Initially I spent a long time considering and researching what and where my archive sources were going to be. I was able to begin my drawings for my first archive piece as I had to wait a while until I could visit the museum to view the crysede archive. As I had no idea what to expect when I got there I did think that I would be able to produce some sketches, but in fact the whole hour I had was spent viewing samples and taking photos. In retrospect I think I should have spoken for a longer time to the collections manager about waht was available to view and he could then have chosen some items that may have been more appropriate and I would have been able to study them while I was there. As I felt rushed to complete my drawings for the Crysede pieces I found my work became a little more experimental. However this was a good thing as my tutor suggested that I try to work with more experimental techniques and ‘homemade’ tools. Researching the archives I found very interesting, and it was especially rewarding to gather so much information about my Mum’s Kaftan.
From working on my archive drawings I have been able to see the benefits of comprehensively working through the different stages of development; recording and capturing, experimenting with line, and with different media. This helps to develop different ideas and directions, and when I went on to picking and portraying I conciously decided to try and go through the different stages although I think I could have been more thorough.
After working through Part 1 I feel pleased with my body of work (some more than others). I am aware that I need to be more comprehensive in the development stages of my artwork, more experimental, and more thorough in my research if I wish to proceed with assessment.
I was really looking forward to this project, so much so I already had thoughts as to what flowers and plants I was going to pick from the hedgerows as I was constantly looking for inspiration and thinking about colour palettes when I went out to walk the dog! However, by the time I actually got round to this project, the flowers I wanted were no longer there so I had to think again. I wanted some fern and cow parsley to give depth to my bunch of flowers but I also wanted some vibrant colours to lift the white and green. I was lucky enough to come across some pink poppies and some purple thistle-like flowers which I thought would be great. I decided to put them in an old coffee jar I had as I just wanted something that didn’t detract from the flowers.
I was really excited to be able to start using colour, and to have the autonomy to develop my drawings in my own way, although I wasn’t so sure about my painting skills so decided to start my drawings with ink and coloured pencils and try to get as much detail as I could.
As I had previously enjoyed and had good results from my continuous line drawings I thought I would try a marker pen version of the flowers.
Continuous line drawing. A little shakey but it has given me ideas about simplifying the shapes to try and create some patterns.
I wanted to try and create some patterns with repetition of particular plants so I thought I would do some smaller scale sketches and then try to simplify the shapes.
Ferns in Ink
Poppies Ink and Pencil
Fern and Cow Parsely in Ink
Thistles in Pencils
I had already found a simplified way of portraying the ferns by using wavy lines, so I sketched out some ideas for the flowers next.
Simplified Poppy Ink and Gouache
Candy Stripe Poppy. I noticed that the Poppies had lines running all the way through the petals so I created a stylised motif that reflected that.
Wavy line repeating pattern taken from the Fern.
From this point I wanted to expand on my Candy Stripe Poppy Motif, but trying also to encorporate the other elements of the flowers I had collected. I had an idea whilst I was out so I sketched it out on an envelope with some notes so that I could develop it later.
Motif Ideas
Poppy Motif. Because the pink and purple were really rich colours I wanted to add a touch of oppulance to the design so decided to incorporate gold ink to define the sections.
Next I wanted to experiment with repeating patterns. I had an idea that started with my sketch of fern and cowparsley. I wanted to keep the colour palette simple with just shades of green and white; ferns to blend in and become part of the background and cowparsley to the forefront.
I’m really pleased with how this has turned out. It’s quite difficult to see the background as clearly in the photograph but you get the general idea. I also had an idea for a poppy repeating pattern but it wasn’t as developed so the outcome is one I’m not as pleased with, colours, placement, everything! But I thought I would include it anyway, it may be something that I try and develop more at a later point.
As I had some ideas of simplified shapes for all of the plants I collected, I thought I would finish my collection of drawings with how I had started, with the flowers in the jar but with the simplified shapes.
‘Poppies in a Jar’ Ink & Gouache
There are so many different avenues and ideas I have gained from this project, I hope that I will have the chance to revisit them and develop them further.
I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Royal Cornwall Museum where they house an archive of Crysede garments and fabric samples. Although unable to view the large pieces I was able to view the sample books and some of the printing blocks in one of the museums store rooms. As time was short and there was so much to see, I decided to take as many photographs as possible and record my chosen pieces at a later point. Here are a few of the photos I took, including some sketches by Alec Walker.
‘Fal River’ Creysede
‘Ding Dong Mine’ Creysede
Creysede Printing Block
Creysede Printing Block
Sketch by Alec George Walker from Archive at R.C.M
Sketch by Alec George Walker from archive at R.C.M
Sketch by Alec George Walker from archive at R.C.M
Sample of Creysede Print
Creysede Fabric Sample
I have to say a big thank you to the curator at the Royal Cornwall Museum for all of his help and time and it’s definately worth making an appointment to view the archive.
Crysede Fabrics was formed by Alec George Walker (1889 – 1964). Alec came from a textile manufacturing background but trained as an artist/painter. His father owned a mill in Yorkshire where they produced Vigil Silk. In 1920 Alec met and married designer Kathleen Earle (Kay) and they moved to Newlyn in Cornwall where Alec made prints based on his paintings of the Cornish landscape and Kay designed and made garments from the printed silk fabrics. Further information about Crysede can be found from this link http://cornwallartists.org/cornwall-artists/company-crysede
The two pieces I selected were ‘Fal River’ and ‘Ding Dong Mine’.
‘Fal River’ Crysede
‘Ding Dong Mine’ Creysede
As they are samples, they are backed onto card so don’t have drape or any 3D qualities to record, but I think this will push me to find different techniques to capture the essence of the pieces. Unfortunately there is not much more specific information available for the particular pieces I have selected, the museum has little information and the only other source for reference I found was a book titled ‘Crysede’ by Hazel Berriman, who herself was curator of the collections at the Royal Cornwall Museum previously so information on specific patterns is very limited. The sample books though have a story in themselves however as they would be used as a sales tool for people to pick fabrics for their garments to be made in or perhaps to sell fabrics to haberdasheries. At least we can be sure that they are original crysede pieces as they have been authenticated by the museum.
Because the pieces I have chosen are from a sample book, they are stitched to pieces of card so from a drawing perspective it was all about the prints. As I received feedback from my tutor suggesting to use larger scale I decided to start with a mixture of black gouache and ink for my first piece of work.
My interpretation of Alec Walker’s ‘Fal River’. Ink & Gouache
I was really pleased with the result. The style of the print allowed me to just blob paint around in little clusters to form the pattern and was an enjoyable way to paint. It also helped me to see how the overall structure is formed and that this quite free style could be used to create complex pictures. I decided to stay with paint for my first picture of Ding Dong Mine. As we were staying in black and white I wanted to have a darker background similar to the sample so I chose black paper with white and grey gouche.
As the pieces lay flat and were made from very smooth silk, there was little texture to draw from them, they did however have frayed edges in some parts so I decided to start experimenting with different ways to try and make marks to show this. These pictures are done with a mixture of ink and gouache.
I used different tools to get these effects, kitchen roll, fine hairbrush, shower pouffe, string, cotton to name a few. I liked the effect I got from the hairbrush as it was really fine and feathery.
In my next pictures I experimented with line. First I took a section of the fabric up close and tried to recreate the weave with zig zags and the frayed edges with curves. I have also been really interested in drawing with unbroken line so I created a picture for each of my samples.
Fabric close up with zig zag lines in ink.
‘Ding Dong Mine’ Continuous Line in Marker Pen
‘Fal River’ Continuous Line in Marker Pen
I always look forward to the results when I use continuous line drawings, I think that you have to work quickly and don’t have too much time to think about it and its therefore a good way to get the main detail on the paper. It’s always a surprise to see what happens!
This was up close on one of the samples. There were tiny needle holes and runs in the fabric and the weave of the silk created wavey lines. I used oil pastels so I could smudge the lines to create the runs and holes in the fabric.
This was an up close drawing in pencil of Ding Dong Mine. The enlarged stitches across the top that attached the sample to the card and the frayed edges.
My final piece for the Crysede archive pieces was a paper collage. Because both designs were so intricate I decided to take a section of ‘Fal River’ and scale it up. Because of this I decided the entire page would be covered in collage rather than have a border. I had ‘googled’ images of collage to try and get some ideas and saw one that was made entirely of squares, so I thought I would try to incorporate that method to create a shaded background for the section of pattern I had chosen. Then I could cut out the shapes to create the boats.
Collage from magazine pages. Section of ‘Fal River’ Crysede Fabrics
I really enjoyed studying the Crysede fabrics as they had a local theme and the patterns were recognisable to me. I love the style of the prints, and to be able to see some of the printing blocks that were used was amazing as some were so intricately carved (probably by hand) you could really appreciate the quality of the garments and fabrics they were producing.
The first archive piece I have chosen is a 1960’s Kaftan owned by my Mum.
The only information she could give me was that my Dad bought it for her from a ‘Hippy’ Shop in Penzance, Cornwall in the early 1960’s, so I needed to find out more about it somehow. I looked for labels for which there were none apart from a size, then I noticed some writing printed onto the seams.
‘Veritable Java Hollondais 3778R’ and ‘Guaranteed Dutch Java Print 3778R’.
After further online research I connected this item to a company called ‘Vlisco’. In 1846 a man called Pieter Fentener van Vlissingen, bought a textile printing factory to create and sell garments and materials in the Netherlands and beyond and traded as P. Fentener van Vlissingen & co. Initially selling furnishing fabrics and upholstery, and in the later half of the 1800’s producing imitation ‘Batiks’ and exporting them as affordable fabrics to Indonesian countries. He was able to produce these imitations cheaply by roller printing, however the people of Indonesia were not fond of the more uniform nature of the fabrics that were achieved through this process and banned the imitation Batiks.
The sales of these fabrics became hugely popular in West and Central Africa however and by the 1900’s there was a boom in the textile markets in these areas and the styles were quickly adapted to suit the local people. Widely known as Dutch Wax or Wax Hollondais the company name changed in 1927 to ‘Vlisco’.
Counterfeiting of these fabrics was quite commonplace, so after 1963 all fabrics were stamped ‘Guaranteed Dutch Wax Vlisco’ as a preventative measure. This is where I am unsure as to the garments provenance, I am told it was purchased before 1963 so would not need to have the stamp on the side but we cannot be one hundred percent sure without further investigation. From the quality of the fabric and print however I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and treat it as a real ‘Vlisco’ print.
Because of the lack of any labelling on the item I went onto the ‘Vlisco’ website and was able to find out that the ‘Java’ design is made from 100% Cotton and wash and care instructions were available on their website and there is a pdf link here. Vlisco-WashAndCare
The printing process is quite well guarded but is based on a form of Wax resistance like Batik, and they continued to hand print until 1993, but now have different processes which allow them to produce on a much larger scale. They have a sophisticated process where the material goes through twenty-seven treatments by machine and hand, which takes around two weeks in total.
Due to the now well formed links with Africa, many of the fabrics contain symbolic patterns that are understood by locals so that women can say something about themselves whilst wearing their garments. What this particular pattern means is difficult to know as it is no longer in print and without some in depth research by perhaps contacting the company directly any further information isn’t forthcoming.
As we know the Kaftan belonged to my Mother, and was bought for her when she was a teenager in the early sixties. This style was made popular by the ‘Hippy’ movement and by celebraties of the time such as the Beatles. The garment itself is in very good condition and doesn’t have any huge signs of wear. There is a small hole in the back where it looks like it may have been caught on something at one time, and at the bottom of the zip there is a split to allow leg movement for walking, here, the seams have come away slightly perhaps from just walking around in the garment and stretching too far as the cotton material would not give.
When starting to capture this garment in drawings I was overwhelmed by the amount of detail in the patterns, how would I be able to translate all of this onto the blank page! I was lucky enough with this item to be able to have it in my home so I could take my time but I decided to start by drawing the garment as a whole with pencils to try and get a feel for the overall shape, drape and patterned effect before I started to concentrate on the pattern.
Original Referance Piece
After this I experimented with line and trying to capture the garment in a different way.
Drawing with Eyes Shut
I was really surprised at how differently I could see the Kaftan by making myself stick to linear qualities, and it made me realise how new and interesting ideas could be developed. I really enjoyed trying to draw with my left hand and was pleased with the result.
For my next experiment with collage, I decided to paint some cartridge paper to match the bright colours. I thought about backgrounds and wanted to try and capture some of the substance and story of the Kaftan. In the course materials it suggested using torn up newspaper, which I liked the idea of aswell. I went online to see if I could find any old photographs of 1960’s newspapers that could be used for a suitable background, and printed them off. I found an old front page featuring the Beatles and thought that it would evoke the youth and exuberance of the era and also link to the fashion design of the time. I only half covered the page as I didn’t want it to be more dominant in the overall picture than the Kaftan itself. When it came to showing the patterns it would have been very complex to recreate them exactly so I decided to use lines and squares of colour to give the overall effect.
Although pleased with the outcome, I felt the image was still quite flat so I decided to create another piece. This time I folded the Kaftan with card to exaggerate its stiffness and shape, and again used lines to try and give the image a 3D quality.
This time, instead of tearing the paper, I used scissors so I could get a more accurate lines.
Getting up close to this Kaftan, you really can see the intricacy of the patterns, so I decided to focus on trying to capture some of these elements and scaled them up with some further pencil drawings.
As the print on the Kaftan is a form of resist techniques I decided to use Wax and Ink to try and mimic the writing up close on the seams.
These few pictures are only a small amount of the different patterns that are incorporated in the printed design on this Kaftan. I tried to pick out the motifs that were repeated most often so I had a good basic record of the garment. The size label is the only label on the garment and was very tiny and hard to find, it was all curled up, faded and frayed which shows the age of the piece.
It’s been very interesting looking at and recording this garment and has made me think about how I am going to look at my next Archive pieces.
Since reading the course materials for Project 1 I have been researching available textiles resources in the local area to see what sort of archival resources are available and try to get some ideas on what type of items I would also like to study. I’ve thought about personal archive pieces because accessibility is important as I will obviously be taking time to study each piece. I also want to include some museum pieces in my archive because I think that the wealth of information available and the traceability of the items will be much easier to collate. I also didn’t know initially whether I wanted to have pieces that were connected to each other in any way or whether I wanted them to be completely separate. It’s by happy accident that I have come up with archive pieces that will be connected. I have taken a 1960s printed kaftan dress from my Mum’s personal archive and I intend to study the Archive of Crysede Fabrics at the Royal Cornwall Museum, so I can link them together exploring different printing techniques.
The definition of textiles in the dictionary is confined to ‘ a type of cloth, or woven fabric’. I think this is quite a narrow description for something that is by far a much bigger concept. Of course a simple view of textiles is that of fabric manufacturers and designers, sewing, clothing and home furnishings etc. but with more and more artists, designers and scientists ( yes, Scientists; aerospace industries are continuously developing products that are strong and can give protection, such as carbon fibres and kevlar. ) pushing the boundaries and trying new techniques there are more and more materials that we could perhaps consider to be textiles. For example if we were to take a plank of wood or a sheet of metal, these things in themselves would not be textiles in nature. However if we were to extract fibres from the wood and weave them to create a carpet that would then become a textile. Similarly if we were to take strips of metal and knot them together to form a chain, we can then form items of clothing like chain armour. Many natural products do not need this intervention as they are textiles in themselves, but there is also a wealth of opportunities to create textiles from the most unlikely places with a bit of imagination. Of course we can say that objects in our home that are solid or electronical are definately not textiles, but I think the question’what are textiles’ is ever expanding and open to interpretation.
Before the dawn of man-made fabrics, our textiles would have been from natural sources such as animal hides, furs and woven items from hairs and fleeces, the use of woven plants like cotton, and silks from Asia. Modern manufacturing has allowed us to create a variety of man made fibres for different uses, Polyester, Viscose, Nylon, Acrylic to name a few. This has allowed us to use fabrics in ways we never thought possible, and also creating affordable and sustainable solutions for the home and clothing of the general population. Many of the man-made fabrics we have originate from materials that we would not normally associate with textiles, like petrochemicals, oil and coal so although we have a product that may be cheaper and more appropriate for mass production in the short term, the ecological implications may not be as positive in the longer term. There has in recent years been a resurgence in the use of more natural fabrics, and organically produced ones both because of this and due to the qualities associated with them.
As the types of fabrics and textiles we use have changed, so have our use of textiles. We have always used textiles for clothing, warmth and decoration but as time has passed and technology advances we are using textiles more and more for the ever varied direction of our lives. We throw ourselves out of planes using parachutes, climb mountains wearing specialist clothing that is waterproof, warm and breathable, we use dressings for medical use , create temporary homes for refugees in other countries. As the use of textiles increase so do the stories associated with them.
I visited Liskeard and District Museum recently, and on display was a helmet from the English Civil War. It is thought to have belonged to a Major Thomas Johnson who was a Parliamentarian from Liskeard.
This Helmet obviously has a lot of history attached to it both pertaining to the Civil War and its relationship with the wearer. The helmet, made of metal, is covered with cloth and heavyweight protection to the neck area. Although predominantly made from metal I would consider this a textile item because of its covering. This is a good example of how I think textiles is so multi- dimensional and can make use of non textile materials but still result in a textile object. It also shows how we can attach stories to these objects, in this instance, both historical and personal. The Parliamentarians were eventually defeated, and I wonder what happened to Major Thomas Johnson, the helmet certainly looks worn, be it due to age and/or use in battle. Unfortunately I was unable to handle the piece but as you can see from the photograph the neck area looks like it’s made from a woven material which is almost straw like which suggests it is a plant based fabric although it looks like it is topped with some kind of dark cloth. The information from the museum tells us that the wearer purposely covered his helmet in cloth to cut down on the shine from the helmet, so he was obviously an astute man, wanting to make himself less of an obvious target in battle. With an archived object like this we can also gain a wealth of historical information, not just about the piece itself but about how things were made, what materials were used and what sort of things people were wearing in the period.
These two items come from my own archive and have different personal stories attached to them. The first is an old dolly of mine that was brought back from Barbados by some friends of my parents, around the late 70’s to early 80’s. The second item is a reversible Levis waistcoat of my Dad’s that came to me from his wardrobe after he passed away.
Both items have wonderful memories attached to them that are personal to me, I loved playing with dolls as a child and a black doll in a pretty dress was quite rare. I remember being particularly interested in the style of dress as it was so different from my western Cindy Dolls, with its bright patterns and colours. This can also tell us a lot about society at the time, as I stated black dolls were not something that was common apart from the type cast ‘golly’ dolls popular in the 1970’s.
The waistcoat was something my Dad loved to wear and when it came out of the wardrobe it still smelt of him and evoked strong memories. He loved the brand Levis and always thought that it was a sign of quality, and this item always gives me fond memories of him and I can picture him in it.
Thinking about textiles in an historical context, finding the artist/designers message and the stories that live alongside that give meaning to people helps us to put things into context and discover more about our social and cultural heritage. With this in mind for the next section of the project I want to be as thorough as possible in finding and researching my Archive pieces.
This blog is now structured with the essential categories required for you to post Assignments and Projects in for your learning log entries. It is intended to just help you get started with your OCA Learning log, and you may wish to customise it to suit your particular course.
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We would like to thank OCA Photography tutor Robert Enoch for providing this template for OCA students to use to get started with their Learning (b)logs.
Eli Pope 