Another Canvas, Another Approach......

I have moved on. I found it really irksome trying to cover the copper wire with thread. I was uncertain about using it in the first place and decided that I needed to give it a break.

 

Elaine made a very valid suggestion that a couching stitch[i] would be a good way to replace the wire and Livinder Singh, a friend of a friend [on Facebook] commented on Facebook that this particular type of copper wire that I was using was an enamelled wire which could break with the bends, which if it did, would oxidise and could destroy the fabric. I have used this wire before and knitted it which involved a considerable amount of such bends and perhaps more intense ones, and so far, in the last 6 years, I have not seen any signs of oxidising but I have been given considerable food for thought.

 

Couching requires a lot of control. The stitch itself is easy enough it is trying to keep the laid thread in place which wires me up. Using the copper wire did allow me scope to wander off on a tangent. It was difficult getting it to work with the softness of the material but......

Anyway, while I was debating this, trying to be disciplined about it, I expanded the repertoire of stains.
 

  It just sort of dawned upon me that stains are not confined to tea. I did however stay with the idea of stains, as in the accidental colour imparted to fabric through careless eating and stuff like that but, expanded this to include dyeing and doing some Shibori ( tie-dye) too.

 

I started with Jamun [purple fruit is the literal and only translation I have found. If anyone knows what the biological name is or any other please do tell] but even though I had loads of fun collecting the fallen fruit off the grass or pavement around the compound where I live, I couldn't get the fruit to dye any fabric that gorgeous purple-blue that it stains my tongue after eating the fruit. Maybe I needed a mordant? But I'm new to the whole natural dyeing process so maybe by next year I'll have figured it out. Yes, alas I shall have to wait a whole year for this seasonal fruit to appear again. Hopefully I will be prepared with my recipe for dyeing by next May/June to find a way to dye it, if indeed one exists and also if I am still working with the idea of stains in the same way.

Mahipal, who works in my household and assists me with various things including the dyeing of fabric, while washing the fruit with potassium permanganate [I use it for all soft fruits as a kind of disinfectant] he came up with the idea we may get a nice pink colour if we used this. He had been involved in the whole process of collecting the fruit [Jamuns] and the intense fermenting that I tried to do to get some results and was equally frustrated as I. I loved the idea and jumped at it, but the colour only stays pink in water.

I did get some unexpected colours though. They ranged from a deep umber to black on organza which I liked, and on muslin it created this dull green gold which was fascinating.

I loved the palette that was emerging. All different shades of black, greys and browns made me think of Rothko and his deeply contemplative sectionals. After all that rambling in the wire and thread piece now laid to rest, I did need to dwell upon the darkness it was bringing up in my mind.

Resisting effort doesn't augur well for continuation of anything so I wanted to explore these darker hues and felt the need for an organised form. Playing around with the various fabrics and the colours imbued I found myself veering towards this rectangular shape that you now see. 

It was exciting while I cut up the variously dyed bits and did this fabric collage, but once I had gotten over the initial excitement, it started looking too busy and tacky. However, I persisted, telling myself that once I had sewn them together - tacked them with thread rather than oil pins which held them together initially, that the appearance would be calmer.
 

And things did calm down. And while sewing, I felt calmer too. Each stitch, especially those multiple stitches that I needed to keep that finely shredded muslin’s threads in place, required patience. Holding each errant thread trying to escape the woven structure, aided in no part by my encouragement in taking them out one thread at a time in the first place, I too started to breathe easier and the more I worked upon this, the more I relaxed. And the more I calmed down, the more I wanted to quieten down the contrast - especially in the central squarish space.

And that is what I am working on right now. But, I am excited to share this new development.
 

PS: If anyone can give me tips on mordant for dyeing and that ilk, I'd really appreciate it.

 

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[i]Couching is a technique in which yarn or other materials are laid across the surface of the ground fabric and fastened in place with small stitches of the same or a different yarn. In its most basic form couching is among the easier embroidery stitches. Essentially, the couching stitch is just a little straight stitch taken over some other thread (or ribbon or wire) to hold it down.

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 30^th 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?

 

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[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.