This post focuses on learning the different techniques used in Kutchi weaving and a bit about the traditional products woven for the local market. Part one looks at the preparatory stages of weaving in Bhujodi. Read it here. Once I had completed my muffler and cut it off the loom it was time to start learning new types of weave. This week Rajesh Vishrambhai Vankar was to be my teacher. Rajesh is the youngest son of the renowned master weaver Vishrambhai and brother of Shamjibhai – also a well-known and respected master weaver. He graduated from Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya in 2009, and now works for the family business in various different…
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Learning to weave the Kutchi way
For 21 days starting on the 28th December I learned the basics of weaving under the masterful and patient guidance of four skilled and experienced weavers from Bhujodi village in Kutch. The course was organised by Somaiya Kala Vidya whose primary aim is to teach design education to craftspeople of Kutch (find more information on SKV here and here). The ‘Crafts Traditions’ courses are a side project that aim to extend the awareness and appreciation of Kutch’s crafts further afield, welcoming visitors from all over the world to come and learn a new skill and also gain a deeper understanding of the crafts’ context. In three weeks I learned the whole…
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The 2015 design graduates of Kutch – continued
There is a buzz of excitement in the region of Kutch as Somaiya Kala Vidya prepares for the convocation and fashion show of this year’s design graduates on 9th January in the village of Bhujodi, just 9 km from Kutch’s capital, Bhuj. In my previous post I wrote about the jury. The awards the jury decided will be presented during the convocation, and select pieces of the graduates’ final collections will be modelled on the runway. The graduates also got the chance to mingle with the Bombay craft and design enthusiasts and potential new clients at Artisans’ Gallery in Kala Ghoda for an exhibition of their collections from 21st –…
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The 2015 Design Graduates from Kutch
Today is the last day of the 2015 Design batch of Somaiya Kala Vidya (SKV)’s exhibition at Artisans’ gallery, Mumbai. I attended the final class – Presentation and Merchandising, as part of my PhD fieldwork. There were eleven students on the course, four weavers, four ajrakh artisans and three bandhani artisans. Before this class, students had attended Colour, Basic Design, Marketing, Concept and Communication and Finishing and Collection Development. Each class lasts two weeks and they are spread over a year. During the weeks in between each, the students develop work at home based on what they have learned in the previous class. In Presentation and Merchandising, the students learned to display their…
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Sircilla: a weaving industry fighting to survive
In Sircilla, a once thriving handloom town, there are now less than ten weavers, none of them under the age of 70, all looking as if they should have retired long ago. But the term retirement is unknown to weavers. They weave until they can physically weave no longer. There is not a single young handloom weaver here now. But then, where is the incentive to work in handloom when the earnings are just 80-100 rupees a day, while a powerloom weaver earns about 4 – 500 rupees because he can produce so much more? The government are supporting these handloom weavers while they’re still practicing but there is no…
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Textile Travels in India: November
Highlights – Introduction to the weaving of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. – Meetings with influential and inspiring people in the textile and craft world in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Kanchipuram. – Visit to Weavers’ Service Centres in the cities above and the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology in Salem. – Visit to shops, designers and NGOs creating innovative designs using local handloom fabrics. I’ve just arrived in Ahmedabad, via Pune on the same train I caught on my way down to Bagalkot two months ago, the Lokmanya Express. This time I was coming from Salem, about 80 km east of Coimbatore a big industrial hub known for its long…
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Handloom journeys in India
I’m back in India again, and during the last two weeks I’ve been from Mumbai down to Bagalkot in Karnataka, back up to Mumbai then up to Kutch. I was in Bagalkot to visit the weavers of the Ilkal sari, named after the town of Ilkal, an ancient weaving centre. The sari is characterised by its cotton warp, art silk border and art silk pallu in bright reds and greens with shimmering motifs including temples, hanige (comb), koti kammli (fort ramparts), toputenne (jowar) and rampa (mountain range) on the pallu. Alongside Somaiya Kala Vidya’s (SKV) pilot course last year, they ran an outreach project, which involved three weavers from Bhujodi travelling…
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Selvedge celebrates Indian textiles
The theme of the new Selvedge issue is India! So of course it is full of colour, beautiful pattern, rich history, fascinating stories and contemporary innovations within textiles. It also highlights the important issues arising from fast textile production and demand, and the place of handcrafted textiles. On pages 62 to 64 various writers discuss the current situation of handloom in India and what the future holds. This includes Laila Tyabji of Indian craft NGO Dastkar highlighting the recent lobby against the government’s decision to repeal the Reservations Act which gives exclusivity to certain handloom products and aims to prevent powerloom copies. Luckily, the protests were heard and the Ministry of Textiles withdrew the…
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The story of Spitalfields’ Silk
This summer has seen a celebration of the history and heritage of Spitalfields in East London in the form of two festivals: Spitalfields Music Festival and the Hunguenot Summer 2015 organised by The Huguenot Society. I joined a tour run by the Huguenot Society around the streets where the weavers and cloth merchants lived. I was amazed at the many layers of history in one small area – we must have only covered a square half-mile! The Huguenots were French Prostestant refugees who fled to London and other parts of Britain to escape persecution in France in the 16th century. The first Huguenots arrived in London in 1548. The majority were…
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A few of the many complex weaving techniques
Last week, I joined a group of woven textiles enthusiasts at textiles dealer and Textiles Society events organiser, Meg Andrew’s house to learn weaving techniques from master weaver Sue Kerry. Sue has had an extensive and diverse career. She learned all the techniques of weaving in industry and at Birmingham College of Art. After college she worked as a weaver’s apprentice in Suffolk, and also in Perugia, handloom weaving luxurious cloths. Since then she has documented textiles in the Warner archive for 12 years, consulted for other businesses on their archives and worked on restoration projects. Sue talked the group through a collection of samples she had acquired over many…
