Wednesday 14 August 2013

An Awkward Marriage.....



 
 I started using copper wire in my textile pieces around 2004. It was then an adjunct to frame the fabrics, lending strength to cloth I had taken apart thread by thread and rendered virtually thread
-bare.

I moved away from this practice. I found it laborious even then to work with the wire. But, after a gap of many years, around March this year, I decided to pick it up again - using the same copper wire to embroider with. It was awkward to say the least. Earlier, it was intended as a support for the fragile nature of fabric I had created, this time I tried to integrate it into the fabric structure itself.

 
Although it is relatively malleable as far as most wire is concerned, this copper wire is still tough to work with - to get it to do what I want. It goes all over the place, reminding me of how difficult it can be dealing with people who are WIRED differently.
 
When I stopped trying to control the gleaming russet wire, its wilful meanderings brought elements into play that thread could never do and started me thinking.....

I have persisted with many ghastly results but slowly we are finding a way to make things work. Or so I think...  ..!


Compared to needle and thread which is delicate and so amenable, the copper wire makes these grand but clumsy sweeps. I don't use a needle. It works as needle and thread in one, but its point is not as sharp as a needle, so it isn't easy to penetrate the layers of fabric that I like to work with.

I won’t blame anyone for thinking its sacrilege to add this rather crass, awkwardly meandering thread alongside the delicate Kantha and chain stitch. I am in two minds about it myself.
 
 It takes a lot of work to marry their disparate elements but there's also something about the wire, which sort of eggs me on to keep working with it, despite the awkwardness.

I let the wire thread its gauche way through the fabric and then I spend hours covering its naked audacity with floss, using a half hitch knot[i], which is similar to a buttonhole stitch, except that the latter catches a loop of the thread on the surface of the fabric, while the half-hitch knot is traditionally used without a needle to secure some object with rope to a hitching post. Anyway the process of covering this wire with three strands of untwisted embroidery floss takes forever and the thread gets so twisted that I cannot continue. So I have to turn the piece upside down, let it hang a bit, to let the twisted thread unwind, then get it back up again and start the process all over again.

I liken this, to what I feel myself, when life is challenging and it seems that I have to stand upside down, to be able sort it all out.

 
When I stand upside-down the whole world is perfect.
It’s when I have my feet on the ground
that everything looks upside down.

 
I have to admit that working with the wire has been getting to me of late - not quite enjoying it as much as when I started out.
 
The gawky gestures of the copper wire are alien to the delicacy of stitch, yet also evocative of some part of me that is restless, impatient and insecure, wanting to live larger than life, even if it’s just occasionally so, before I am brought down to earth with a thud.

And it happened one Sunday evening six weeks ago, on 30th June to be precise, when I collapsed after a swim, shivering with a sudden rise in temperature to 103 degrees. I panicked, more at the fact that in the middle of a summer evening’s temperature of 38 degrees Celsius, I lay under a light Jaipuri quilt, without a fan on, my teeth chattering, while everyone around me, in the same room, had sweat pouring down their cheeks. To add to my consternation, even my yoga teacher had left a message, earlier in the day, to say that I should take it easy with the regimen.

Things had been hectic and I was exhausted, but I thought: it can't me more than that. Anyway, I went through the blood tests nonetheless thinking, that at worst, I must have picked up some viral bug. Eventually I was diagnosed with typhoid which is why the pages of this e-journal haven’t been written in for a while.

 
But, all the health shenanigans aside, the pressing question is:  should I persist with this marriage of wire and thread, or is thread alone enough?



 



[i] The half-hitch is an ancient knot which is a simple overhand knot where the working end of a line is brought over and under the standing part.  It cannot stand on its own and is usually tied around a pole or some structure, even rope. It has however been incorporated into beading and other embroidery methods.

12 comments:

  1. Really Gopika, I would choose the softer version to marry my creativity, on Muslin or whatever fabric I may be working on. Now who can bear the hard, reluctant stiffness of a copper wire, on gentle fabric unless, you are thinking of using jute? having said that, I would like to add, the creator knows what best to blend and mend, although, I may pray for a gentle, loving marriage between the two :)
    Julia

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  2. Hmmm Julia, thank you for thinking it through this way. Have you responded to the words I wrote alone or taken the images into consideration too? Would be interesting to know. The use of wire is tough to marry with the gentler thread and its the effort of doing so that makes me question the efficacy of this relationship. 😳

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  3. I love the concept and look of the copper wire, and the laborious wrapping of it, I like how you describe it as both needle and thread. Will the copper eventually turn green, that element of change over time would be nice. I found an extremely fragile looking copper wire I tried to use it to train my roses to go up the columns on my porch but it broke it was too fragile to be pulled tight, but was beautiful, there were different thicknesses of wire I could have gotten.

    It reminds me how much I love to photograph the very "woven" look of electricity in India, and how the different stands of wire look like threads, and how as impossible as it looks, it actually all somehow makes sense, but it also clearly quite dangerous. There are several images of these thread like things on my video Auspicious Sight, on my kathrynmyers.org website There are a lot of incidental hanging "stuff" in that video most of which are "thread-like". I had actually not thought of that until I realized that a lot of it reminds me of what you are doing.

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    1. Hi Kathryn, what an interesting correlation you have made between my dangling, awkwardly wired marriage with fabric & thread and the chaos in Indian cities that look unbelievable but almost always make sense. Like I just said in response to Julia, I have put that piece aside for now and will wait and see what time says.

      The other idea of what would happen to the wire in time, would it oxidise etc made me go back and look at some pieces done in 2006 and have to say that because they are framed, the elements as such do not come into play, at least not yet. And even though moisture does creep in, especially after the kind of monsoon we have experienced this year, I generally tack a small pouch of silica gel, so I guess one has put paid to it altogether. The merits of it are debatable and I think would need a whole new post!

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  4. Have you re-written parts of it, Gopika, or is it the same I read days ago? I still loved the hues and colours of the post - this orange hue is so good for me!

    It is the tread that caused a bit of indigestion for me. Perhaps just a new idea, that is. Yet, copper is the best mettle they say; the properties of copper clear the water of all impurities, our grand parents told us. *Sigh* in the marriage of the mettle with the fabric, will it have the same effect? At least the hues of such a marriage, this orange amber, fails not to create such an effect, at least in me.

    Thanks for re-posting!

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    1. Julia, I haven't made any changes....��have you changed your mind then about the marriage? Have to confess that I agreed with your earlier view. Your observation re my being frail from the illness and thus the effort being a strain was an astute one. I have started another piece and let this one be for a while. Will post something on that soon. As always thanks for reading and your engaging comments .

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  5. I believe this is a Japanese saying...wouldn't it be awesome to be able to step aside from the humdrum existence and see the world with a new pair of eyes!

    When I stand upside-down the whole world is perfect.
    It’s when I have my feet on the ground
    that everything looks upside down.

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    1. Anand, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you likening my idea of standing upside down to a way of acquiring another pair of eyes? That's how I am inclined to read it and I think that the Japanese way of saying this is lovely, so much more poetic than mine....��

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  6. Not really, Gopika. These days I am seeing a lot of passion orange in your posts - perhaps the colour of your moods as well. I read the post and saw the pictures too, and the thread and said, nah! my energies - and yours for that matter, right after you have been lying in the dreaded arms of illness - are too fragile, for copper threads, no matter how, thin they be. :)This stands true, even now.

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  7. Besides, to add, really Gopika, I would choose the softer version to marry my creativity, on Muslin or whatever fabric I may be working on. Now who can bear the hard, reluctant stiffness of a copper wire, on gentle fabric unless, you are thinking of using jute? having said that, I would like to add, the creator knows what best to blend and mend, although, I may pray for a gentle, loving marriage between the two :) You see what I mean?

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  8. Your imagery reminds me of the landscape, color and topography of the West (maybe thinking of CO?)especially flying over it. It's what I look forward to viewing on my way to Seattle. Had you thought of couching with a sturdier thread in lieu of copper wire? You're wrapping the wire anyway so what could you achieve and more easily manipulate by using a strong yarn? You could secure the yarn with little bites of floss and meander and let go of the battle of wire against fragile fabric. I enjoy the Kantha stitches (the texture they bring) and can envision a couched thread working with the Kantha, giving some substance to the delicate cloth but not overpowering it. Are you familiar with the work of Mary Lee Hu? If not, she uses fiber techniques with copper wire. I hope you're feeling better!

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    1. Thank you Elaine. I think that's a great idea. I will try a studier thread and couching is a good idea although I have to confess I lack the patience for it and haven't quite found a way to use it in a way that is comfortable. With Kantha I meander in thought- it's kind of therapeutic. With the wire it was kind of fun letting it go all over the place - no discipline. Covering it was tedious and not really therapeutic. Now couching requires forethought, I need to decide where and what shape and all of that stuff, which could work better with the new pieces I have started. Will work on it. Am getting better everyday, but took quite a knock so will be a while before I'm back to the old self.

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