The Newsletter of the London Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Contents

Warp&Weft Contents Contact details 2 Editorial 3 Meeting reports: September - Jun Tomita 4 October - William Jefferies 6 Nov - Tim Parry Williams 9 Feature: Michael Williams 12 Devoré Workshop 15 Shades of Autumn 16 Future meetings 19 Membership news 20 What's On 22 Summer School 24 Colour theory courses 25 DeMorgan Centre 26 Library 28 Association news 29 Hip haberdashery 30 The Newsletter of the London Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Issue 228 December 2007 London Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Warp and Weft Issue 228 www.londonguildofweavers.org.uk President Daphne Ratcliffe - [email protected] 020 8997 0291 Vice Presidents Aileen Kennedy Nancy Lee Child Mary Smith Executive Committee: Officers Chair - Jenifer Midgley [email protected] 020 8892 4708 (and interim Treasurer) Secretary - Ann Brooks [email protected] 01494 726189 Committee members Librarian - Jean Derby [email protected] 020 8560 0483 Exhibitions Officer - Allya Khan [email protected] 07970 155127 Membership Secretary - Noreen Roberts [email protected] 020 8973 1847 Lola McDowell - [email protected] 020 8749 0923 Sharen McGrail - [email protected] 020 8446 3418 Programme Secretary - Marianne Medcalf [email protected] 07800 839082 Editor of Warp & Weft - Theresa Munford [email protected] 020 8748 3737 Webmaster – Brenda Gibson [email protected] 020 8673 4914 Front cover: The Wool Winder 1865 by Jean Jules Bernard Salmson in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen. Photo by Kalpana Chari Page 2 December 2007 Editorial much for the ‘hip’ generation as the hip-replacement generation. In Chinese, the word for ‘edit’ is This issue of Warp and Weft could the same as the word for ‘weave’, and almost be called the ‘Men’s Issue’ while working on my first edition (who says men can’t do textiles!). We of W&W, I have come to see how have three fascinating reviews of the apt that is. The editor’s role is to last meetings, coincidentally all male collect and select, straighten out speakers – Jun Tomita from Japan, and arrange, so that all the various our own William Jefferies from Kew strands come together into a finished and Tim Parry-Williams who has product. Strictly speaking, I’m really one foot in England and the other in just preparing the warp, as Brenda Japan – plus a feature about Michael Gibson has kindly offered to continue Williams’ wonderful woodwork. to do layout (her role, perhaps, is the And there is, of course, our real weaving!). This time, as you see, exhibition. Every two years, an she even gets to play with colour! exhibition gives us the chance to draw Meanwhile, all the yarns and fibres our many and varied skills together, come from you, the Guild members, creating, designing, organizing, who review, write, photograph and displaying and stewarding. Shades suggest ideas. Remember, it’s your of Autumn was a challenge, a display newsletter, so anything you want and a celebration of the talented and W&W to include, let us know, and we vibrant community that is the London at the loom will do our best to weave Guild. To review it, W&W carries an it in. insider’s view from Jenifer Midgely, an ‘outsider’s’ view from a member of Theresa Munford another Guild, and some comments gleaned from Guild members at the November meeting on ‘what went well’ and what could have made the exhibition even better. London is a huge city and we often miss the little gems in our midst. This edition carries a piece about the De Morgan gallery in Wandsworth, well worth a visit especially for fans of the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 19th century. And very much 21st century, there is a piece about a trendy new haberdashers in the East End, part of the wave of young craftspeople proving that woolly things are as Page 3 Warp and Weft Issue 228 September 2007: Jun Tomita Kasuri – Japanese Ikat and Inspiration The first images Jun Tomita showed us were of his house, one hour’s drive from Kyoto amidst the stillness and beauty of an autumn mountain landscape. Inside hang some treasured textiles – a Collingwood macrogauze, a bent tree-branch loom from Papua New Guinea, a rug from Afghanistan, cloth from Africa. Some years ago, Tomita acquired a 30-metre-long commercial glasshouse previously used for growing flowers, which now contains several large looms, one a 24-shaft dobby. There is a dyeing area as well as a weaving area. In it he can easily stretch a long warp for tying or painting. It is here that he teaches his many students. Tomita learnt to weave with a Japanese master weaver and studied warp kasuri in Okinawa. When living in England, he worked in cotton and linen; when travelling in Australia for three years, he worked with wool and dyed with acid dyes, making brightly coloured hangings as well as jackets and tabards with a central panel of ikat combined with commercial cloth. Some pieces were felted by hand and foot for eight hours, the length of two or three marathons! Back in Japan, he began to tie non- He first wove rugs with Peter repeating patterns on his long narrow Collingwood using shaft-switching, warps. Repeat patterns tend to make but then developed his own method one think of commercial curtaining, with double cloth. whereas prospective buyers are more Page 4 December 2007 likely to pay good money for these on along the threads, then left to dry weavings as works of art. before weaving (as quickly as possible) While still tying some kasuri with a grey or a coloured weft. This patterns, often linear or frame- is invisible in a warp-faced cloth (sett like, he then over-dyed a large area at 75 epi) but it is capable of shading with additional colours, sometimes it. When steamed and washed, scrunching the bundles of yarn to individual sections of the cloth will be obtain an uneven take-up of the cut off and mounted on a simple white dye. This gave a painterly depth and wooden frame. texture. The warps were long enough For Tomita, this is still warp for two large pieces, tied separately kasuri, or ‘P’ kasuri as he calls it one after the other, without any – post kasuri, or painted kasuri. folding or mirror images. Such a warp And the many years’ experience of might take two weeks to complete. kasuri dyeing is very relevant to these Sometimes the yarns were plaited pieces. All are in fine silk of varying to dye in one colour, unplaited and thickness. replaited for a different colour dye, Silk takes the dye effortlessly and sometimes he tied and untied compared with linen and cotton. He kasuri ties for successive dye baths so used to dislike silk, he says, because of that each thread had many different its softness and its sheen, but this silk colours. The next development was to is different, slightly stiff with no shine paint over the dye so the brush strokes at all. showed in the finished weaving. Jun Tomita is no longer a traditional The next slides we saw were of kasuri weaver (“I got lazy”, he said) walls: urban walls with a patchwork nor an indigo dyer, but an artist who of ancient paint and the occasional has retained the quiet humility of the redundant sign or relic of scratched- craft handloom weaver. He willingly off writing, abstract visions that answered the many questions of his are clearly an abundant source of pro-active audience who showed by inspiration. their participation how much they Like the walls, the latest hangings appreciated the colourful story of his are surfaces vibrant with colour, entire development and career. superimposed layers of dye painted directly on to the warp. The dyes, Claude Delmas specially mixed by Tomita, are stiffened and then laid on with paint brushes, no tying at all is involved. The very long warp (up to ten metres) lies on the glasshouse floor spread out to its actual woven width in the dents of two reeds. One area after another is worked Page 5 Warp and Weft Issue 228 October 2007: inspirational may, just by being there, eventually become part of a design. William Jefferies These things create a fascinating From Inspiration to workshop and enable William to create imagery which he feels Tapestry should be for pleasure, sentiment or William Jefferies claims that his work tranquility. emerges from 'deep litter, like a hen'. His work has evolved over the years He finds it comforting, inspiring from a start at Edinburgh College and exciting to be surrounded by his of Art where he worked with Archie clutter. Brennan and Maureen Hodge. Their Actually, it looked quite organized work at the college was supported by clutter, but there certainly were a the Edinburgh Tapestry Company. lot of pictures around the loom he Archie believed in picture making is currently working on. There were in tapestry: it is a long standing and also a lot of interesting artefacts like ongoing topic of discussion amongst pebbles, bits of bark, dried leaves. weavers as to whether reproduction Anything beautiful in shape or colour of a painted image is a worthwhile that has caught his eye and can be exercise (for example, the tapestry Page 6 December 2007 reproduction of a Kitaj painting in transformed into parts of a design; the British Library) or whether more colour can be torn from an area of a abstract, thought-provoking pieces are picture and used in collage. more interesting. William advised that a sketch for After Edinburgh, William moved on a design should not be overworked to the Royal College of Art and over or pushed too far, this allows for the years he has developed his own freedom in the weaving process.

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