CONTENTS

INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 15 PRINT ROOM Mark Schooley and Nelson Sepulveda make an impression Jessica Hemmings discovers a perfect meeting of minds in this project that combines textile and photography. 13 PATCHED UP Mix colours and merge textures this summer Selvedge Founder Polly Leonard chooses some of the best patchwork pieces around.

CONCEPT textiles in fine art 68 TOUCHING THE LANDSCAPE Dorothy Caldwell makes her mark Dr Sue Marks, the Chair of Selectors for the British Quilt Study Group, finds out how this renowned quilter finally found her place in textiles. 96 FLYING JACKETS Jane Edden’s delicate feather forms An artist whose tiny artworks carry surprisingly big ideas. Written by Kitty Whittell. 52 RUFFLING FEATHERS Kate MccGwire takes flight Liz Hoggard meets an artist whose career has soared since graduating from the Royal College of Art, attracting the attention of the Saatchi Gallery and others.

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“Everything in Swaziland sounds sweet,” Nelson Sepulveda explains of his recent experience of the small landlocked country in southern Africa. Commissioned by the Dutch lighting company Ay illuminate, Sepulveda and the photographer Mark Eden Schooley responded to the company’s desire to work with local handcraft and natural waste materials by teaming up with Gone Rural Swaziland, a non-profit organization led by Philippa Thorne. The impressive initiative currently works with 760 rural Swazi women to “empower women, their families and communities,4

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INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 46 PLASTIC FANTASTIC The Société Sénégalise de Nattes en Plastique Ptolemy Man admires the resourcefulness and skill of this West African company. Photography by Valérie Schlumberger. 56 COVER STORY PANOS DE TERRA Slave made fabric Clifford Pereira and Neil Williams trace the development of a cloth that defines Cape Verde. Images provided by Duncan Clarke of Adire African Textiles.

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GLOBAL textiles from around the world 42 THE LAST RUNAWAY The latest novel from Tracy Chevalier, author of the best selling GirlWithaPearl Earring, follows Honor Bright, a Quaker and expert quilter as she comes to terms with her new life. 62 COVER STORY TEXTILES OF THE LOWCOUNTRY Charleston and Savannah: Collecting, Preserving and Narrating Jessica Renee Smith, Fibres Professor at the SCAD, takes us on a tour of an area rich in textile history. 36 COVER STORY WEAVING THE BREATH OF LIFE Katy Bevan takes in the sights and sounds of Senegal In a city teeming with distractions it is the talented weavers that captured Katy Bevan’s attention.

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ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 15 FABRIC SWATCH No.14: Bògòlanfini Regular Selvedge contributor Sarah Jane Downing traces the resurgence of this intricately patterned cloth. Illustrated by Rosie Gainsborough. 29 COVER STORY PERUVIAN FEATHERWORKS Art of the Precolumbian Era Edited extract from the recent publication written by Heidi King, illustrated with examples from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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PERUVIAN F EATHERWORK

Art of the Precolumbian Era

“The Spanish chroniclers reported that during the reign of the Inca in the early 16th century large quantities of plucked feathers, as well as birds both dead and alive, were received from the eastern provinces as tribute by the mighty Inca...”

Tabard with Four Frontal Birds, South Coast, Inca, Carbon-14 date 1400-1610, (95% probability), feathers on cotton, 74 x 63.4 cm

Birds are wondrous creatures, and their behaviour and characteristics have inspired the imagination of peoples in all parts of the world for millennia. Depictions of birds are particularly abundant in the art of the ancient Peruvians. Undoubtedly birds played an important role in their mythology and folktales, although knowledge of bird symbolism in Peruvian cultures remains limited at present.

Surviving featherworks and the accounts written by the Spanish chroniclers suggest that feathers were used primarily to embellish tabards (open-sided tunics), personal ornaments, headgear, and accessories for elite men to wear and display on festive occasions. Like precious metals, shells, and coloured stones, feathers, especially those from colourful birds, were highly valued. Indeed, feathers may have been considered the ultimate luxury material in ancient times. Feathers were chosen primarily for their radiant colours, striking iridescence, and silken texture. The gentle curve of feathers, when sewn to the foundation fabric, provided volume and a soft, plush texture that woven fabrics do not have. The skill and ingenuity of Peruvian textile artists, and their ability to create with mineral and vegetable dyes a wide range of colours with subtle gradations in tone, are well known. However, the glossy, brilliantly hued colours of feathers of tropical rainforest birds – the rich yellow and deep blue of the macaw, for example, or the bright turquoise and soft chartreuse of the paradise tanager – could not be achieved with dyes.

The featherworks still in existence show that for their creations the ancients preferred the brightly coloured feathers of the rainforest birds that inhabited the eastern slopes of the Andes and the vast Amazon Basin. The more muted feathers of coastal and highland birds, such as seabirds, hummingbirds, condors, owls, and eagles, were seldom used, although these birds too – like parrots, macaws, and raptors – are frequent motifs in ceramics, in metalwork, and in the textile arts. Examination of feathered pieces in museum collections indicates that the feathers of less than two percent of all bird families and species in the Amazon region were used. The most common were macaws – blue-and-yellow, scarlet, and red-and-green – and parrots, as well as Muscovy ducks, curassows, flamingos, and egrets. Smaller birds included various types of cotingas, honeycreepers, and tanagers, especially the spectacular paradise tanager, with feathers of five different colours.

The dazzling feathers used in the manufacture of luxurious cloths, sumptuous headdresses, and precious personal ornaments had to be carried west from the rainforest over the Andes to workshops in the highlands and on the Pacific Coast, where the finished products are believed to have been made: although no archaeological evidence of feather workshops in the highlands or on the coast has been reported to date. The Spanish chroniclers reported that during the reign of the Inca in the early 16th century large quantities of plucked feathers, as well as birds both dead and alive, were received from the4

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WEAVING THE BREATH OF L I FE Katy Bevan takes in the sights and sounds of Senegal

Baskets in a market in Dakar

Chilis in a market in Dakar

Gorée Island, Senegal

Apparently the autumn is the cool season in Senegal, though it took my body some time to catch up with this information. After the heat the next thing that hits is the noise: people talking, pushing, cars and all in competition with the sound of the Atlantic waves. Dakar is on the western-most tip of Africa (the nipple that sticks out on the left hand side of the map). The French colonial heritage is strong and the influence is seen in the food, the language and the ubiquitous young men selling Orange phone minutes on every street corner.

Many of the roads are dirt tracks, while the central streets are dual carriage ways. The slow lane is taken up with buses, horse and carts, huge potholes and burnt-out cars. Still, you can't stop in traffic without being offered a multitude of odd things to buy through your window, bedside lamps, rat poison... The cars themselves are motley, restored buses with no windows, taxis held together with yellow gloss paint and string, and the occasional limousine. Outside the boulangerie children beg for food – the contrasts are stark.

In Dakar textile lovers head for HLM market or Marche HLM: which stands for 'Habitations a Loyer Modere', meaning affordable housing. The predominant impression is of Dutch batik fabrics, and many Chinese copies, sold in six metre lengths in delicious colour combinations. Independent traders carry their loads on their heads with mud cloth and dyed yardage from neighbouring Mali and bazin prints and woven raffia from Mauritania. Most sought after are the older Bògòlanfini (mud-cloth) which have come to symbolise the traditional Malian way of life. Made up of narrow woven strips, the fabric is vegetable dyed and a relief pattern marked out with fermented mud.

Alongside the road are stalls selling the distinctive local baskets with their bright colours and tagine-like lids. Mostly made by the Wolof women: the typha, or bullrushes used to make these grow locally. Also used are discarded millet stalks. The baskets are coiled with an exposed core of whatever grasses are available, with the pattern in the secondary stitching material with its bright colours outlining the patterns. Historically the4

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THE L AST RUNAWAY

by Tracey Chavalier

Tracey Chavalier’s latest novel centers around Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker with a broken heart. Emigrating to Ohio with her sister in the hope of making a new life, she soon discovers that 19th-century America is a hard, precarious place to live. Its people are practical and unsentimental, its climate challenging. Even its quilts are different from those she makes. Moreover, it is divided by slavery, legal in southern states and opposed by many northerners...

Housetop, 1963. Cotton twill and synthetic material 157 x 160cm, Loretta Pettaway

“Mrs Reed’s quilt was made up of strips of cloth sewn together to form rough squares, in blue, grey, cream and brown, with the odd yellow strip thrown in. They were of wool or linsey, cut from coats, blankets, shirts, petticoats, and were worn and faded. The cover had not been quilted, but tie knots of brown yarn had been placed at the centre of each square – a shortcut method of keeping the batting and backing together. Honor flipped over a corner of the quilt. It was lined with brown linsey cut with thin orange stripes. Running her hand over the squares, she pulled two tight to inspect the stitching: it was even without being overly precise.

What struck her about the quilt was the same thing she had noticed about the front garden. The placement of the colours seemed unplanned, and yet there was something pleasing about them. The grey bought out the clear beauty of the blue. The blue deepened the brown and made the cream rich and clean. The grey and cream should not go together, yet they looked so natural as two rocks side by side. And every now and then a bit of yellow popped out, making the other colours seem uniform. It felt there was an overall pattern that tugged at Honor’s eyes, yet when she tried to find it, the patchwork fell back into random pieces. Bright, rich, spontaneous, Mrs Reed’s quilt made the red and green appliqué quilts favoured by Ohio women look child-like, and Honor’s own careful patchwork contrived and overcomplicated...” An extract from The Last Runaway, Tracy Chevalier, £15.00 ISBN-10: 0525952993

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