The Threads Lecture, traditionally a showcase of some aspect of the Maiwa Foundation, has been sold out since the end of August. This year the presentation gave some of the highlights of an epic 6500 km journey with eight staff.

The Maiwa crew met with pastoralists in Pushkar and encountered Gujar caravans in Madhya Pradesh.

One key aspect of the trip was the return by authors Charllotte Kwon and Tim McLaughlin to India to give copies of the hardcover book Textiles of the Banjara to the women who helped make it possible. Together with Laxmi and Jan Duclos, who run the Surya's Garden Banjara embroidery revival project, Maiwa sponsored a mela to recognize the embroiderers and distribute the book.

It was an emotional journey. Even if there was no language barrier we are not certain we could put into words what happened: the reactions to the women on seeing the book and the feelings of pride we had in being able to give back a small portion of Banjara culture to the women who help to keep it alive.

The talk concluded with a short film. We have posted it to the Maiwa Youtube channel. Here it is. (Note - if it does not play in your email just follow the link https://youtu.be/uLzWtOmyvog )


  

A man walks through the streets of Cairo and he thinks to himself …

“The greatest of antiquities are incomprehensible because they exist in another time. I don’t know the forces that shaped them or the ideals that inspired them. What religious doctrines made the faithful strive to outdo each other. What made them attempt buildings so complex and detailed that they seem to have sprung directly from the imagination of God.”

"Expanding and unfolding in all directions pattern and repetition of pattern invoke a universe that is infinite and unending. They describe a circle who’s centre is everywhere and who’s circumference exist outside our comprehension."

These thoughts could be attributed to a character penned by the great Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, or they could equally describe the feeling of a contemporary visitor to Egypt who is faced with the marvels and wonders of architecture and design that were created during the Mamluk Sultanate.

Medieval chronicler Ibn Khaldun described Cairo during the Mamluk Sultanate as: “the centre of the universe and the garden of the world.”

And fortunately for us tonight, the antiquities will not remain incomprehensible because we have with us the author of a series of books on Islamic geometric patterning and design; Eric Broug.

Eric has deciphered the elements of design that make up the complex geometries used in Islamic patterning. He presented these first principles in such a way that people may develop a much richer appreciation for the art. He also teaches workshops and has published workbooks so that people may take the art beyond appreciation and into construction.

Please join me in welcoming tonight’s speaker, Eric Broug

Tim McLaughlin's introduction Eric Brough's lecture:
Marvels and Wonders: Geometric Design in Cairo During the Mamluk Sultanate

HAND EMBROIDERY

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 Meet the Banjara

Meet the Embroiderers of Kutch

Books We've Written

 Meet the Jawaja Leatherworkers

On October 19th John Gillow delivered his lecture on the Kantha Quilts of Bengal to a full house.

The lecture was delivered in style as John was presented a turban cloth and cap from Afghanistan by introducer Jo O'Callaghan. Jo once had to drive a jeep in Kabul while wearing the turban (and a false beard) when she was working as a nurse.

John presented a finely tuned lecture looking at the origins of design elements in kantha quilts and explaining their genesis in folk-art traditions and religious ideas. He also looked at the materials that made up the quilts - everything from worn dhotis to Manchester shirting yardage.



Our fundraiser for the Maiwa Foundation was a very generous donation by Ros Aylmer of a contemporary Kantha Quilt. The quilt features scenes from daily life including school children attending classes.


The next lecture is Eric Broug on October 26, Marvels and Wonders: Geometric Design in Cairo during the Mamluk Sultanate. Full description is available here.

THE LIST IS OUT FOR THE 2018 SPRING WORKSHOPS

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On the sea there are only lines.

The lines of the horizon, the lines of the sea, the lines of the waves, 
the lines of your journey out … and your journey back.
The lines of the sails, of the rigging, of the mooring, and the anchor.
If the knots in these lines are not fast when they need to be, all will fail. 

All mariners have an admiration for a well-tied line and a distain for sloppy rope work. Trust is a currency not easily measured, but the trust in a good knot and the person who tied it was not lightly given. 

It is from this culture of lines and knots that Tim Whitten arrives. Since 2002 he has run the Marlinespike Chandlery: online at first and, after 2008 when he relocated to Maine, as a workshop - studio - retail space. 

Objects that get close to the gravitational pull of Tim’s space tend to emerge with some portion of their surface covered with corded rope - braided and enclosing, changing the nature of the object or even the nature of the cord itself.

Tim came to his awareness of knot work as child and was give a book showing how such items were made. The seed was planted but it did not sprout immediately. First Tim studied mechanical engineering and took it to the doctorate level. Later he came back to the book and it resonated with him on a more profound level. 

And now Tim’s work resonates with a larger audience but especially with textile artists. What Tim does is a kind of weaving without a loom, embroidery without a surface. What Tim does crosses the barriers of art and craft, for he is reviving and preserving techniques that have been displaced by mass-produced goods. What stands between a length of cord and a bell-rope, a bow fender, or a becket, is the naked ingenuity of a culture of making. 

Tim McLaughlin's introduction to Tim Whitten October 18, 2017

 HANDWOVEN UNDERFOOT

Merino wool fleece, silk fabric, waxed linen, copper wire, cotton fill, repurposed soap cage, keys; naturally dyed with madder root and indigo, rusted, wet felted, hand stitched construction.

Wool fiber, silk fabric, cotton and waxed linen thread, steel; wet felting techniques, clamp resisted natural dyeing with walnut hulls and indigo extract, free-motion machine stitching, hand stitched construction, non-toxic moth proofing, acetylene torch manipulation/welding

Wool fiber, cotton sewing thread, glass beads, magnets, steel; wet felted, naturally dyed with myrobalan and indigo, hand forged, sunken, planished, patinaed, oiled …

These are the descriptions that accompany some of Lisa Klaklak’s works. The evocations are to materials … and to process. The material is the place and the process is the pathway. Process is always a pathway - it is the journey that it is necessary to take to arrive at the work. We might ask ourselves … why are these particular descriptions so compelling? They read like modern poetry. And what about the actual work these descriptions have called into being?

Lisa Klakulak has taken felt work back to first principles. Like a natural philosopher she has investigated felt — its tension, its compression, its density, its resistance, its fundamental nature, where it wants to go, and where you can push it to be. 

She speaks about felt the way a winemaker speaks about grapes - the way a sculptor speaks about clay - in short, she speaks about felt like an artist. 

Her works are inspired. They can have an anatomical exactness as in the work “Foundation” - a spine constructed using differential shrinkage felted sculpting technique. Or they can sit at the juncture of materials, personal experience, and concern as in the work Reparation - a collaboration with Dyeing House Gallery in Prato Italy, to make a felted accessory that includes Murano glass fragments held in compartments felted from silk. The work was auctioned as part of a fundraiser to benefit the Anna Meyer hospital in Florence Italy.

But where does such an inspired artist turn for inspiration? That is the crux of tonight’s lecture. And here to explain it is Lisa Klakulak.

This almost never happens - an opening in an India Flint workshop!

AJRAKH

14 New Ajrakh Patterns In Store and Online

VISIT THE COLLECTION

Meet the Artisans

MAIWA SCHOOL OF TEXTILES

- Lecture Series -

Inspired Displacement: Translating Travel into Textiles

The Marlinespike: Roped Into Art

Kantha Quilts of Bengal

The Craft of Travel

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