The Making of An Indigo Artist, Part 1: A Journey of Devotion.
How does a textile become a piece of wearable art? Where does the jump from garment to work of art take place? What does it actually mean to create a moving, breathing, walking artwork that will exist in textile form but only truly come alive in human form?
These were some of the musings that sat with me as I brought this piece to life over seven intense days of dedicated work. Over this two-part blog post I’ll be sharing the story of those 7 days of devotion to indigo; of the process, the discoveries, challenges, stumblings and overcomings as I completed this very special work.
Towards the end of that incredible week, especially on the final stretch as I sat stitching with tired hands late into the night, the whisperings of answers to many of those questions that had started to gather around me at the onset of the work, began to drift into my work-stilled mind.
How does this work, that looks for all intents and purposes a simple piece of clothing as it hangs here in anticipatory silence, stand apart from something we might identify as fashion or garment or pret a porter? Does even the term ‘couture’ capture the essence of what is crystalizing into my distinctive way of bringing a work of wearable textile art to life?
Well, time has a lot to do with it. Time spent under and directly in the artist’s hands, unmediated by a machine or any other mechanical construction medium, is a key element in a textile’s journey towards becoming wearable art. In this aspect alone, in the preeminence given to exclusively constructing the wearable art piece by hand, in the days upon days taken to complete just one garment, there are certainly similarities between what I do and what’s called classic haute couture. I won’t give you the full estimate of hours of work behind this piece, from base fabric to completed work. But here’s the smallest hint. Those two panels of hand embroidery supporting the deep neckline, by far the shortest time commitment on the whole piece, took over 9 hours to complete.
I approach my construction of pieces like this far more as sculpture than dressmaking or sewing. The vast majority of time on this kaftan was spent with my basting needle, tailor’s basting thread and pressure steam iron. I spend far more time molding and shaping the fabric in my hands, on the form and on my wooden pressing tools, than I do in taking stitches through the fabric itself. Thread tracing and manipulating warp or weft threads sometimes down to individual ones. But when the stitching actually begins, all by hand of course, the vast majority of even that is spent putting in and taking out basting stitches, over and over again. And of course there’s the all important finishing work. That most deceptive of words which can give the unwary artist a false sense of completion-close-at-hand. Which, in the case of my first commission, turned out to be but a mirage of dry land after long hard days in the bosom of the Blue.
I had never completed a piece on a deadline before. And to say that I had slightly miscalculated the time left for ‘finishing’ would be...well, an exercise in emotional self-restraint on my part. That last 24 hours working on this piece slid by in a haze; watching my phone as I worked deep into the night; waiting for my husband’s texts to ping me into action, telling me the baby had woken,; dropping the work, rushing back under the stars and evergreens into the cottage to nurse baby back down before she woke her sisters; hefting myself back to the studio through the chill of the outside, hands already making little dancing movements in anticipation of the stitching to be picked up… What memories I’ll have of this piece.
As I woke up after less than a handful of hours of sleep to nurse the baby and rush back to the studio to complete the finishing, as I meticulously basted and hand hemmed the kaftan while it was weighted in exactly the drape I wanted it to hold, I realised that at any point I could take the decision to make it easier on myself. To use a fusible to hold the hem up, to run it quickly through a machine baste and cut out some time spent meticulously hand treating it etc. But it is in the decisions I take to exclude a certain set of practices entirely, to restrict myself to processes that add time, effort and focus, instead of reducing it, these decisions are critical to why this piece is a work of art to me, and not just a beautiful garment.
From the outside it might look like a combination of old world tailoring & french couture techniques. And yes, so far as I’ve related the story, there are almost perfect similarities in the processes between haute couture practices and this kaftan here. But I’ve only related one half of its journey. And not even the longest nor most demanding portion. Because above all else, this was Indigo Work.
Dyeing a piece of fabric in indigo and making a garment with it is one thing. But dyeing such a large piece of completed wearable art in an organic vat, attempting to achieve a depth, smoothness and complexity of color, while paying exquisite attention and care during multiple dips in the vat to all those hand stitches used to mould the garment into shape, to delicately prepared areas like the neckline interior, is another world entirely. Added to this the challenges provided by dyeing such a large piece in a small 10 gallon vat, and you have the steepest and most rewarding learning curve with textile work I've been on to date. The time needed to gently but thoroughly scour this precious handwoven khadi cotton, planning the hours between dips to ensure full oxidation; at some points choosing to neturalize the fabric mid-process just to get the best idea of shade being achieved so I can decide how many more to do; making the time and giving the effort to ensure I take my devotional time with the vat at the beginning of each morning and at the end of each day’s dye session, so that the fabric is dyed in the most sacred ambience, supported by the most potent vibrational energy; the gentle, slow, careful handling throughout. All of this knowing that there’d be a baby who needed her mama at any minute, knowing I would need to work at that sword-point place of complete involvement and total detachment, so I could drop the work and go to her as and when she needed me… Well, is it any surprise that this piece was the making of me? An act of devotion and the birthing of the artist within.
I was raised by a woman who was not just a trained textile artist but a finely trained painter in her own right. I never once thought the word artist would apply to me in any way, nor did I aspire to it. But it seems to have found me. I'll stay with it for a time. See what it wants to teach me, before I no doubt shed it and walk onwards. Transformed, unattached, to the next great adventure.
