MOTHER TOUNGE The Ndebeles’ fluent Visual Language
In the 1940s a remarkable visual renaissance began to take shape in South Africa. The Ndebele are a people of Nguni origin, living in the Highveld to the east of Pretoria. Before the Apartheid years, they lived in and amongst other ethnic groups and were in danger of losing their spoken language, which was loosing ground in favour of the more prevalent Sotho-Tswana language. This became the impetus for the Ndebele cultural renaissance, driven by the effort of Ndebele women who, while unable to write, posessed a highly articulate architectural and visual language. The women understood lessons learned from the adornment of the body, and reapplied what they knew to architecture. This is how from the 1940s to the 1980s, a distinct visual identity was formed to defend against the disappearance of a spoken language. This vibrant art form came into being during a time when Ndebele culture was under considerable pressure. The Ndebele minority were initially forced onto farms as indentured labourers at the turn of the last century. Subsequently they became labourers on Boer farms, before being moved onto the government grid at KwaNdebele. The housing format of the grid was a method of control and power, and culturally impactful as the Ndebele people traditionally lived in a formation that showed respect across position age and gender. The art form that emerged can therefore be understood as partly political protest, and partly as a way to give the scattered group’s language a visual identity.
At the time, it was the Ndebele women who stepped in to keep their culture alive. Ndebele women used the female coming of age ceremony (known as ‘ugutombisa’) as a means of keeping their folklore and language alive. The ceremony was accompanied by decorating one’s home, and this led the Ndebele to develop their visual language across beadwork, mural painting, sculptural embellishment and formal gardens. With the home functioning as a backdrop to the rights of passage, (the external arrival area being where men’s rights took place and the women’s rights took place in the courtyard, symbolically the womb of the home) the Ndebele women appropriated these spaces and used them as a place to establish their identity. Working with traditional Tswana architecture, they used the courtyards and the front walls of houses as a prominent canvas to paint, and on which they could develop and exhibit an iconic visual language. In the 1930s, photographs taken by Constance Stuart Larabee revealed Ndebele art as highly stylized, with small scale motifs on a prominent white background. At that point, it had not developed into the colourful style associated with Ndebele art today. The use of colour changed in repsonse to the availabilty of materials. Earlier works made use of subdued earthy hues, but the coloured change abruptly when artists had access to materials
such as powder. It was the bright colours of PVA paints that would give the boldest colours to this cultural renaissance. Ester and Maria Mahlangu, born in the late 1930s and still painting, have been central to keeping the Ndebele art form alive. Their painted murals are a fine expression of the late period of Ndebele cultural renaissance. Ester mixes her own paint colours to make a personal palette that is uniquely hers, and she has developed her practice, transforming it from being bound up with ritual, to being an art form that can be shared in any setting and any agenda. As her famous painted BMW from the 1980s is testament to, she is no longer bound by tradition and architectural space. Ester and Maria Mahlangu use any opportunity to practice their art, leading to a way of working that is eclectic, and hybridised to the point that it can be considered a post-Ndebele renaissance form of artistic expression. Ndebele mural art can be distinguished into sixteen different regions, each differentiated by distinctive graphic characteristics, which are greatly influenced by the artist’s observations of their immediate surroundings. ‘We see what we want to see, and we make it our own’, is what the matriarchal Ndebele artists will say. As these women moved around the European style towns of South Africa, they saw Art Deco architecture, highly ornamental Victorian entrance posts, 1950s motorcars with fins, washing powder advertisements, Cape Dutch gables on hotel4 Ed
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DOWN TO THE WIRE David Arment Talks Telephone Wire Baskets
Through the twentieth century, the use of wire as an embellishment in Africa was connected with high-status objects. Historically, the skill required to pull and craft copper and brass wire was specialised and labour intensive, making the wire a valued and prestigious material. In Southern Africa this precious wire was used to decorate traditional prestige objects, such as ceremonial staffs, snuff containers and imbenge, the covers for the traditional clay pots used in the brewing of beer. In the 1980s the introduction of colourful telephone wire, cheap and readily available, created the opportunity for a new art form from a community of artists in the area around Durban, South Africa. The form of these contemporary baskets is primarily based on the traditional shape of the imbenge, made bigger and more ornate through the encouragement
and training provided by Marisa Fick Jordaan at
the BAT Centre in Durban, now known as
ZenZulu. This community of Zulu artists
is the source for most of the baskets
available today, on the internet, in
galleries and at festivals such as
the International Folk Art
Market held each year in
Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The structure of these
hard wired baskets is spiral-based; a thick,
base-wire is first wrapped with the more colourful
telephone wire, then wound and held together with tightly pulled loops of wire. This is a similar technique to the traditional coiled method used in Africa and the Americas to make grass or palm fiber baskets. The artists begin the piece in the middle and work outward and upwards in a circular pattern, counting the loops, changing the colours and creating artworks of striking detail and arrangements. There is typically not a plan, pattern or design for the finished work. The weavers understand, without
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knowing, the complex mathematics required to build an artwork, having their own vision for each piece. A variety of patterns emerge in the designs. The early baskets include simple interpretations of traditional beadwork patterns. Stars, flower-like designs, and zigzags were prevalent . Over time, talented artists developed unique styles and imagery. Some patterns became more ornate and sophisticated, and the baskets started to reflect the world around them, with depictions of animals, trees and people. Words and messages have also been included in the baskets. From sports events to celebrations and warnings about the dangers of HIV, artists have found a way to add some meaning to their
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artwork in the Zulu and English languages.
Artists have covered bottles with wire and
created three-dimensional objects, such as
birds and sculptures, as they have
expanded the range of telephone
wire objects.
Weaving was traditionally
the domain of men, but
over time, more and more women are being
empowered through
the opportunities provided by the sale of the baskets. High
end game lodges and boutiques in Southern Africa stock and sell the finest pieces, and a number of fair trade organisations promote the individual artists, helping to provide a sustainable living for many. Specific artists have become well known and collected internationally. Elliot Mkhize, Ntombifuthi Magwasa and Vincent Sithole, have each developed into master weavers, with work that is unique and special. Ntombifuthi, favours complex geometric patterns that meld traditional Zulu and Ndebele 4
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result is a fibrous solid material, closer in feel to fibreglass than plaster; hard, soft and furry all at the same time. These vessels are now massive in scale and sit comfortably alongside the bobbin-like wound wood sculptures and wall pieces. Cruickshank’s method of meandering enquiry and his continuous reaching out towards different materials and processes sets him apart in some ways from other craft based makers or artists. Most of us find our tools and techniques and stay relatively close to their limitations, challenged by their restrictions. He is the opposite; utterly unconcerned by traditional boundaries between materials or processes and brave enough to adapt and invent the machinery he needs as he goes. For now, his triptych of cathedral-like silos, both echo and inform his work. In fact, the silos seem to even enhance his work. Seeing them in situ there is a magical experience. Such is their close relationship, that one feels sure that as his practice grows in confidence and depth the surroundings will change accordingly. The space and the work are connected; much like the spinning threads that fly around wood and sink into plaster. Wood, thread and movement are things that happen to be inspiring Cruickshank right now; tomorrow the materials and machine could be entirely different, but I feel sure they will still spin, and I hope very much they will be textile. Ptolemy Mann willcruickshank.net @will.cruickshank
Karin Carlander
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Karin Carlander holds a Masters of Linen certification, awarded to spinners, weavers and knitters who have committed to 100% European traceability from the sown seed to the final fabric. Her textiles are woven of linen spun from flax, which is naturally grown and retted on the ground in fields stretching from Caen in France, through Belgium to Amsterdam, where the water requirement is met entirely by rainfall. ‘Analysis of the life cycle of a linen shirt and a cotton shirt shows that the environmental impact of a cotton shirt is up to seven times that of a linen shirt,’ says Carlander. ‘Linen is the only vegetal fibre used in the textile industry that is native to Europe and it is the oldest known textile developed by man,’ she explains. ‘If we were better informed about the materials we use every day, we would be able to make better choices when we buy our clothes. But for me, it is also important that my textiles have roots in nature and in the culture I come from.’ Using linen, Carlander weaves objects that reinterpret traditional Nordic crafts for everyday use, ‘I work with functional textiles, because I think that the objects we handle in connection with everyday chores and activities should hold artistic value’. Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom by Katie Treggiden Ludion £30 €34.90 www.ludion.be CONTEMPORARY MAKERS ON THE LOOM
WEAVING
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64PIECED TOGETHER The Quiltmaking Community by Dr Sue Marks EVENTS dates for your diary 04 May 2019, Wirework with Julia Griffith Jones, London, UK 11 May 2019, Embroidered Portrait with Susie Vickery, London, UK 25 May 2019, Stitched Cartography with Ekta Kaul, London, UK 15 June 2019, Stitched Landscapes with Eleri Mills, London, UK 29 June 2019 Lines of Thought: 3- D Threads for Textiles with Michael Brennand-Wood, London, UK 20 July 2019, Visible Mending with Tom of Holland, London, UK 27 July 2019, Pin Cushions with Ruth Singer, London, UK 14 September 2019, Folk Art Inspirationwith Anne Kelly, London, UK 8-15 August 2020 Thread and Thrift with Mandy Pettullo, Chateau Dumas, France 8-15 August 2020 Wirework with Julia Griffith Jones, Chateau Dumas, France 22-29 August 2020 Mannequin Making with Susie Vickery, Chateau Dumas, France 22-29 August 2020 Stitched Illustration with Emily Jo Gibb, Chateau Dumas, France 83 PRIZES THIS ISSUE Two spaces on the Make a Jack Tar workshop, Merchant & Mills worth £300 www.merchantandmills.com Three handwoven cushions and a bag woven by Karin Carlander worth £300 www.karincarlander.dk Two Penny Fields Pillow Set featured worth £300 www. skinnylaminx.com INFORM the latest news, reviews and exhibition listings
03 BIAS /CONTRIBUTORS Letter from the founder, Polly Leonard and comments from our contributors 07 NEWS Liberty Pattern Savannah, London Craft Week, Toast, Contemporary Craft Fair 84 READ The Indian Textile Sourcebook: Patterns and Techniques Victoria & Albert
Museum by Avalon Fotheringham reviewed by Anne Morrell. Pictorial Embroidery in England: A Critical History of Needlepainting and Berlin Work by Rosika Desnoyers revewed by Sarah Jane Downing 87 VIEW Material Textile, Messums Wiltshire, reviewed by Diana Woolf. Kimono
Refashioned, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, reviewed by Jo Ann Greco. The 2019 Cordis Prize for Tapestry, Edinburgh reviewed by Jennifer Harper. Super/Natural: Textiles of the Andes, Art Institute of Chicago, reviewed by Kyle MacMillan 95 COMING NEXT The Latin issue: Viva la Mexico
SELVEDGE ('selvid3) n. 1. finished differently 2. the non-fraying edge of a length of woven fabric. [: from SELF + EDGE]
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