Maiwa on the Road - Karnataka

Banjara women among the sunflowers.

Team Maiwa is in Southern India at the moment doing some research on the Banjara. It has been a week now, going from thanda to thanda. A thanda is a Banjara settlement. Historically these were temporary as the Banjara were nomadic, but increasingly thandas are becoming more permanent. We have been tremendously fortunate to be able to travel for a little while with Jan and Laxmi Duclos. Jan has lived most of his life in India and his wife, Laxmi Naik Duclos, is herself a Banjara woman and a master of the art of embroidery.

Tomorrow we leave Karnataka. Our days have been humid, dusty, and absolutely incredible.

Women bring out their embroidery to talk about patterns, mirrors, and cowries.

Jan has led us to some beautiful houses also, with wooden beams and traditional structures.

Review - Off the Road in Bangladesh

Last night (October 24) was the concluding event of the Maiwa Textile Symposium. New this year is a lecture/event that focuses on the work of the Maiwa Foundation. Maiwa's founder, and director of the foundation Charllotte Kwon, gave a talk that focused on a visit to the Living Blue project in Bangladesh.

Charllotte situated the project in contrast to the industrial garment production which dominates the national economy. The talk was illustrated with photos and video clips showing the work that the foundation did in troubleshooting dyeing techniques and looking over the systems of craft production.

Charllotte gave a passionate appeal to look to craft, not as charity, but as the natural resource of a culture that is located in the head and heart of an individual.

The Threads lecture was also an opportunity to launch the new Foundation book. A hardcover book documenting the work of the Maiwa Foundation since its inception.

The book is available to order online here: http://www.maiwa.com/home/books/books/index.html

Here are some preview pages of the book.

Review - The Sylvan Spirit

On Tuesday October 22nd Lorraine Roy delivered her lecture, The Sylvan Spirit. It was a walk in the woods with a person who has spent a lifetime among the science and art of trees.

Lorraine has tasted the twigs of the cherry birch and found them reminiscent of mint. She has studied the role of mycorrhizal fungi and found an astounding symbiosis connecting young and old trees. She has plumbed the depths of roots and spent many hours beside the native plants of the riparian zones of Southwestern Ontario.

And ... she has turned these experiences into a wealth of textile works created in her own unique method. She took the audience through the process and illustrated the results. Images showed the development of her work and also how she works with commissions.

At the conclusion of Lorraine's talk she presented a shortlist of her favourite books and some of the references she mentioned in her lecture. We are happy to give that list again here:

Lorraine Roy's Shortlist

“The Year of the Flood” Margaret Atwood
“Paradise of God”  Norman Wirzba
“Tree”  David Suzuki
“The Unfinished Universe”  Louise B. Young
“Seeds of Woody Plants in the United States” US Dept of Agriculture
“Native American Ethnobotany”  Daniel E. Moerman
Suzanne Simard, Mother Trees, UBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8SORM4dYG8
Test Tube Data: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21570671-archives-could-last-thousands-years-when-stored-dna-instead-magnetic

Lorraine Roy's website: www.lroytextileart.com

Janusz Wrobel’s website: www.januszwrobel.com

Review - The Plainweave Thread

On Wednesday October 16th, Rachel Meginnes delivered her lecture - "The Plainweave Thread."
The audience was mesmerized by the progression of Rachel's work and the fastidious attention to detail that was payed to the fabric itself. Rachel works to remove threads, distress the cloth and then build it back up again with paints and surface treatments. The work can take weeks and it continues until she is satisfied that the piece is complete.

Rachel's journey was a fascinating one and she has often restructured her artistic practice to suit the locations in which she finds herself. A frequent phrase was "I needed to push myself." Indeed Rachel's body of work has been built up through a series of investigations as she interacted with new locations or landscapes. Often her starting point is a grid. "It's where I feel safe." she has said.

There was a lively question and answer after the lecture as people wanted to know more about both her work and her method of working. You can find Rachel's pieces online here: www.plainweavestudios.com

Rachel adapting her work to paper,
while working in a friend's studio in San Francisco. 

A series of works where Rachel has adapted her working
methodology to combine fabric and paper.

The pinboard at Rachel's workshop in the Maiwa Loft.

Review - Journeys and Traces

On Tuesday October 15, Akemi Nakano Cohn delivered her lecture - Journeys and Traces: Art and Life through Katagami. In the talk Akemi presented an evocative journey that began with her family's traditional japanese costumes. Akemi discussed her art and how certain commissions were the result of attempting to translate a particular inspiration.

Akemi concluded the talk by showing some of the traditional tools used in her work and holding up both the finished cloth and the stencils used to make the distinctive patterns. She explained how the the stencils were made and cut and how they were an early mass production technique.

Our next lecture is The Sylvan Spirit with Lorraine Roy on Tueday October 22nd. Tickets are still available here.

Maiwa East Reclaims the Past

Our furniture - where it comes from - how it's made.

Presenting a short video showing the origins of some of the Maiwa Furniture. 

In 2004 we bought all the floorboards from a factory that was being demolished in Ahmedebad. The wood is Burmese Teak - a beautiful tight-grained hardwood. It's perfect for furniture so we use it to make reproduction pieces. We also find old cabinets throughout india, spruce them up, check the hardware, and bring them back.

Review - Down the Mountain

On Wednesday night a full house listened to stories of life and art as Bryan Whitehead presented Down the Mountain - Indigo and Silk Farming in a Japanese Village. Bryan explained how his wanderings as a young man eventually landed him in Japan and how pivotal, deeply felt experiences motivated him to grow indigo and farm silk. It was an engaging and humorous talk that had the audience captivated from start to finish. 

Bryan also touched on his approach to learning and how it has influenced his own teaching practice. "What we learn in our thirties we give back in our fifties" he said. Bryan showed images of student work, his farm in Japan, and some of his teaching work with villages in Laos.

Dedication is everything - a student piece made while studying in Japan with Bryan Whitehead.

Bryan is teaching three workshops while in Vancouver. His exhibition at the Silk Weaving Studio is up until October 8.

Review - Brian Whitehead Exhibition

Brian Whitehead's exhibition opened on Friday night at the Silk Weaving Studio. The show featured works dyed with natural indigo and persimmon tannin. They were beautifully packaged in handmade wooden boxes. The exhibit showed a great sensitivity to natural materials. Bryan brought many items from his silk farm in Japan to stage the show.

The exquisite packaging for these  persimmon dyed textiles contains the following text:

This wrap is made from antique Japanese cotton towels called tenugi. The Japanese have traditionally given gifts throughout the year to show appreciation of favours given or expected, to friends, family members, customers co-workers ... everyone. These towels were used in any number of ways; from advertizing to memorable tokens for group outings, even as a towel for prisoners, reminding them to keep a pure heart.

The meanings of the Japanese written characters, the Japanese graphic design sense, the motifs and untangible cultural meanings of such simple a simple item particularly interested me.

Persimmon tannin is a traditional Japanese semi-waterproofing dye. I dipped these tenugi in the tannin early every sunny morning from May to September, they absorbed the summer sun and turned deep crisp brown.

Patched and repaired cloth was a tradition brought to Japan from India in the form of Kesa which was a traditional brown cloth worn by Bhuddist monks. I patched together these traditional old tenugue giving them one more lease on life.

Bryan's exhibition will remain on display until October 8, 2013.

Review - Islamic Textiles

Saturday night John Gillow presented a detailed and story-filled account of his travels in the Islamic world. It was a visual journey and the audience were fortunate to be able to see and handle the textiles first-hand.

In John's own words his travelling life began like this:

Fourty years ago as a young schoolboy, I travelled to Istanbul. I found myself a cheap place to stay. The next morning I awoke with a start to the call of the muezzin, a sound that was to become increasingly familiar over the decades, as I spent more and more time in the Muslim world.

As I wandered around the bazaar, I was entranced by carpets, furs, beaten brass, carved wood and exotic soilver jewelry, none of which a poor schoolboy’s pockets could afford. What  did find were scraps of Ottoman embroidery, which were then very cheap, and which I bought as presents for my sister, girlfriend, and doting grandmother. I was hooked – not just on the textiles themselves but on the lives of the peasants and nomads who had created them. I resolved there and then to lead a life of travel, focused on finding out more about hand-crafted textiles and their origins.

Bryan Whitehead's lecture on October 2nd is sold out. But his excellent work is on exhibit (and for sale) at the Silk Weaving Studio. A visit is well rewarded.

Review - African Textiles

Thursday night the Maiwa Symposium was proud to welcome back international traveller, textile dealer, explorer and author John Gillow. John has published eleven books of textiles documenting diverse techniques, cultures, and fibres. Examples were in the Maiwa store and hung in the Net Loft building.

All the textiles were for sale. They ranged in size from quilts and complete garments to tiny fragments showing some amazing details from indigenous techniques.

John takes the stage again on Saturday night for another sold out lecture. This time he will be presenting Islamic Textiles.

We have ordered a generous selection of John's books from his publisher Thames and Hudson into the Maiwa Stores. These titles will be onhand even after his lectures.