Part 2 – A Quiet Manifesto – For the Preservation of Craft — A 35-Year Journey with Maiwa
REVISITING A QUIET MANIFESTO
FOR THE PRESERVATION OF CRAFT
— PART TWO —
A 35-YEAR JOURNEY WITH MAIWA
... CONTINUED FROM PART 1
THE
MAIWA SCHOOL OF TEXTILES
At the confluence of ways of learning is the Maiwa School of Textiles: workshops, lectures, events, exhibitions; a place where knowledge is shared. It is, we have been told, a well stacked buffet for the hungry mind. It is also a chance to meet makers in a hands-on, intimate environment.
In 2004 we launched the first symposium. We invited international collector and author John Gillow. That first meeting has led to a lasting friendship. We also partnered with world-class chef John Bishop to host a fashion show and fundraiser for the Banjara Project. The wheels we set in motion in 2004 are still turning.
We are astonished that with the passing years textile programs are cut back and closed down. To fill this absence we want to run a textile school ... and we feel we are just beginning.
CREATING
A FOUNDATION
For almost twenty of our thirty years Maiwa has run a foundation. The foundation gave assistance to blockprinters after the 2001 Kutch earthquake, helped build a tanning facility for the Jawaja leatherworkers, assisted weavers in getting out from under predatory lenders, collaborated with engineers and students at the University of British Columbia on kiln design and water purity, helped deliver corrective eyewear to embroiderers, and most recently, delivered bicycles to female schoolchildren of the Artisans’ Alliance of Jawaja. Projects are big and small—and each one makes a difference.
Why do you make, when it takes time, and effort, and expense? Because all acts are creative acts. We make and we tune our making as we go along, like tuning a violin string, tightening it so much, maybe a little more ... and if our judgment is off and the string should snap, we restring the instrument and start again. We make because instead of tuning an instrument, we begin to dream of creating one: shearing hardwoods, mixing varnish, designing the smooth lines that will let the music out. We make because it is what hands have always done, because life is a creative act, and because the only meaning that truly exists is the one we make for ourselves.
A THIRTY-YEAR MILESTONE:
OUR LATEST PUBLICATION
A lot of what we do at Maiwa involves storytelling. We tell stories about how subtle fibres are wound round and round each other until they become threads, at times so fine a whisper might snap them; and about other fibres, dexterous and true, like the silks which are ounce for ounce stronger than steel and much more beautiful. We tell stories of cloth, its genius and character. We relate also the stories of surfaces, of pattern and embellishment, how it is embroidered, printed, and stitched. And all our stories are told because to us these things are as alive as the people who made them.
So many of our efforts are to elevate craft to its rightful place of prestige on the global stage. In 2002 we mounted the Through the Eye of a Needle exhibition of Kutch embroidery. In 2003 we published a book to accompany the exhibition. In the following years we produced four documentary films to promote traditional craft techniques and natural dyes. 2016 marks the first year that Maiwa authors have been picked up by a major publisher. Charllotte Kwon and Tim McLaughlin took more than ten years of field research and produced Textiles of the Banjara: Cloth and Culture of a Wandering Tribe.
We’ve been bringing textiles into view for a long time. Our 2002 show at the Vancouver Museum turned out to be one of the highest attended exhibitions that institution had ever mounted. It was held over for an additional season for a total run of one-and-a-half years.
The collaboration was also remarkable for its impact on the embroiderers. They asked, “Why do westerners want to put our needlework on the wall for strangers to see?” The answers to this question are vital to the continuation of cultural traditions.
THE
LEARNING CURVE
Be bold. Share knowledge. Attempt to revive and encourage work with value.
Our most ambitious revival projects have involved weaving communities. In Nagaland, for example, traditional weaving was being done with synthetic yarns. The resulting weavings take considerable effort to produce—yet have no competitive edge in the market. An acrylic weaving—even one made by hand in a traditional style—has little value.
Our first step is to replace acrylic yarns with natural fibres. Weaving with acrylic de-skills weavers because they lose the knowledge of how to properly tension their looms. Once a group has returned to natural fibres, we begin to work on the dyes. The first step is to introduce a dye facility and encourage the artisans to dye their own yarns. We actually start with synthetic dyes to get the group going. Once the dyeing is established, we can begin to transition the group to natural dyes. Traditional items, naturally dyed on natural fibres, can take their rightful place as the proud expression of a culture.
DOCUMENTARY
TRADITIONS
In 2000 Maiwa added video footage to its photographic documentation and note-taking. This rich source material has been mined to produce four documentaries. Our archive is extensive, reaching back to record a time that no longer exists. The combination of sound and image communicates the essence of hand production and the flowing vitality of textiles.
THE
FAMILY BUSINESS
Maiwa was started in 1986—the year Sophena was born. Staff often say Maiwa is a family, but for Alex and Sophena, Maiwa has been so much more ...
Growing up in the family business has really provided me with the core values and beliefs I have today. Maiwa is a business with strong moral fibre: it’s environmentally aware and has solid ethics in every aspect of conducting business. It is these values that have made a positive impact on so many, including myself.
Alex Kwon
I first went to India when I was nine, and every year since I have spent a couple of months there. The way we work has permitted me to study alongside master artisans; learn languages, photography, and design; and experience travel and cultural immersion. In traditional schools it would have taken me several lifetimes to get an education with this breadth and depth. Now, at 30, I am fortunate to head up the Maiwa Clothing Line, working together with our talented team. I find myself working with the sons and daughters of the Indian artisans I grew up around—the master block printers, dyers, weavers, and embroiderers who Maiwa has collaborated with for decades. We are all the same age and have had this journey together.
Sophena Kwon
35 YEARS
OF RELATIONSHIPS
In 1993 I took some photos of the Rabari on migration. I didn’t see the man on the scooter with a bundle of cloth checking his watch until I developed my film. It turned out to be Ismail Khatri, who I met later on that same trip, twenty-three years ago. I didn’t begin Maiwa with a thirty-year plan. I began it because there were places I wanted to go and textiles were always a passion. All I really had was a gift for organization. I could never have foreseen where that would lead me. My first trips to India set certain wheels in motion ... Ismail Khatri, his two brothers Razzaque and Jabbar, and their extended family are just one part of an immense network of artisans that Maiwa trades with. The relationship has moved on to our children, who now work together. I have often thought that if all the artisans could come together and write a book, publish a statement about what we all believe, it would be a manifesto for the preservation of craft. Such a statement needs to speak through cloth and colour, through texture and pattern, and call back to the voices of previous generations that their skills mattered, that their vision was important, while inviting in the artisans of the future to express a genius that they are still on the verge of discovering. The language of cloth is subtle, and so this book would have to speak softly ... a quiet manifesto.
Charllotte Kwon
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