Cas gave us a very entertaining talk on Friday evening, in which she explained how her family history, Romany culture and the places she had visited influenced her textile work. A feature of her work is the use of 'found' or reclaimed textiles, which help to tell stories in stitch. The talk was illustrated with lots of inspiring images and examples, and then on Saturday it was our turn to try our hands at some of the techniques she uses.
As Cas reminded us through the day, one of the key words in developing our own personal stories in art/textile work is not 'ease' but 'simplicity', which generally has to be achieved through a good deal of hard work. Travelling lightly is an important element of her Romany heritage. With this in mind, we were advised to bring a limited amount of materials with us - Cas travels everywhere with only a small sewing kit and minimal art materials, and she particularly advocates the challenge of working with limited resources. (Not that we necessarily followed this advice - it's too ingrained to try and ensure we've got everything we could possibly need for a workshop!)
After an introduction and explanation of momigami (literally "squeezed paper"), we got started on oiling, scrunching, colouring, printing, tearing and then ironing papers for the base of our pieces. Our noses were kept well and truly to the grindstone ... we were encouraged to compose the main elements of our pieces before lunch, 'auditioning' the various papers we had textured, considering their values and properties, and how to use them to tell our own stories.
After lunch was the time to pull out materials that we wanted to add to the papers, still bearing in mind that word 'simplicity'. We had a limited time to machine stitch all the pieces down, and then we started adding hand stitches, thinking about how stitch animates the work, and adds texture and depth.
Finally, we got together to lay out the day's work and consider the various stories being told through paper, material and stitch. We discussed what made a piece work, and especially how the ideas of things can be suggested through images, print and stitch, rather than being depicted literally.
We all felt we had learned a good deal from the day, and were going home with samples that would help us to develop our own styles. Thank you, Cas.
My delight to work with an group willing to experiment. The Momigami method we used is an adaptation of a Japanese technique. In Japan the starch extracted from Konnyaku, the tuberous root of the devil’s tongue plant of the Arum genus, is used. The application of konnyaku mucilage makes paper strong and flexible enough to withstand the rubbing and wrinkling process
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