqué

Textile brooch finished with velvet appliqué

Back view of the green and blue brooch

Textile brooch finished with appliqué and small glass beads

Orange brooch showing very small glass beads stitched on

Orange brooch with a pair of matching earrings

Art In Action

I spent last weekend at the Art in Action show held in Waterperry Gardens, near Oxford. This annual festival of visual arts has been running since 1977 and is still going strong. Hundreds of artists and craftsmen came together to display their creations, demonstrate their techniques, and discuss their inspirations. Luckily, the weekend was gloriously sunny, the atmosphere was fun and energetic, and I had a really fantastic couple of days.

Out of all the displays, I found the ceramics marquee and the glass marquee to be the most exciting – some works were fun and quirky, and some were incredibly beautiful in form and colour.

Here are some photographs showing just a few of the many interesting things that caught my eye.

Linda Dangoor, ceramics.

Tim Boswell, glass.

Ali Yanya, ‘Souk,’ watercolour.

John Stroomer, ceramics.

If you get a chance, Waterperry Gardens are also well worth a visit. Established by the formidable Miss Havergal (believed to be the inspiration for Roald Dahl’s Miss Trunchbull), the gardens feature beautiful herbaceous borders and some lovely old trees as well as a gallery, garden centre and café.

Some Textile Work as a Break from Making Textiles!

Those of you who are familiar with my work will have figured out that my process for making textile art pieces is quite meticulous and painstaking. This suits me fine and I love what I do but still I enjoy a change of pace now and again. This often involves dressmaking (I have made a few Indian style shirts since my trip to Rajasthan in February.) Recently I decided to make some bags for a change. I had material lying around that I could not find another use for and it seemed like a quick, fun project.

One of the new bags I made (this one has velvet handles)

The material was heavyweight curtain/cushion fabric with nice hand embroidery on it. Add to this some bits of velvet and wool for straps and trimming plus some cotton/polyester lining material (both also lying around in my ridiculously large material stocks) and I was all set to go bag making.

Another version (this one with blue-green woollen handles)

The end result was three nice new bags, each with slight variations in size, proportion and strap design. A good use of materials I had at hand and a nice change from fiddly embroidery.

The third bag (this one with a red woollen shoulder strap)

To finish the new bags off I had some wooden buttons made based on my brooch designs.

Wooden button based on my brooch design

I have made lots of bags over the years. Here is one I made for my daughter several years ago.

A bag I made several years ago (designed with two alternative fronts)

The other side of the same bag

Time for a Review

This blog has now been running for exactly four months and I thought that now might be the time for a bit of a round-up! Over the past four months the blog has featured 90 posts, received nearly 1500 likes, 12,500 site views and is now edging towards 300 followers. I don’t really have much idea of what these statistics mean, as I haven’t anything to compare them to, but I can say that the blog has become a major feature in my life and in that of my whole family.

One of my textile brooches

I’m also going to take this moment to make a few confessions – this blog is not entirely a one person production, which has no doubt been obvious from day one for those who know me personally! For one, my standard of English is at times a bit shaky, so my daughter Isla is the go-to girl for language and editing (any posts where the English standard slips a bit are ones that Isla was unavailable to check!). My son Greg and his girlfriend Emma have also been a fantastic help – they were the ones who convinced me that I should start a blog in the first place, and Greg set everything up for me and gave me lessons so I could get things started.
And of course there’s my husband Alex: my partner in business and in life, and now my partner in blogging. He talks through the ideas for all the posts with me, and helps me brainstorm lists of upcoming ideas to keep us going. He is also the one in charge of sorting out photos and making sure that everything is ready to publish.

The beautiful landscape near my home (click on images to view full size)

When this blog started I had no clear idea what it would be about apart from that it would be a place for me to share something about my textile work. I didn’t really know what I had to say or what people wanted to hear, and I’m sure that I’ve broken lots of rules about good blogging! Four months in, I’ve decided that this blog is quite simply about a) my work and b) those things that excite and inspire me.
Hopefully this means that I’ll continue connecting with all of you who have similar interests and that I can pass a little inspiration along!

I never fail to be inspired by the sea near my home

Lastly, I can say that the regular work of producing this blog has made me re-examine all the things in life that fascinate me. In looking for things to share with others, I have regained my appreciation of how lucky I am in what I do and in the wonderful place that I live in (despite the appalling weather!)

A misty morning close to my home

The form of this brooch was originally inspired by drawings of the Cornish landscape

The Art of Karen Nicols

One result of producing this blog is that I have spent much more time reading blogs written by other people. Finding blogs which have something to say to you can sometimes seem like looking for a needle in a haystack, there is just so much stuff on the web. When you do discover things you feel in tune with it is very rewarding. A lot of things you read are just great fun but others can give you a whole new outlook on a subject or person. This happened to me recently when I discovered a couple of posts that transformed how I saw an artist.

The post entitled More Stitchery on Mage and Raven’s blog and another on Lovely Textiles led me to look closely at the work of Karen Nicol and completely reassess her art. To the extent that I was aware of Karen Nicol at all, it was as someone who made decorated clothing and accessories which involved a sense of humor I did not connect with. I have a fear that I may even have dismissed them as “lightweight.”  I now realize that I had never taken the time to really look at and appreciate her work before.
Karen’s current fine art work is based on images of animals and I have to say that they strike me as extremely potent, powerful images.
Frank Auerbach defined art as creating images that don’t bleed into other images and the best of Nicol’s animals stand up to this test. Her images of monkeys in particular, have seared themselves into my brain. In the end this post is just a reminder that you should really look at things before you dismiss them. I suggest that you take a few minutes to check out these nice blogs and maybe take a look at Karen Nicol’s own website.
Karen seems very busy right now with a solo show in New York in November followed by an exhibition of her monkey images at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London next March. She has a new book entitled Embellished- New Vintage, published by A&C Black.

(All images copyright Karen Nicols)

The Doors of Ping Yao

A little while ago I posted some photos of doors from Rajasthan, India, and tonight I thought I would show you some pictures of very different doors.
Ping Yao is a small Chinese city situated several hundred miles south-west of Beijing. This ancient walled city is notable for its old buildings and for having the only remaining Ming dynasty city fortifications in China that are broadly intact. The area encompassed by the city walls has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ping Yao was once a wealthy banking centre and has many fine buildings, both domestic and public. A good number of these have now been restored and are open to tourists.

Street entrance to a once wealthy Ping Yao mansion

In traditional Han-Chinese homes, the outer door from the street does not lead into a building but into a courtyard. Members of an extended family would live in different buildings around this courtyard. The residences of wealthy families would have a succession of inner courtyards, each with rooms leading off. These photographs were taken in the unrestored parts of the city, a few show the entrances to grand buildings but others are from very modest homes. All bear marks of the passage of time and many decades of neglect.

Age and Neglect

Unlike private homes, the street doors of shops open directly into the building. These shop doors typically featured a lot of intricate carving.

Door to a restaurant

A new door in traditional style being fitted in Ping Yao

Today, as Ping Yao develops as a tourist destination, there are many buildings being restored. From what I could see this was being done well in a technical sense, with the use of traditional methods, materials and designs being strictly enforced. This is in stark contrast to much “restoration” in China, which often draws more on fiction than local tradition for inspiration. Even when accurately restored, however, I fear that much is being lost. Those who want to feel the age and history of a place like Ping Yao might have to go soon before these wonderful time-weary buildings are replaced by perfect modern facsimiles.

Street entrance to a once wealthy Ping Yao mansion

Age and Neglect

View into a courtyard

Not ancient or traditional but very interesting

Note the communist star above the door

Door to a secondary school

Door to a restaurant

A new door in traditional style being fitted in Ping Yao

Related post: Indian Doors

What does trivial mean?

Alex and I recently read an Etsy blog piece by Kate Gatski, entitled Tell Your Everyday Story on Your Blog, and we had an interesting discussion about what makes something ‘trivial’.

Her premise is that craftspeople live enviable lives and that worthwhile stories can be found in our everyday activities. She then goes on to suggest ways in which one can discover the stories in the things happening around you. This piece is both interesting and well-written and it has attracted a large body of comment, most of which has been positive, but there have been a significant number of strongly critical comments.

Cezanne still life – an excellent example of how the ordinary can become the extraordinary.

The gist of these criticisms is that Kate is encouraging makers to clog up the web with ever more pieces of trivia. They do indeed have a point – a considerable amount of content on the web does often seem lightweight and pointless (though of course the bits that one person finds pointless might not coincide with the bits that another person finds pointless!) The media too bombards us with the trivial and the pointless as poor substitutes for meaningful content. The gradual bleaching of true meaning and the growth of the trivial are of real concern to creative people because it goes against what art aims to do – bring a sense of meaning to a world that can seem empty and pointless.

Vermeer – The lacemaker

Ultimately, however, the critics of Kate Gatski’s piece seem to be missing the point. She is not advocating that anyone should fill up their blog with a mindless record of everyday activities, she is asking craftspeople to search out significance in their own daily world and tell others about it. This is a valid creative enterprise with a very long tradition. Meaning, in stories or in life, should not be sought somewhere else, somewhere exotic, or somewhere over the horizon. The world you live in is the world in which you have to create your meaning. Sometimes we do find meaning in grand visions but other equally amazing and worthwhile things can be found all around us. We simply have to learn how to see them.

Chardin still life