Mid-century at The Oval

On my travels again - this time only to south London for a day looking at things I mainly can't afford, but there's no harm in looking. This is the MidCentury Modern show at The Oval - love the living wall!

Inside is a treasure trove of beautiful design and memories from my childhood. 

I wander round drooling over stunning Danish designed sofas and chairs, either in their original upholstery like this Hans Wegner settee (in order to remove the beautiful rosewood panels to reupholster the arms you'd have to destroy them)

or lovingly reupholstered. 

Or reminiscing about Ladderax modular shelving and mid century ceramics. 

This was the type of furniture that I was surrounded with when I was growing up (we had a cruet set exactly like the one above). My Dad, being an architect, loved the clean lines and contemporary styling of the sixties, and my Mum tells how they spent their honeymoon looking round Heals in London, planning what they needed to save up for. I clearly remember the curtains in our living and dining room when I was probably only about six - a design called Sweet Briar by Barbara Brown for Heals - very striking when you have wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows to display them on. Mum says they're probably still in the loft - what a treat!

They had the blue and olive version, which I can't find online at all. The photo above is from the V&A museum archive . There were very few vintage fabrics today - those that were there, from Forgotten Fabrics 

tended towards the warm side of the spectrum, typical of the late sixties and seventies, but I was looking for blues and greens, so miraculously managed not to spend any money today.

We rounded the morning off with lunch at a tiny new cafe called The Sugar Pot round the corner on Kennington Park Road. Great light lunches, tea, coffee and yummy gluten free cakes, and service with a smile.

And the star of the show? Undoubtedly this stunning Arne Vodder Triennale sideboard from The Modern Warehouse.

At 2.5m long it was huge - with a price tag to match. But so beautiful, with reversible sliding doors - what looked like Formica (but could have been paint) on one side and rosewood on the other. I just love the detail round the drawers. Now where did I put that lottery ticket?

Mysore - another Maharaja's palace

So after a day spent in airports or in the air we finally arrived at Bangalore just in time to catch the sunset - and the traffic! We drove through the early evening to Mysore, arriving at about 10pm, although the darkness made it feel much later.

Next morning chance to explore before meeting the group for lunch. We walked in the general direction of the shops, passing these strange banana palms outside the cinema 

an old sewing machine shop which has seen better days 

and another strange tree

before getting down to some retail therapy. In this shop it seems we had every saree off the shelf so we could choose  the ones we were going to buy (purely as fabric, as neither of us intends to start wearing sarees).

More great scissors and a metal measuring tape

By the time we had decided and visited the third floor where the silk scarves were kept, we were running late, so had almost to run back to the hotel to meet everyone.

Then we set off again for lunch: masala dosa - a southern Indian speciality, a sort of pancake made from rice and filled with vegetables; the creamy stuff is coconut chutney - very nice. After a visit to the market we went back to the hotel to get bikes sorted out.

Later on our way to dinner we were able to see the Palace lit up - something that only happens from 7 to 7.30 pm on Sundays. When you realise that there are 97000 tungsten light bulbs involved you can understand why!

The next day we had a guided tour round the palace, which was rebuilt after a fire in the early 20th century. Unfortunately no photos allowed inside, but it was highly decorated. The Maharaja at the time was very much influenced by British art nouveau and employed Henry Irwin as architect. There are ceramic tiles from England, ornate iron pillars painted turquoise and gold, and peacock stained glass from Glasgow (reminded me of the Palau di Musica in Barcelona ).

The red domes are made from marble, and there are eight temples in the grounds - here's one of them.

Apart from that Mysore is very busy and hectic, so two nights there was enough. Looking forward to getting on a bike!

The Stitching Project

Day two in Pushkar was quite different to day one. We had arranged to go and visit The Stitching Project in a village just up the road - it's run by Fiona and her husband Praveen, and is a collective employing local people to make ethical clothing. You can look them up here: www.the-stitching-project.com/home

Finding it was interesting because there are no maps or roadsigns, so Shyam drove out of Pushkar, past the nomads selling grass for cows and all sorts of other things, through the desert, 

and in the general direction of the village, asked for directions (probably along the lines of 'do you know an Australian woman who lives near here'), picked up a local man as a guide, and off we went to find the workshop.

We had a warm welcome from Fiona and Praveen, who were happy to chat about the aims of their project, how they got started and what they're up to today. A textile artist, Fiona has set up the workshop to bring work to local women in the village, that can be fitted in around family life, and enables them not to have to look for work further afield.

This lady is a new supervisor, learning the projects so she can work directly with the women working from home, and the blackboard gives the day's schedule.

They source ethically produced fabrics - many are Khadi or homespun fabrics, produced locally on hand looms in 11 metre lengths,

print them using traditional skills but contemporary designs, 

and then make clothing and homewares, using their own fabric and recycled saree silk and cotton. This garment is a cross between a wrap and a waistcoat - it's got armholes so that it doesn't fall off when you move. It has been hand stitched at home by one of their ladies, and this man is finishing the binding.

Much of the hand stitching is outsourced to local women, whilst the block printing, cutting, machine stitching and finishing is done by the end at the workshop. 

Even the coat hangers for shows are decorated with saree silk off-cuts, and the packaging is done in a tiny room. There is stock everywhere, but the men know exactly when to find most things. 

Indigo dyeing in done by a local dyer, 

and blocks are cut to Fiona's designs by another local man. 

He apparently took a lot of convincing to cut what he saw as imperfect blocks for Fiona's designs, which have a lovely hand drawn quality about them. He wanted to line everything up and make perfect squares and circles.

There is also unintentional art to be found on the workroom walls and the drop cloth - oh to have a workroom space like this - I think the key is keeping it uncluttered!

Garments and other products carry a label identifying who made them, and also the CraftMark for kantha stitching.

We spent a happy half an hour looking through the garments for sale and playing dressing up, and inevitably came away with some purchases. This lady is just adding some buttons to my top.

They sell their products through trade fairs, but also through Etsy and their own website - have a look ...

https://www.etsy.com/in-en/shop/TheStitchingProject?ref=hdr_shop_menu

https://www.etsy.com/in-en/shop/TastyOldChooksClothz?ref=hdr_shop_menu 

Our morning ended with a roti making lesson and a shared lunch. 

Having been made very warmly welcome by everyone, we left for the long drive to Jodhpur. The road was interesting because it was not a 'highway'. Instead it ran across open countryside 

through local villages and towns, each one seemed to specialise in a different trade or craft - scrap metal and lorry repair, tyre recycling, quarrying, where trailers were beautifully stacked with stone blocks. 

It was also interesting because it was non-existent in places, with huge potholes and the obligatory speed bumps when you least expected them. They even caught Shyam out at times, and we were very glad it was him driving not us!

On displacement activity and being distracted

Can't believe it has been 20 months since I have published anything here!

A lot has happened in that time. Hazel and I have had a second set of C&G certificate students successfully complete their course. We have also developed two new courses - a one-year level 2 certificate course in response to requests from some of our beginners who didn't have time to commit to the longer course, and a level 3 diploma course to provide progression for those who'd completed the certificate. And that is a lot of work, believe me!

We also had a student, Anna Jenkins, selected for the Further Education Gallery at the Festival of Quilts last year. That was a huge achievement for Anna, who was living with cancer at the time, and who was determined to make the most of every minute of her life. Her accomplished work was admired by many people, and we all enjoyed the experience, as Hazel and I went along to help her set up and man her stand. Sadly, Anna died just after Christmas, but it was a joy to have known her and be part of her life for a short time, seeing how she just got on with things and achieved so much. My lesson from her is to cut the displacement activity (this blog??) and JUST DO IT!

Hazel and I also had the brilliant news that we had been selected to receive the Quilters' Guild first Travel and Education Bursary for teachers. This has enabled us to do a monthly course (Wet'n'Wild) with Claire and Leslie at Committed to Cloth, which I for one am enjoying immensely! It covers all wet processes for surface decoration of cloth - either to be used as art cloth in its own right or to be cut up and stitched into, as is the wont of quilters.

The first two months were spent looking at dyeing processes and produced a 'family' of cloth dyed progressively from two colours, in light, medium and dark values, which were then overdyed in light medium and dark values of the second colour making a range of 16 different pieces in all. I chose black and brown for my colours, as I have never really worked with neutrals before. Boring! I hear you cry - but the fabrics produced were very interesting, and can now be printed on and further worked into - the focus of the next few months' work.

The other fabrics were dyed using tray dyeing techniques, which produce stunning marks on the fabric. Although I have done this before, there is nothing like being taught exactly how to do something and then encouraged to experiment to improve the results. Both multicoloured pieces shown here were dyed in the same tray, and I got a bit trigger happy with the colours! I discovered that I don't like the effect of lemon yellow and scarlet together, and I positively hate the sludgy purple formed by scarlet and royal blue.On the positive side the markings on the top piece are great. I really like the depth in the middle. So encouraged by Claire, I overdyed it with 'double red' and the result can be seen below - it still has the depth, but the colours are a bit more unified.

The other piece was overdyed in 'double blue' , which has improved it, but it would still benefit from something else. It's a bit too busy to use as a background for printing, but I might discharge some of the colour and see what happens ...

And here's a picture of Godfrey P Pussycat supervising the whole process! He's another thing that has happened (almost) since I've been gone. A native of Torquay, he was a new arrival in August 2009 as a kitten - and nearly lost one of his nine lives last week by getting himself shut in a shed over Easter - luckily the owner wasn't away for both bank holidays. He hasn't learnt his lesson though (typical boy!), and was straight into our shed when I opened the door the very next day!

Well, the title of this post was about displacement activity and being distracted, and that was because I came to it on a circuitous route via another blog, which was in turn a distraction from displacement activity - reading emails instead of planning next week's lesson for diploma students. Luckily tomorrow's another day, so I can do it then, and I'll post some more pics of fabric from the course, on a planned break from work - important for recharging creative energies - not displacement activity at all.