BI AS

CONT R I BUTORS

We asked our contributors, what do they love about pattern?

“We live in a universe of patterns:” so begins Ian Stewart’s book Nature's Numbers, a fieldtrip that takes the reader on a sightseeing tour of the universe. The ability to recognise and therefore predict patterns is one of the things that makes us human, and pattern making is intrinsically linked to human intelligence. Patterns are found everywhere, from cell structure and pinecones to the stripes on the back of a tiger. The study of pattern helps us link mathematics and music to visual art and, metaphorically, ignites fireworks in the brain.

Pattern is evident in all cultures, as Ron Eglash discovered while studying fractal structures in indigenous African architecture. He then stumbled across four-fold symmetry while searching for fractals in Native American weaving. The desire to order the world around us with pattern is instinctive, it enables to make sense of, and control, our surroundings. The astonishing painted interiors photographed by Deidi von Schaewen in Mauritania demonstrates this. As does the work of Yoyoi Kasama, an artist and cult figure in her native Japan. Kasama’s work makes concrete her insatiable need to repeat and repeat elements to manage her universe.

But patterns are not always what they seem. Apparently abstract designs can be steeped in symbolism, as Dr Keireine Canavan uncovered whilst studying Bedouin Al-Sadu weaving in Kuwait. The pattern making instinct can be so strong, and is so popular, it can ignite a career - as it did for both Gabrielle Soyer and Kustaa Saksi who have created lifeaffirming patterns for the famed Finnish design house Marimekko. It also drives many of the designers exhibiting in our Spring Fairs in Bath, London and Stroud. I do hope you can can join us for these events.

Polly Leonard Founder

Italian and French figured silks are a guilty pleasure. 18th-century silk lampas in duck-egg blue with fragile floral motifs or a ravishing Louis XVI silk damask – textiles you might find in the archives of Tassinaro & Chatel.

ELIZABETH MACHIN, pg 38

I love the floral patterns on Khadi & Co block printed stoles or Carol Cassidy’s striped scarves. The latter’s handwoven Rainbow scarf has twenty two colours! Her modern interpretations of the Naga and Diamond shapes are stunning.

ANNE LAURE CAMILLER, pg 72

CATHERINE HARPER, pg 66

1980s Belfast was grey. Relentless, monochrome boredom. Kaleidoscopic life was glimpsed in the local library’s NME. So I purple-dyed the geo-print pyjamas of a dead man, laced rainbow striped boots – 1990s London pulsed.

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