Before the Fall: The Cover Story

Fabric-paper quilt collage, hand and machine embroidered 45x 52cm

It's time for a reality check. What gave me the idea that I would change my old habits, my perennial twofold attitude towards reality, just because I said so?
I thought I had been posting a lot, or at least that I had lots of posts almost completed, ready to be published, complete with links and matching photographs, plenty of material that just needed a final push of a button (and/or will).
That, of course, had only happened in my head: yes, there are quite a few drafts, but nowhere as nearly ready as I thought they would be. Photos that I thought I had taken aren't there, planned layouts, titles, ideas, just gone, disappeared, never been.
So to help fill in the hiatus between fantasy and reality and start catching up again, I thought  it would be a good idea to tell the story of my new Facebook Cover page, which is in fact the reproduction of my fabric-paper quilt  titled 'Before the Fall'.

I made it, a couple of years ago, to my own deadline: I had the urgency to finish it before the autumn came, I think I made it by November, which is a good achievement by my standards. The title is a word play between the two meanings of Fall, as in both Autumn and an involuntary jump.  Its other titles are 'The Indian Garden'  and the "Blue Poppy" . It was born as a response to the Indian Garden that had been hosted by the British Museum (in collaboration with Kew Gardens) as part of a series of temporary thematic Gardens and Landscapes, often linked to exhibitions and events (in this case the wonderful 'Garden and Cosmos')  http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_london/indian_summer/garden_and_cosmos.aspx

THE POPPY OBSESSION

The need to make a collage/mixed media quilt about the Indian Garden had more than one reason: I did want to capture the ephemeral beauty of the blue poppy and make it a bit more permanent.
 I wanted to share and prolong the joy that that garden had brought me: in a twisted sort of way, India was what had brought me to the British Museum in the first place and on the wake of an 'Indian Season' and Summer I was going to finish my (long) season there, as my job was due to terminate in the Autumn. I wanted to remind myself how ironic it was that when I finally wanted to stay I had to go (story of my life!)
 It was about India, it featured the quite unique Blue Poppy and the possibility to catch its elusive sight (it didn't last long!) during lunch time, then there was the story of the Mango Tree that actually bore a fruit, right there in the middle of Bloomsbury, an unexpected auspicious present just like the Indian Garden on my 'doorsteps'


I loved several things, the Peepul and the Banyan trees, the spices and herbs, the humble French marigold, the Lotus pond, and so many others, but decided to focus mainly on the blue poppy, which had become a bit of an obsession and therefore had to be the 'focal point'.  I have always loved poppies, their generous beauty, spread casually in the fields for everyone to enjoy: a 'democratic flower', deceptively fragile yet sturdy in its own way.

 This poppy was particularly special too, so I set out studying the best way to reproduce it and do it in my medium of choice.  Collages lend themselves to an instinctive approach, even though an overall plan must be present.

I wanted a lot of yellow/golden tones, to convey the sunny atmosphere (and as a nice contrasting background for the blue flower) reminiscent of India itself. Then the shape had to be right because this wasn't an ordinary poppy but at the same time simple and relatively easy to reproduce in fabric paper and be able to accommodate other materials as well as embroidery.

From the sketchbook

A couple of common poppies had to be present too, because I couldn't resist the idea of a lovely red poppy being there as well, and I could use one that I had made some time before in machine embroidery with soluble fabric

This in turn offered me the opportunity to use some twisted wire (found on my way to the post-room) that was shaped exactly like a stem and that I was able to couch down with some silver metallic thread



Then there was the layering of images relating to India, mainly maps (but I also included some old Middlesex ordnance survey maps, somewhere just as exotic to me that I have come to call home) postal stamps and text. This  was added in different media : ranging from proper collage of photocopied text glued down or cut-outs from food packaging, to special organza inkjet printed and attached to the background.

Detail showing the word Prema (Love) 

Detail showing an old Middlesex ordnance survey map

Details showing an Indian stamp

Indian stamp and food packaging

Title printed on 'Extravaorganza'

Detail of the blue poppy's centre with  ripped velvet stitch

Detail of layers made with different images of  Delhi

The marigold 

flower made with handmade nepali  paper and varnished with acrylic wax

Indian imagery

Start with the Heart

Last year, around this time I think, I was in a bit of a dilemma. I was being flooded, like many of us, with images of hearts and various 'valentine' related images.
I for one, never subscribed completely to the Valentine ethics, or aesthetics for that matter.  Too obvious, too cheap, too cheesy and so on. At the same time, I like the heart as a symbol, I like the colour red, I was dying to use its shape and anything that hints at love doesn't fail to attract me. It can only be a good, positive thing. Or can it?
So it set me thinking about how we women (especially) are kind of easily fooled by the concept of love, how we easily trade, status, dignity, possibilities and lots of other things including freedom and independence all in its name. And I am basically referring to romantic love here.  So caught  between these two poles, I started a collage

to elaborate on the subject and the imagery.  So this is the first part which is then actually followed by what seems to be its natural progression

The need to take the symbol and dissect it just as the multiplicity of illusions do to the 'real' thing when they reveal the less appealing (sometimes downright ugly) reality beneath.

...To be continued...

The King's House:what goes around comes around

I, for several reasons, do not believe (much), in 'New Year's Resolutions'. One of them being that there are
 lots of NewYears according to different cultures and countries and that even in 'our own Western'
convention, the beginning of the year hasn't always coincided with the 1st of January.

Nevertheless, I do believe in new beginnings, in giving yourself the chance to start all over again, even if just for a day.
A chance to reconnect with the past, reflect upon it and carry it forward towards the future.

All this to say, that I have been away (from the blog) for a while, and that I am taking the occasion of the New Year, or to be more precise, of the Epiphany (an occasion as good as any) to pull the threads of my thoughts together and tell you yet another story.

I was meant to update you on the Black History Day jointly organized by Barnet Council and the African Cultural Association http://www.africanculturalassociation.net/ that took place in the Hendon Library on the 29th of October, in which I had the pleasure and the honour to take part. Being October, it was the Autumn as well as last year.  So now that we are in the deep mid-winter and at the beginning of a new year it may be pleasant to be reminded of that:

It was a quiet (well, apart from a few drums being played loudly at times), joyful occasion, with people from different backgrounds meeting together. Above you can see a member of the staff library dancing to the rhythm of the drums alongside a member of the public to her right and an ACA member to her left.

And below you can see the talented drum player, performer and African dance workshop facilitator

Grandmother Ine, ACA Trustee,dressmaker and embroidery student, busy dancing 

Obviously there was much more to the event (including talks by British-African authors), but here I am concentrating on the bits most relevant to me.

My being there was due to having joined the association first as a trainee dress-maker, and then as a volunteer embroidery-craft teacher.

My little stall where embroidery demonstrations were being held

It was truly a multicultural, inclusive event without any rhetoric, and I was lucky enough to experience some very peculiar moments, such as when  I learned an 'Indian' technique of doing 'satin' stitch whilst trying to teach embroidery to a boy of South Asian descent (via Africa and Britain) who wanted to have a go.

I believe that this is akin to 'rumanian stitch,' as you fix the satin stitch in the middle with a little slanted straight stitch, to try and keep the tension even.
http://www.webindia123.com/craft/asp/craft.asp?c_id=228
The whole family could not stay long as they were off to celebrate a party they had been invited to (It happened to be Diwali too, on that day).

Traditional African Hair-Braiding stall run by the brilliant Komkom

Traditional craft and mask-making classes for kids being advertised

The 'embroidery desk' was also run by the extremely talented African Embroidery artist Carolyn Akullu-Ocwet, whose work was also on show

www.embroidered-africa.com/

Some more of the traditional crafts display, which included dresses and bags

The dresses and bags on show, included the ones in the picture above (displayed over a kente cloth background) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentecloth which were recently brought back from a trip to Ghana, showing new techniques being applied to traditional crafts/fabrics), a trend that goes both ways and it has been highlighted in its diaspora dimension in a piece of research  by Textile Museum's curator Dr. Diana N'Diaye.
http://www.textilemuseum.org/education/Afric anArtCulture.html

which brings me back to the title of this post:

One of my first attempt at dressmaking was a gown which evolved from the traditional kaftan model

details of the fabric with traditional printed motifs

http://www.stlawu.edu/gallery/education/f/09textiles/adinkra_symbols.pdf

And a pair of pijama trousers, also made with a fabric printed with traditional motifs

That wasn't a deliberate choice. I bought the fabric from the lovely array of  African material available at the ACA at very reasonable prices.  And later on I realised that the 'flying ducks' motif ('A hen fye' or 'The King's House') is the same that can be seen on the leaflet cover produced for the exhibition 'Fabric of a Nation' that was held first at the British Museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ghana independence as a country, in 2007 and then went on to tour Britain as a travelling exhibition.  It focuses on the importance that cloth  has in Ghanaian Culture
http://arttattler.com/designfabricofanation.html

The thought that one of my first humble attempts at making clothes implied using fabric that was being displayed and celebrated in a museum's exhibition made me feel proud and at the same time think about how truthful is the process described in James Clifford's book ' The predicament of culture' in which objects acquire value through becoming 'museum's objects.' I wouldn't be able to afford a designer's fabric, but I was able through the vagaries of post-colonialism, cultural policy and my life to wear a piece or two, from the 'kings house'.

Flower Entropy

I haven't been idle, a bit confused yes, but still in activity!

There are so many 'old things' I want to post about, but life goes on quickly and makes it difficult to catch up!

There has also been  an event I will post about shortly (Black History Day held at Hendon Library within Black History Month, with the African Cultural Association).

Meanwhile, I have been experimenting with a design that I want to use on a series of garment and accessories and have been wondering how best translate it.

The starting point is some ink experiment for a design exercise with 'line' that I did some time ago.  I like the end result though, the colours and the flowing line.

Inkjet print of a coloured ink experiment about 'line'on paper

I have noticed, though, that I tend, or the design tends, or both of us do, to turn the abstract into something flowery.

It looks like there is a' flower entropy' within my work.

I have previously made conscious attempts to go the other way, i.e, from flowers to abstracts, but whether these have been successful or not, I have realised that there is definitely a connection between the two.

Watercolour on WC paper, flowers into abstract 

Detail 

Detail as above

This is probably partly due to the nature of the medium involved: whereas watercolour tends by its very nature toward dissolution and detachment from materiality, another experiment, that goes back to many many years ago, shows how the connection is still there but in a more material way (the medium was mainly oil paint and pastels on a pastel paper background)

I had pondered in fact, whether to translate the design into a counted thread technique, that would best show the transition between the floral and the abstract line elements, but in the end I decided to use free-style  hand embroidery.
So, with hand stitches, thick thread, the use of the circular frame and the addition of some applied organzas, I have steered towards flowery materiality again, leaving the linear behind!

Linear design evolving into flowers with various stitches (including running, chain, feather, whipped running, short and long blanket stitch, stem,) being worked in an embroidery hoop on a calico base painted with Markal paint sticks 

Detail

Anyhow this is why I have decided to call this series Flower Entropy, which is probably what my garments and accessories bearing this embroidery will be called

The design showing its evolution and the addition of coloured organzas applied with isolated cross stitches

Detail

Detail