Previously we gave a little overview of some of the factors influencing rising cochineal prices. Like all crops, cochineal prices depend on supply and demand, with a number of complicated forces at work: Large buyers trying to keep the price low, farmers wanting a better return, unexpected demand from changes in the market. Not to mention all the usual forces that shape the harvest; weather, disease, pests and disasters.

For anyone who's life was caught up in the agricultural production of colour it must have seemed like a pipe dream to discover that you could simply "make" a colour. No harvesting, no plantations, no labour disputes, no drying, extracting, or storage problems.

Enter our man William Henry Perkins. It is 1856. He is a young chemistry student working in a makeshift laboratory in his flat. Little more than a table and some beakers. He is trying to get to quinine - very useful in combating malaria in the British Empire's tropical colonies. The process fails but does yield some interesting colours in the beaker.

In his history of Perkins, Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World, Simon Garfield notes that a less curious man would have thrown the failed experiment away in disgust or disappointment.

Perkins investigated further and the chemical dye industry was born. The first synthetic colour was, quite remarkably, one of the most difficult to make from natural substances. It was close to imperial or tyrian purple (a shellfish dye). It was also close to logwood, but much more saturated.

The dress at the top of the post was made around 1862. It clearly shows the new synthetic colour. It is not difficult to imagine the sensation that it would have caused in the textile industry. The industrial revolution had already changed the production of cloth,  now it was poised to change forever the way that cloth was coloured.

Maiwa is well known as an enthusiastic proponent of natural dyes. So why are we talking about synthetic colour? For two reasons: First, Perkin's discovery puts an exact date on the first use of synthetic colour. Everything before 1856 was dyed naturally. Some critics of natural dyes claim that it is the very nature of natural dyes to give timid shades that live short lives. A visit to any textile collection or museum confirms that this is simply not true. The classic example of the longevity of natural dyes are tapestries and carpets.

There is a second reason to be familiar with the history of synthetic dyes. Although synthetic colour helped to eliminate some of the worst aspects of colonialism - slave labour on indigo plantations, for example - it created a new set of problems with toxic substances and the disposal of dye waste. In some parts of the world those problems are still with us today.

Particularly in the west, environmental objections have led to considerable improvements in synthetic dyes. For the artisan market a wide range of safe, effective and colour accurate synthetic colourants are available.

More information about the birth of synthetic dyes can be found in our documentary In Search of Lost Colour.

Catherine Ellis: Silk Currents

Silk

Woven shibori resist, scoured, permanent pleat

This box arrived the other day at the Maiwa Loft. International first-class mail. We receive a lot of packages, many from locations all over the world, but this one was particularly interesting. It held a couple of prepared warps for the Woven Shibori class that starts almost exactly one month from now.

Catharine Ellis's breakthrough technique - woven shibori - embraces new approaches to the art of weaving and dyeing. In this technique weft threads create stunning and unique resist patters.

We have a few spaces still available for students to learn this technique and we will send the prepared warps directly to the student with their registration confirmations.

Woven Shibori is a process of weaving and resist that Catharine Ellis developed in the early 1990’s and has continued to evelve both technically and artistically.

Traditional Japanese shibori uses a variety of means to compress cloth before it is dyed including stitching, binding, folding, pleating, ect. The stitched shibori was the inspiration for woven shibori. In traditional stitched or mokume shibori parallel rows of running stitches are sewn by hand with a needle into a piece of finished cloth. When the stitches are completed they’re used to gather the cloth tightly. Then the cloth is dyed. The folds in the cloth resist the dye to varying degrees, resembling mokume or wood grain.

This class is suitable for weavers of all skill levels.

Catharine taught the Professional Fibre Program at Haywood Community College for 30 years before retiring in 2008. She is now devoted to studio work and teaching a limited number of workshops. Her original training was in traditional woven techniques, which led her to weave functional fabrics for many years, often incorporating ikat resist dyeing. More recently, her career has been defined by the discovery and exploration of the woven shibori process.

Catherine Ellis is the author of Woven Shibori, Interweave press 2005.

If you are a weaver you won't want to miss this rare opportunity to study with the woman who created and popularized the woven shibori technique.

Catherine Ellis: Wool Felt - Dyed

Merino wool

Woven shibori resist, felted, dyed

Catherine Ellis: 400 Steel Threads

Stainless steel, 80" x 20"

Woven shibori, heat

Catherine Ellis: Silence

Merino wool

Woven shibori resist, felted

From the Maiwa Archive. This story was originally published in the Vancouver Sun ten years ago on May 1, 2000. We are proud to say that we are still dealing with artisans the same way. The text of the article is reprinted here or click on the images for a PDF version.

by Alan Daniels
Sun Business Reporter, Vancouver Sun

[Photo caption] THREADS of HOPE: Charllotte Kwon works tirelessly to improve the lot in life for Indian workers who make cloth such as this.

Charllotte Kwon spent $250,000 buying textiles in India last year for her Granville Island stores, but could have paid 30-40 per cent less if she hadn’t been so determined to drive prices higher.

In a complete reversal of conventional wisdom, she thinks globally and acts locally, and her business philosophy is the antithesis of the traditional bottom-line mantra to buy low and sell high.

Instead, she believes in paying above the going rate for the complex weaves, botanical dyes and collector-quality embroidery that she purchases.

On buying missions to remote Third World villages, she convinces artisans to raise their prices, because she believes they should be paid more like professionals than subsistence workers.

Traditional textiles are her passion, she says and she believes improving living standards of people who produce them is the only way they will survive.

“It appalled me how much was disappearing at a fast pace,” she says. “I love being part of this age of technological advances, but I can’t bear to see what the world is losing in the collective, creative energy of cultures and all of their history.”

She says the first time she tried to get artisans in India to raise their prices, they reacted with amazement and distrust.

“’She’s going the wrong way. She’s bidding up. She doesn’t know how to negotiate.’”

She deals with that by showing local people the actual price stickers from her store, translating Canadian dollars into rupees.

“I tell them. ‘This is what I sell for. This is what it costs me to move it from your village to Mumbai. This is what it costs to ship it to Vancouver. This is how much I pay Canada Customs. This is what I pay my employees, this is my rent on the store, this is what I pay in tax and this is what I can pay you.”

In most cases it is substantially more that the artisans previously were getting.

“They have been stepped on so much under the Indian system,” she says. “Crafts people are really low on the respectability totem pole, yet society places art at a high level. They need to see themselves that way.”

Dismissing any suggestion that she is a charitable institution, Kwon says she operates a profitable business, employing a dozen people in Vancouver.

Maiwa Handprints, which includes two retail stores selling clothing and bedding with a production studio in East Vancouver, and an office and warehouse in Mumbai grosses $1 million last year.

“I’m doing this because I want to prove to myself it’s possible,” she says. I am not going to pay minimum wage, I am going to see where my maximum is. I live okay. I don’t need anything more.”

Kwon insists she is a business woman, not a benefactor, although she concedes that whole families – even villages – in India depend on her orders.

“We don’t just drop in somewhere and say, ‘Do you weave? Anything happening here?,’” she says. “Careful research happens first. We will visit and area, get a feeling for it, talk to people, see if there’s a market, assess whether we would upset the balance.

“Only then do we get product samples done. Once we have established a working relationship as professionals – say two or three orders a year – we will not leave them. They will make the decision that they want us to leave.”

When she started her business a decade ago, Kwon, a weaver and silk-screen artist, travelled widely in Asia to learn about her art and find materials – in China, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia – but India became her passion.

“I am a high-energy person; I have incredible drive,” she says. “India was the first country that used all my energy and creativity. I was really exhausted there.”

She goes four times a year, usually travelling by jeep to villages in which she deals directly with the artisans.

“I won’t deal with co-operatives run by the Indian government and I don’t deal with governments here,” she says. I am very single-minded about that.

“I have hired a local man and his mother in Mumbai. We have established an export company and we have an export number that crafts people can use.”

Kwon refuses to deal with agents, because that’s where the corruption begins. Dealing directly with the artisans guarantees they get full payment and ensures continuity of supply.

In a village called Ntuma, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, production for Maiwa has grown from three weavers to 30. Yet it took three years before any product reached her store because initially it didn’t meet her standards.

Kwon says she persevered because she could see the potential and she paid for every shipment she rejected.

Finally she was rewarded with what she describes as “absolutely perfect product” a complex weaving produced on a backstrap loom with supplemental weft, which she uses for pillow covers, place mats, table runners and bedding.

In some cases, she has taken photographs of traditional weavings from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, or the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C and persuaded artisans in the areas in which it originated to recreate it.

“It eats at you when you love certain things the way I do,” she says.

In Vancouver, Susanne Summersgill, owner of Some Piece of Work, a store which sells naturally-dyed clothing for children, and is a teacher in the textile department at Capilano College, says Kwon is a frequent guest-lecturer.

“She talks not only on the technical side of weaving, but also about her business, which is inspirational,” Summersgill says. “The students are just in awe of her at the end.

“It’s about ethical business. It’s about making a difference in the world. It’s about stepping lightly and it’s about fulfilling her passion. She is an amazing person.”

Kwon, of British background, married to a Chinese, notes that originally she had no ambition to open a retail store. She applied to open a studio in Granville Island and found she had space for both. Soon the retail side took over.

“When I realized there was an extraordinary number of talented people in the world who couldn’t continue because they couldn’t find a market in their country, my business started to have an identity beyond my own work,” she says.

It was a huge realization when I realized I could be quite happy creatively in ways that didn’t require me to produce anything. I could be a link or bridge to people that were producing work that just astonished me.”

Kwon says she has great respect for the artisans she works with to the point of paying for all product that was destroyed in a recent cyclone in the state of Orissa on the Bay of Bengal. In return, she expects loyalty and quality.

“There has to be a responsibility an liability on both sides,” she says. “I am not going to put a product in my store that isn’t going to show its worth as absolutely the best.”

Kwon credits teamwork and the enthusiasm of her staff for Maiwa’s success and for spreading it’s credo.

“I truly believe there’s a need for economic trade in the way that Maiwa trades. There can be different ways of trading. It can still happen in a global economy. There isn’t just one model. There can be lots of different ways and lots of people can make a living from it.

She says she is sure there are others who share her philosophy.

“I would love to have a conference of this type of business,” she says. “We could all get together and see how each other is doing. There’s definitely room for that.

We've broken the seal on a new shipping container and unloaded some very beautiful items.

We receive containers on a regular basis holding old furniture, carved doors & thresholds, teak cabinets, coffee tables, book cases, engraved water urns, ironwork chairs and tables, furniture handpainted by the renowned Abhi Shakar and Jetu Singh, and many other items both large and small.

All hardwoods are old or reclaimed.

The top cabinet is reclaimed teak with two glass doors. Perfect for a book case, stacks of textiles or your dining room plates. This cabinet stands 5 feet high.
Price 499.00

The second item is a hand carved and painted mantle. This piece is one of the architectural embellishments that we receive regularly. We have a few of these that range from 2 - 4 feet in length. They all have been finished with teak wood to make a useful shelf.
Price range $189.00 - $389.00

The third item is a wooden display case with a glass door. At 20 x 14 inches and six inches deep, these make wonderful spice cabinets for the kitchen. We've had one customer tell us they have one in the front hall to hold everything needed as they leave in the morning - keys, letters, those videos they rented and shouldn't forget, a cellphone, that borrowed book they keep meaning to return ...
Price range 89.95 - 149.95

This is a solid teak chest - finished in rich, saturated colours. These make very good small tables with the added benefit that you can hide considerable clutter inside at moment's notice (until it's full that is, then you have to get another one).
Price 249.00


Teak bench. Simple and elegant. This bench is a delight for the beauty of the wood. It makes a great accent to a front hall.
Price 299.00

Maiwa East
More than you imagine
Open Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10 - 5
Sunday 11 - 5

How to find us.

Looking for a creative summer project? If you've never experienced the magic of dyeing with indigo, summer is a perfect time to try out a vat. We know some dyers (such as Jenny Balfour-Paul and Lucy Goffin) who make it an annual social occasion with two or three friends in the garden. No need to worry about dripping on the lawn as you move the pieces from the vat to the clothesline. The sight of your blue creations waving in the breeze is a strong inspiration for new projects and techniques.

When Maiwa conducts workshops, such as this one in Morocco, it is always the indigo day which stands apart in our memories. The unique experience of colouring cloth and yarn quickly has everyone searching for items to place in the vat.

We've just redone our instructions for indigo (both synthetic and natural) and woad. They will help you get started working with these historic dyes. The instructions contain recipes for both indigo and woad, tips and cautions.



We have instruction sheets for a variety of textile techniques available for free download in our online store.

We have a few openings in all the following workshops. Click on the title for full details or online registration. Workshops run September, October, November 2010.


For Dyers:

Mudcloth with Michele Wipplinger
Discover the rich assortment of colour that can be gathered and brewed from the earth's crust.

Dyeing to Discharge with Carol Soderlund
Selectively remove and replace colour using clamp, pole-wrap, stencil, screen-printing, and block-printing techniques. Create striking imagery with complex layering of colour.

Vat Dyeing with Ros Aylmer
A number of dye techniques can be most effectively done with vat dyes, making this technique especially attractive to those working in the film, theatre and costume industries.

Acid Dyes and Discharge on Silk with Ros Aylmer
Play with the many effects that can be achieved with acid dyes and colour removal on silk. Using various shibori processes, the class will work toward a multi-layered cloth.

Between the Colours: Creative Resist with Natalie Grambow
Obtain a comprehensive understanding of resists: what advantage each has, what effects can be obtained, and what the proper techniques are for manipulating fabric, colour, and resist.

For Weavers:

Weaving in the Maiwa Tradition with Jane Stafford
Learn the loom-controlled techniques found in Maiwa's handwoven textiles. Originating in Bengal, India, these are simple structures pushing the boundaries of plain weave in fine yarns.

Woven Shibori: Weaving, Dyeing, and Shaping with Catherine Ellis
Explore the relationship between woven cloth and shibori using the loom to create shibori resist. Participants will weave fabrics of wool, silk, and other fibres to create woven resists for dyeing and shaping.

For Knitters:

Artful Knit: A Sculptural Approach with Adrienne Sloane
Use knitting fundamentals to create shapes while taking advantage of knit’s natural tendencies. This class in 3D knitting will start participants on a journey to develop a personal language of forms.

New Pathways for Sock Knitters with Sivia Harding
This class is an introduction to Cat Bordhi’s brilliant rethinking of the structure of the sock. Explore her eight new gussetless sockitectures featured in the book New Pathways for Sock Knitters.

Spin, Blend, Knit, Lace with Venessa Bentley

Explore spinning yarns and knitting lace work. Learn about the wheel, fibre choice, preparation, and spinning technique. Work with exotic fibres such as alpaca, llama, merino, polwarth, camel, mohair, angora, silk, and more.

Vintage Techniques: Modern Knits with Christa Giles

Shape your knitting on the needles. Move away from flat fabric and create beautiful special effects. These advanced techniques duplicate many details found in vintage and modern designer clothing.

Knitworks: Knit to Flatter and Fit with Sally Melville

A knitter who spends the time and energy to make her own clothes should be rewarded with a result that makes her happy and proud. Learn how to knit to fit and flatter, with no mystery as to how this happened.

Fair Isle Knitting with Venessa Bentley

Fair Isle knitting is a distinctive form of circular, stranded-colour knitting inspired by the seaside, meadows, moorlands, and skies of this distant place. Learn the art of Fair Isle knitting which is marked by rich colours and varied geometric designs.

For the Creative:

Creative Studio with Natalie Grambow
Creativity. How can it be tapped, mined, or made to flow when we need it most? In this original workshop, students will discovering techniques of creativity, letting go of assumptions that stop their work or hold it back.

Funk Shui Felting with Jessica de Haas
Discover the many fascinating ways to create pattern and design on the felted surface. These include fabric inlays, colour layering and cutout, creation and use of partial felts and wool and silk "papers" to achieve crisp lines.

Works on Canvas with Natalie Grambow
Canvas is for artists, and an unstretched canvas is an open invitation for the surface designer to begin exploration. In this highly creative workshop, suitable for both the novice and experienced artist, participants will be guided through the steps of making an art cloth.

One of the advantages of being involved in the natural colour community is how quickly news travels. At the same time that our stocks of cochineal began to get low and we looked to order more, we began to get emails from people looking for a better price for this red dyestuff. It was as if cochineal red was the new ... er ... red. It turns out that cochineal is once again in the grips of an extreme fluctuation in price.

How extreme? Sixfold.



A quick carmine background. In 1976 the notorious Red Dye #2 was banned from use in foods by the FDA. The food industry uses a significant amount of red colourant in everything from meats to candy to cosmetics. Cochineal was the natural alternative. A high concentration of carminic acid may be obtained from this parasitic scale insect. Dyers have used it since pre-columbian times.

One of our suppliers was kind enough to supply us with a set of prices for the past 28 years. He also gave us some information on what is behind the price changes. Above are the prices paid for large orders (over 500kg) in US dollars.

The first spike is the result of the switch to cochineal as a food dye. The second peaked in 1996 at $142/Kg. The changes to legislation in Brazil, made carmine the only viable colour for meat preserves (sausages, hams, etc). Brazil was suddenly the biggest user of cochineal carmine in the world.

And as our supplier has told us: "Last year of 2009 there was a change: the problem came from the supply and not from the demand corner. Farmers were fed up with carmine manufacturers, they had been kept with low prices for 9 years, making the rearing of cochineal, which is labour intensive and expensive, a very poor choice as a harvest. With plentiful supply, they could not defend themselves. We understand that the supply has gone down from around 2100 Metric Tons (MT) to less than 1000MT/Year. The outcome is fairly predictable. It will take at least until 2012-2013 for production to be up again."

A sixfold increase for large orders. We are cushioned a bit from this because we already pay an extra administrative fee for our small orders (almost doubling our per kilo price) - and that fee hasn't changed. Still, the end result is our prices have gone up by at least threefold.

Cochineal is a very important dye - especially for the artisan dyer. We have elected to keep our prices as low as possible in the hopes that when we next order the price will be much less. We've received a lot of requests to sell the whole cochineal bugs for less and the simple truth is we are already selling them at a loss.


The price of cochineal has been going up and down for centuries. Jeremy Baskes in his book Indians, merchants, and markets: a reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian economic relations in colonial Oaxaca, 1750-1821 documents the rise and fall of cochineal prices due to wars, threatened or realized between England France and Spain, and various trade agreements and restrictions. Interestingly, cochineal was actively traded on the London Exchange.



The book we always like to recommend for a history of cochineal and red in general is Amy Butler Greenfield's A Perfect Red.

Comments are welcome.