CONTENTS
INDULGE textiles to buy, collect or simply admire 11SOUTH OF THE BORDER Shopping down Mexico way by Polly Leonard 12 HOW TO Dye table linen by Babs Behan of Botanical Inks 78 SHOP TALK NO 10 Jane Audas goes shopping at Cassie Mercantile
GLOBAL textiles from around the world 20 OH OAXACA Head Back Down South by Rebecca Devaney 60 IN THE JUMBLE The afterlife of second-hand clothes by Sophie Vent, photography by Tim Mitchell and Lucy Norris 96 SWATCH Favourite Fabric no. 43: Chenille by Sarah Jane Downing, illustrated by Nina Fuga
ANECDOTE textiles that touch our lives 42 COVER STORY The 1718 patchwork coverlet by Sue Marks 46 PATCH UP The skirts that helped heal a nation by Dr Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood 68 FOLD UNFOLD The American coverlet by Catherine Billingsley 72 PLASTIC FANTASTIC Reusable shopping bags from Mexico and Vietnam by Catherine Legrand
ATTIRE critical reporting of fashion trends 14 SURVIVAL SKILLS Firda Kahlo: making her self up by Phoenix Leonard-Shaw, photography by Ishiuchi Miyako 50 WHEN I REACHED JAMAICA I MADE A STOP Jessica Ogden a girl, from Kingston town by Carol Tulloch photography by Alfredo Piola
INDUSTRY from craft to commerce 32 LOUD AND CLEAR Voices of Industry speaks of heirloom fibres by Kate Cavendish, photography by Leslie Williamson 38 OUT OF AFRICA Polly Leonard gets to know Mungo's magnificent new mill 56 A STATE OF REPAIR The culture of kantha in Bengal by John Gillow
COHABIT stunning interiors beautifully photographed 26 CASA AZUL Frida Kahlo’s private universe by Hilda Trujillo 64 ON THE HOME FRONT Jessica Green’s hand work hard at work photography by Rinne Allen 74 TRAILER PARK TREASURE Setting up camp with Ruth Ribeaucourt by Oliver Maclennan, photographs by Joanna Maclennan
SURVIVAL SKILLS Frida Kahlo: making her self up
We live in a world where art and artist have merged.You only have to look at social media to see that the lines between public works and private lives have all but vanished. Artists have become ‘icons’ inseparable from their art, and it can be tempting to think that this development is a recent consequence of the social media boom – but this is not actually the case.
The exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, examines the life of Kahlo through her clothing and personal effects. As one of the first ‘icon’ painters, her public image is everywhere; her face appears on everything from stationery to toiletries, saturating the mass market. In fact, knowledge of her near-fatal bus accident in her teens, rendering her immobilised for prolonged periods, forms part of the collective consciousness ahead of her art. We know too, of her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera – another artist whose hedonistic private life contributed to his public persona and success.
Upon her death in 1954, Kahlo’s clothes and personal effects were locked away by her husband Rivera, who was afraid that they may be misunderstood. The bathroom where they were stored remained locked until 2004, when the collection was catalogued and documented by Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Commissioned for her profound understanding of trauma, Miyako grew up in post-war Japan, and has also photographed the clothing remains of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. 4
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walls were erected to enclose a newly-purchased lot of 1,040 square meters now occupied by the garden, thereby affording the Soviet intellectual a measure of protection from the pursuit of Joseph Stalin’s hired assassins. In 1946 Diego Rivera asked Juan O’Gorman to build a studio for Frida, proposing that he use local materials such as basalt, the volcanic stone employed by the Aztecs to build their pyramids and carve their ceremonial pieces. The studio was designed in a functionalist style and decorated with works of Mexican folk art. In this part of the house, Diego lined the ceilings with mosaics and the walls with seashells, also embedding clay pitchers in the exterior walls to provide nesting spaces for doves and pigeons.
Before he died, Diego asked Dolores Olmedo, his friend and patron, not to open the bathroom of his own bedroom in the Blue House for a period of 15 years. Time passed, and Lola respected the wishes of her friend during her own lifetime. She kept the space locked up, as well as the bathroom of Frida’s bedroom, a small storage space, and various trunks, wardrobes, and drawers. Diego had left a brief inventory of the objects stored in his bathroom, but until recently nothing was known about the contents of the other spaces. For almost three years, with the support of the non-profit organisation Apoyo al Desarrollo de Archivosy Bibliotecas de México (ADABI), which provides financial aid to archives and libraries, a group of experts was able to organise, classify, and digitalise the newly-discovered collection: 22,000 documents, 6,500 photographs, magazines and periodicals, books, dozens of drawings,
personal objects, clothing, corsets, medicines, toys… The task of making this archive public coincided with the centennial celebration of Frida’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the death of Diego Rivera. The archives and objects brought to light were genuinely fascinating, providing clues that will enrich the biographies of both artists. Many scholars visiting the exhibition have commented in surprise that the stories of Frida and Diego need to be rewritten, since many suppositions have been proven false or misleading. These documents and drawings provide fascinating clues about Frida’s work.They include, for example, illustrations and drawings of the womb and the development of the human foetus, which would later be used to decorate the wooden frame of the diptych Still Life.
Hidden away in the back of the closet, behind some books, was a small sketchbook containing the small but important drawing Appearances Can Be Deceiving. Stored in the same place were several drafts of the text Frida wrote about Diego (Portrait of Diego Rivera) for the tribute to the muralist held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. The authorship of this text had been questioned (and even attributed to Alfonso Reyes), but thanks to this new archive we can now be sure that Frida herself wrote it.All this is preserved in Frida’s house, a building that constitutes a living spring of passionate experiences. Hilda Trujillo The Frida Kahlo Museum, Londres 247, Del Carmen, Coyoacán, 04100 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico www.museofridakahlo.org.mx
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Although she has since returned to live in California, her interest in the surrounding southern farm culture continues. ‘I'm more drawn to multi-generational farming stories, those that have struggled with maintaining that way of life,’ she said. ‘My most recent work is entirely focused on cotton in the Deep South. I’m feeling more emboldened about confronting challenging issues in the work.’
When Stafford conceives of a piece, the garments are typically informed by the fiber and resulting cloth. ‘Once I harvest the fiber, I design the yarn based on the story I want the material to tell,’ she said. ‘Once yarn is in hand, I spend a good amount of time sampling weaving patterns to further the narrative. From there, the cloth is woven and the garments are cut and sewn.’
She works with Jisun Lee, who she calls her ‘meticulous pattern maker and tailor’, to finish each garment marked out on her week's worth of cloth.And the completed garments are breathtaking, with their buckled, Black Thorn wool giving shape to a boxy pullover; a blonde cotton tunic and two-tone striped cotton T-shirt emerging from Sally Fox's organic cotton.
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It can take a long time for Stafford to complete a piece, so when a garment is finished, it includes information on the farmer and weave, allowing customers to appreciate its history. And every time the cloth is worn, the customer continues to add to its narrative, intertwining farmer, weaver and wearer. Kate Cavendish R
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