Last night Daniella Woolf took the audience through a tour of her work and creative journey. The fourth lecture in the Maiwa Textile Symposium was very well received and Daniella held the floor for an extended question and answer session.

Maiwa continues its tradition of bringing established artists from around the world to challenge and inspire. This Thursday evening will be no exception with Daniella Woolf -  a mixed media artist who explores the creative potential of encaustic and textiles.

Join us for Crossing a Line: The Encaustic Studio
Thursday September 27th at 7:30pm
Net Loft Granville Island.
Tickets available online,
in the Maiwa Stores or at the door.
$15

Last night Carol Shinn delivered her lecture "The Photographic Stitch" to an enthusiastic audience that came primed with many questions. Perhaps more than other forms of textile art Carol's working methods provoke a curiosity and a desire to understand more fully the techniques involved.

Here is a reprint of the evenings introduction:

"As artists, we may think we know how to deliver colour to a surface. In the fine arts we may mix pigments with oil, with water, with acrylic, or with wax. Hence arriving at oil paint, watercolours, acrylics, or encaustic. In the textile arts we might deploy other strategies centered around dyeing, and various mechanisms to resist that dye.

"Few would consider, however, using the sewing machine as a painter would use a brush. And fewer still would take this idea into the realm of photorealism – producing what has been called “Thread Painting” with freestyle embroidery. But someone did – and that someone is Carol Shinn.

"To look at her work is to confront a tension between the image and what it is made of. For those who appreciate photorealism this is a familiar and pleasurable tension. Such art always contains a little bit of the miraculous in it, evoking as it does, a sense of “how can this be so?” It contains a little of the miraculous in it because the foundation of all miracles is that they be, by definition, impossible.

"Carol shares some of the hallmarks of high realism – a fascination with surfaces, both the surface of the object she is representing and the surface of her own finished work - which becomes layered and thick as the threads build up. For unlike the artist happily cross hatching with pencil, as Carol builds up a shade she must add more and more threads. The result can be a thickening of the surface and a distortion of the rectilinear frame of the piece.

"Carol renders in thread in a way that is so clearly not embroidery. In fact, Carol’s work turns its back on the entire grammar and technique of stitches. It is on more comfortable ground when situated within the context of the photograph and the various artistic reactions to the ubiquity and dominance photographic imagery in the modern world.

"It seems we have come a long way from the Bayeux Tapestry to the works of Carol Shinn.
 - Tim McLaughlin

"I wanted to weave a fabric that was like the morning fog."  This was only one of the evocative comments made by Misao Iwamura that had the audience transfixed at last night's lecture.

Misao is a master weaver and contemporary textile designer. She is also a remarkable woman who, through a desire to communicate directly took english classes so that she could present her talk to the Vancouver audience in English. Through a series of photographs and descriptions Misao showed, side, by side, the inspiration for a weaving and the finished result. Often drawing directly from nature, Misao stated that the largest portion of her textile work involved creative decisions. The smaller portion involved the actual production. When asked about her love of cashmere and her desire to use only the best yarns to achieve a result, Misao reminded the audience that weaving an item was a long journey and it did not make sense to use source materials that were a compromise.

Yoko Kano and her daughter Kazuho.

Last night our audience had an opportunity to meet Yoko Kano and her daughter Kazuho. Yoko grew up in the historic Japanese town of Katsuyama. She inherited her family's 250 year old Sake workshop but her passions ran more towards colour, pattern, stitching, and dyeing. And so Yoko converted the sake workshop into a textile studio to make Noren - the traditional cloth dividers that hang in windows and doorways.

The historic building now contains her home, workshop and the Hinoki gallery. She can carry a skein of naturally dyed yarn out the back door to wash it in the river. It is an idyllic location and the audience clearly understood her emotion when she said "I love my town, Katsuyama."

Diana Sanderson introduces the evening.

 The evening was introduced by Diana Sanderson of the Silk Weaving Studio which will be hosting an exhibition of Yoko's work. Tonight (September 14th 6-8 pm) is the artist's reception for that exhibit. It is another chance to meet Yoko and Kazuho and see their work.

Noren hanging in the threshold of the Silk Weaving Studio.

The Art of Noren - Artist reception tonight - September 14th, 6-8pm.

A collection of Janet Bolton's work on exhibition in the Net Loft.

September 12 was our first lecture presentation. In her soft spoken English lilt, Janet Bolton introduced the audience to the threads of her life and how they all came together in a journey of making. Beginning with her first explorations in creativity when she was a child, Janet, shared her growing awareness of a personal creative procedure. It was an approach that thought of composition holistically and resisted any attempt at trying to pre-determine the outcome. Janet related how it frustrated her when she worked on silkscreen printing - because she couldn't add elements half-way through. On the other hand, this same method led to her signature technique of painting on fabric with swatches of cloth, needle and thread.

Janet Bolton talking about her relationship to fabric.

Noren are the traditional Japanese cloth dividers that hang in the doorways and windows.

Working with stitch resist and immersion dyeing, master noren artist Yoko Kano has worked on two major projects creating noren for the towns of Katsuyama and Naoshima, Japan. Yoko arrives from Japan with her daughter Kazuho to introduce this traditional Japanese art form to western audiences.

We have 2 spaces left in this incredible workshop. Register Now.

$350 includes $80 lab fee
September 16-18 (Sun - Tue) 10am-4pm - class limit 14
Maiwa East 1310 Odlum Drive, Vancouver

Today is also the first day of an exhibition of Yoko Kano's work. Her Noren will be on display from September 8 to 19th, 2012. Join us for a special Artist's Reception on Friday September 14th at the Silk Weaving Studio on Granville Island.

If you are intrigued by the art of Noren and want to learn more, Yoko Kano will be giving a lecture and slideshow this Thursday September 13th at 7:30 in the Net Loft on Granville Island. Tickets are $15. Available online, in our stores, or at the door.

Hot off the press this week - it's the new Granville Island Works. This document contains in depth interviews with the artisans and businesses who call Granville Island home. Put together by Zen House Media, this richly illustrated magazine will motivate you to find the hidden treasures of the Island.

Maiwa is pleased to have an entry on its main store, its supply store, Maiwa East and its philosophy of slow clothes.

Granville Island Works is a free publication. Pick yours up in the Maiwa stores or at other Granville Island merchants.

The Ajrakh that Rachel writes about can be found in our online store as can print versions of the wonderful Hand/Eye magazine.

We have put up pictures of one cloth going through sixteen stages of production. With a double-sided ajrakh these stages must be performed on each side of the cloth. It takes an entire set of wooden blocks to print an ajrakh. Sometimes the pattern is asymetric and so a separate set of blocks must be carved for each side. The pièce de résistance? A double-sided ajrakh printed with different colours on each side.

Listen to our three podcasts featuring the Khatri brothers from Dhamadka and Ajrakpur.

Excerpts from
Masters of the Art
The Khatri Blockprinters of Dhamadka and Ajrakhpur
Part 1 - Presentation
Razzaque Mohammed Khatri and Ismail Mohammed Khatri
with Eiluned Edwards

Excerpts from
Masters of the Art
The Khatri Blockprinters of Dhamadka and Ajrakhpur
Part 2 - Questions from the Audience with
Razzaque Mohammed Khatri and Ismail Mohammed Khatri
and Eiluned Edwards

Excerpts from
Kismet, Ajrakh, and the Fish of Knowledge:
Collaborating with Craftspeople in India
Eiluned Edwards

MANIFESTATIONS

Kristy Johnston at Grampians Station, New Zealand.

In the fall of 2011 we were contacted by Kristy Johnston, who had an interesting and unusual dye project.

She had just returned from a series of visits to New Zealand's high country where she was visiting remote sheep stations, collecting vegetation, and creating a series of dye samples to act as a chromatic index of place. In her own words:

"Using the concept of terroir, a French term used in the wine industry suggesting that the flavour of wine is affected by the land and the climate where it is produced, I have sought to find a visual terroir through the material nature of colour by using dye extracted from vegetation physically collected from actual places and applying it to merino wool."

The work formed her Masters Thesis for her Masters of Design at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Johnston contacted us again in June to let us know that her thesis was complete (we were happy to be quoted on page 28).

Colours of the High Country: Exploring Place Through Colour is a remarkable work on a number of levels. Firstly, the project is beautifully presented with several photos of the high country she visited, secondly the writing is clear and evocative - equal parts imagery and ideas, and thirdly (perhaps most importantly for our readers) the idea of using natural dyes to make your own colourway as a marker of place is a very strong and compelling one. It is a concept which Johnston has presented in all of its fascinating complexity.

Kristy Johnston's graduate exhibit.

At the conclusion of her project Johnston organized the dyed samples into a graduate exhibition to show the colours of each station. On display were samples of the actual plants, a vial showing the extract obtained from the plant, dyed merino wool, and dyed knit merino fabric.

The farmers involved were unable to make it to the graduate exhibition but she sent them each some photos and a set of swatch cards, each card contained samples of the dyed yarns and knits for each station. Kristy told us "I have heard back from a few of the farmers and they have shown interest in the variations in the dyes between their stations, particularly for the same plant types."

Colours from the High Country is available as a PDF from the following link:

http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/3247/02_whole.pdf?sequence=1

Maiwa sets up it's booth on opening night. Fingers crossed, pray for sun.

Maiwa founder Charllotte Kwon took an expanded version of her natural dye class to the Penland School of Crafts this summer. Accompanied by daughter, assistant, and fellow-teacher Sophena Kwon, the two led an intense two-week study of natural colourants on a variety of fibres.

The class was featured on the Penland Sketchbook twice: Dyed and gone to heaven and It's a Family Act! For those who may not know Penland, it has been a remarkable beacon for craft and artisans for over eighty years. Charllotte has long dreamed of teaching there. Then, one exciting day in 2011, the call came asking if she would consider being part of the summer 2012 session ...

Here are some of our photos.