WORDS OF ANN HAMILTON/ BUTA OF INDIA

INDIAN PRINT FROM THE J. FORBES WATSON COLLECTION OF SPECIMENS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TEXTILE MANUFACTURERS OF INDIA, LONDON, 1873-1880. Photo by Jolie Stahl.

I was very lucky to have chanced upon the late February NPR program, On Being, when Krista Tippett interviewed exhibition "maker"  Ann Hamilton, professor at Ohio State University,  Columbus,  and the person responsible for last year's exhibition at New York's Park Avenue Armory.  (Hamilton prefers to be called a "maker" rather than an artist.)

In that huge Armory exhibit, "The Event of a Thread",  New Yorkers were able to climb onto swings attached to giant white curtains that hung from mile-high vaulted ceilings.  Somehow, as  swingers swung, the curtains opened and closed.  Facing the swingers was a row of stenographers working away on endless rolls of paper, totally unconnected with the fellow humans visiting the exhibit.  It was all quite visceral, and somehow I didn't want to linger too long.

What intrigued me in the radio interview was the elegant expression of  Hamilton's  theory that thread and textile were both important forms of communication.  She told Tippett that when she first started making things out of textiles she thought of the textile as an animated surface that both covers and reveals, a place of embodied knowledge, the first house of the body.

She recalled body memories of sitting close to her grandmother as a child, knitting or doing needlepoint as her grandmother read aloud.  The rhythm of the two acts were remembered together.  The threads of needlecraft and the threads of ideas produced the same experience for her.  She continues to find a tactile experience in words.

With me, textiles often evoke a tactile emotion, sometimes a happy one, sometimes one full of wonder, sometimes a sad one.  Examples from J. Forbes Watson volumes of Indian fabrics, published in 1866, were on display near The Metropolitan Museum's Antonio Ratti Textile Center,  coordinated with The Met's major exhibit, "Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade".  The exhibit's long run ended late last year.

Watson was a doctor who traveled to India with the Bombay Army Medical Service in 1850 and lived there for three years. There is no accounting for his interest in Indian fabrics.  The fabrics he presented in his pattern books were manufactured in India and "were meant to inspire textile manufacturers in India and England."

Admittedly the paisley or boteh/buta motif is too powerful for eastern cultures to keep just to themselves.  Shown above, a charming floral with budding branches that turn into the teardrop motif.  But it is just so hard to see India at this point (1866),  losing what was left of its industry to a more industrially-savvy country.  It was even sadder when I came upon a pattern book at another library that showed a cotton print of English roses mixed with the motif, intended to be sold back to the Indian customer. 

Still the small exhibit was a welcome one and part of our shared embodied knowledge.  As Hamilton told Tippett, text and textiles are always woven experientially for her – as they can be for us all. JP

BRAND PAISLEY

Green bottle with motif center and upfront displayed at The Art of Arab Lands, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. Below: Vera Bradley tin for mints.

We are at a silly point in U.S. marketing, where humanity is being drained out of advertising and public relations communication.  The symbol or graphic image is all, and the product is lifeless.  Years ago, the ultimate branding concept first sent shivers down my spine when Martha Stewart told PBS's Charlie Rose that she wanted to become a brand.  Yes, from a corporate sense, it was a logical decision.  After she is gone, the corporation will have an identity.  But at what cost to her humanity?  I remember Ms. Stewart  from her early days in the Kmart licensing program.  She may have acted up behind the scenes, but she was still human with a lot of great advice for home and table.

On to the green-glass bottle that was displayed in The Art of Arab Lands at the Metropolitan Museum of Art over the past spring-summer.  Some smart person in the 17th century decided to do a nice fragrance bottle with a large boteh (paisley) motif simply placed up front and center.  It wasn't designed to sell billions.  It communicated love of the motif, and it was probably a pleasant experience to use that bottle.

Vera Bradley, a successful gift company both online and in stores - known for its prints in fabric totes, home accessories and children's wear - produced the little round candy tin pictured.  Lovely to put in a handbag.  This year, they even have a paisley Christmas ornament.  I don't think paisley is the total branding message for them but I am sure that the gift customer loves the beautiful design when it pops up in the collection.

Perhaps the point of all of this is, perhaps we should get back to making products that are pleasant to use and stop obsessing about vacant, unhuman brand images. Remember, humanity separates us from the limiting world of the algorithm. JP

PS: VB candy tin is courtesy of Dodie, who is this blog’s copy editor.

THE FABRIC OF OUR LIVES

Edoardo Nesi's book, Story of My People, is an emotionally difficult book to read. It takes you right into the Northern Italian city of Prato and its ghost-town of empty factories and of factories turned into sweatshop dormitories. Nesi's book also reminds me so much of my hometown, Detroit. In one of my first blogs, I wrote about visiting Prato and seeing first hand how the spirit was cut right out of its textile craftsmanship and its community.

As Nesi points out it had a long tradition of the highest level of work, patronage and commercialism that dates back to the 15th century, the days of Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici. In fact, it was a chance to see Lorenzo's final villa located close to Prato, that brought me there in the first place. And it was the overwhelming sadness of the current Prato that made me flee once I had visited the villa – a villa which Lorenzo planned but never lived to see built.

We are coming to realize that globalism for the sake of chasing the lowest price will not only lead to corporate riches but also to the grief of individual societies and to the destruction of highly-developed and century-honored trades.

For Detroit, the motto is "Speramus meliora, resurget cineribus." (We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes.) This is from a quote from Fr. Gabriel Richard after a terrific downtown fire in 1805 that included his parish. And people of Detroit are talking about that motto today.

In my opinion, for an understanding of the true spirit of Detroit, the best book is Detroit City Is the Place to Be by Mark Binelli and for Prato, it is Nesi's Story of My People.

In the most recent decades, Prato seems to have done more fine menswear stripes and plaids than paisley motifs. But since the teardrop is a symbol for life springing forth, maybe someone in town will weave a little paisley for me? I also recommend that Mr. Nesi read the story of the Highland Park firemen in Mr. Binelli's book. It will give him heart but also might make him cry.

The urban struggle and struggle of the spirit are not new. Marsilio Ficino – translator of Plato into Latin and mentor to both of his patrons, Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici –wrote in one of his loving letters to mankind: "Labor so that you may be good and shine with beauty; suddenly all things are good and shining with beauty for you." This, even when the outer world looks like hell as it often did in Ficino's Florence. JP

PAISLEY AND THE ART OF HOME ECONOMICS

PAINTING ON A WOODEN SLAB  PLUS PAISLEY FABRIC. ARTIST  JOLIE STAHL REFERENCES THE KEELING HOUSE, VIRGINIA BEACH,  CIRCA 1740.

After the first appearance of the woven paisley shawl in 17th century Kashmir, some citizens of the Middle East expanded shawl usage for the home.  They hung shawls as wall coverings for warmth and beauty, placed  them over windows and doors as shelter from the sun and used border strips to accent shelves .Shawls were spread on the ground for lush banquets.  In the late days of  the 19th century, retailers sourcing The East India Trading Company,  developed an Empire cache by popularizing paisley upholstery and wall covering. And  of course, there was the ubiquitous shawl that got draped over the grand piano.

Now, working artist Jolie Stahl , has incorporated  bits of a fine paisley-printed scarf fabric into one of her house paintings-and-found-object collages being prepared for an exhibition titled Home Economics. It will be held at New York's Hudson Guild Gallery in Chelsea, starting March 20, 2014. Stahl is also curating the show that will include the sculpture of Tom Otterness.

Here, Stahl shows a home referencing the American Colonial period circa 1740, not that colonials had a lot of paisley to work with..  It took another century for  both Queen Victoria and Napoleon to create a full-on paisley-at-home trend in Europe with their sharp eyes for local fabric industries.

Stahl says that the dismal home foreclosure figures of the past seven years prompted her to focus on the future of the American home and what the dramatic changes might mean to our culture.  The artist is also director of Ddora Foundation which is dedicated to preserving applied arts. JP

WHO WORE IT BETTER?

Above: Madame Riviere, 1805-6 by Inges.  Below: Madame de Stael by Gerard

The reading of Paula Byrne's The Real Jane Austen brought me to finally pick up Madame de Staël by Francine du Plessix Gray.  It appears that Austen passed up meeting Madame S at one of her publisher's Mayfair salons in 1812.  Possibly the Force of Nature that was Madame S might not have been Austen's cup of tea.  But since we are all fashion obsessed these days, who would have worn her shawl better?   Austen, with her fine shawl shown in a previous blog? Or Madame S, who despite the fact that her father, Jacques Necker, began his financial career as "a brilliant head of the East Indian Company," liked her shawls solid color with geometric patterned borders?

Why are there no portraits of the fashion rebel, Madame S in a paisley shawl?  Perhaps as French cultural historian, Dr. Joan Rosasco, points out, Madame was more interested in imitating the classic drapery of Greece and Rome.  It might also be that the non-paisley look was part of her anti-trend stance.  Her turbans rather than wigs fit into this pattern as well. 

But who wore it better?  My vote is neither.  In Madame Rivière portrait, 1805-6,  by Inges, Madame R,  the wife of a Napoleonic empire government official, wore her shawl most beautifully against the whites of her silk gown and muslin veil.  Art cognoscenti have called it a symphony of textures. JP

FROM THE LAUDER POSTCARD COLLECTION

PAISLEY'S FORM AS A SYMBOL FOR WACKY WEATHER

 

 

The viewer can feel the power of nature in this graphic from The Leonard A. Lauder's Collection as shown in 2011, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  It somehow seems appropriate to show this wonderful wave in this season of wacky weather.

Artists have long been inspired to use paisley-like shapes for droplets of water or giant waves, tree leaves or huge trees, sparks of fire or tongues of fire over the heads of Biblical apostles, a single puff of air or a wind storm.

Many postcards from the Boston exhibit are still online for your enjoyment.  Mr. Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estèe Lauder Companies Inc., has promised this collection of 450 cards to the museum.   By the way, the lower-left box was neatly designed for the card's address, leaving the entire back for the message.

 JP

PAISLEY AS KING

Above:  Corner of  Ralph Lauren shawl. Below: Heraldic-like paisley at the center.

This Ralph Lauren shawl from c. 1986 is an excellent example of Paisley as a Royal Symbol.  The large center motif is shown as almost a heraldic coat of arms with the paisley forming several outer frames.

Of course, when the Mughal King Akbar set out to establish shawl production in mid 16th century Kashmir, the intended target customer was the royal male.  The shawl was worn in a variety of ways, diagonally across shoulder and chest, around the waist, as a turban. 

Part of the Lauren design dynamic has always been paisley and after Bill Atkinson Ltd. had closed its doors in 1982,  Jeanne Atkinson was recruited as Director of Ralph Lauren's Designer Division. It was an excellent match from both design and financial perspectives. Unpublished figures show a sizable turn-around profit for the division in 1986.  The shawl is from Atkinson's personal collection.  JP