The Embroidery of Crete

Illustration: Traditional Cretan embroidery.

The embroidery work produced on the island of Crete has many influences as designated by its strategic trading and cultural position in the eastern Mediterranean, situated as it is between the Asian, African and European mainlands. Particularly significant and important influences within Cretan decorative and craft arts are those of Byzantium, Italy and Turkey.

The traditional richly embroidered work of the Byzantine Empire has been much overlaid by significant innovations from the Italian trading city of Venice, which colonised the island for a considerable period before Crete's eventual incorporation into the Turkish Empire. It was the Turkish domination of the island that helped to bring in fresh new decorative influences and ideas from across the Turkish Empire, but particularly that of India as disseminated through Persia.

Much Cretan embroidery was produced in thick bands, mostly for costume, less so for domestic accessories, though a certain amount of embroidery for the home has always been produced on the island. Often these embroidered bands, which usually bordered the traditional thick and long dresses worn by women, were able to survive for generations as they were sometimes separated from the original costume they were made for, when that costume wore out. These embroidered bands could then be incorporated and integrated into the next generations' costumes. This meant that embroidery was being carefully preserved for future generations, while at the same time new embroidery was being created and innovated with changes and additions being made by each new generation. This tandem effect has made Cretan embroidery all the more richer and diverse over succeeding generations of women and girls.

Illustration: Traditional Cretan embroidery.

The two illustrations shown in this article are both rooted in the same compositional style. They both show a complex scene of various flora and fauna with numerous flowers, leaves and birds. Although one version seems more naturally based while the other is much more geometrically based, it can be seen how relatively close the two design pieces are to each other. It also goes to show how powerful the compositional narrative of flora and fauna is to the embroidered arts on Crete, so that abstract pattern work can still closely follow the same markers produced through a more natural style.

The theme of flowers, trees and birdlife is typical of much Cretan embroidery work and this relatively formal representation, including an almost symmetrical mirror-like effect on much of the pattern work, reflects the elaborate and formal embroidery work produced during the Byzantine period. However, there are also strong links with Persian work and the wider, more florid range of decorative arts that was traditionally part of the Venetian decorative arts. These three examples produce a good analogy as to the complex and constantly overlaid influences that have made up such a significant amount of the decorative arts of Crete.

It is no exaggeration to say that the embroidery work produced over generations by the women of Crete, is a living example and constant reminder of the wealth of decorative art that spans millennia of numerous Mediterranean empires and powerful trading cities. However, this was always linked to the work of generations of anonymous Cretan girls and women who have constantly been adding small, but significant details to the history of an evolving decorative craft that reflects the complex and diverse cultural and political history of this particular Greek island. The influence of these generations of embroiderers should not be seen as insignificant in comparison to the great decorative themes of history. After all, there would have been no embroidery at all if it were not for the generations of patient and skilled workers.

Further reading links:
Completely Crete website
Traditions of Crete
Arolithos - traditional Cretan village
Crete, Dodecanese, Cyclades Embroideries
Greek Islands Embroideries: The Northern Sporades, Epirus and the Ionian Islands, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete
Crete, Dodecanese, Cyclades Embroideries
Embroideries from Cretan weavings
Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques, and Patterns from All over the World
Embroidered Textiles: A World Guide to Traditional Patterns

Terry Jarrard-Dimond and the Art of Spatial Awareness

Illustration: Terry Jarrard-Dimond. Crush.

The work of textile artist Terry Jarrard-Dimond is one of precision both in colour and in line. It is not surprising to learn that the artist worked 3-dimensionally as a sculptor for many years before coming to textiles, as these five pieces by the artist shows. Each composition has a level of understanding and consideration for real penetration of the surface level, giving a natural feeling of depth rather than that of a superficial and stylised interpretation of 3-dimensions. It is fair to say that a creative artist with sculptural experience has a better understanding of spatial awareness and an intrinsic feel for dimensions and planes.

Illustration: Terry Jarrard-Dimond. Little King.

Jarrard-Dimond does not clutter her compositions with any unnecessary creative 'furniture', but keeps the work simple with shapes, colours and textures all adding their own significant contribution towards the overall composition. Rather than fill the space with a number of small elements in order to catch the eye, the artist has led with a series of large and simple incursions, many often sliding into the composition from an area outside of view.

In a number of pieces, colours and shapes have been dramatically reduced to a minimum and are often limited to two or three. However, instead of giving the compositions a near monochromatic appearance, or producing little for the eye and imagination to grasp hold of, she instead produces a highly powerful focus, creating a genuine feeling towards the macro, rather than the micro. Everything appears to be on a large and open scale, leading to a composition that is intriguing to both eye and imagination.

Illustration: Terry Jarrard-Dimond. Behind the Veil.

Jarrard-Dimond is open-ended within her own personal interpretation of the origins of her work. She states that each composition could be triggered by an initial response to a creative colour, song, or word, but equally the trigger could be something that catches her eye through everyday living. This open-ended approach also encompasses the viewer who the artist invites to make a personal interpretive contribution.

This invitation to personally explore Jarrard-Dimond's work cannot fail to produce suggestions and interpretations that are unique to the individual. However, the work can also be enjoyed on a number of levels from the enjoyment of surface qualities of abstract colour, form and texture, to that of a much more emotional level, where shapes, planes and dimensional depths can be explored. The choice as far as the artist is concerned, is with the individual.

Illustration: Terry Jarrard-Dimond. Quietly Red.

Terry Jarrard-Dimond has a comprehensive website where much more of her work is available to view. She also has a number of exhibitions and workshops available for both 2010 and 2011. To follow the creative pathways of the artist it would be wise to take a look at her regularly updated blog where links can also be found to a number of interesting and related sites. Both links to website and blog can be found below in the reference links section.

Illustration: Terry Jarrard-Dimond. The Encounter.

All images are reproduced with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Terry Jarrard-Dimond website 

Terry Jarrard-Dimond blog

Helene Davis and Hand Dyed Artwork

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain.

Probably the most fundamental and guiding principal that colours, literally, the work of textile artist Helene Davis is that of her passion for hand-dyed fabric. Davis, after using bought quilting fabrics for a number of years, moved into the process of hand-dying her own fabrics, making each quilting project a much more personal and individual process.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Black Rain (detail).

Hand-dying is an exciting but often less than accurate medium in which to work. It takes a lot of skill, time, and patience in order to arrive at a range of fabrics in colour-ways, tones, and scale that can easily be worked with. The fact that the images shown in this article have arrived at that point, is easily evident. Davis is in control of the medium from start to finish. By producing her own dyed fabrics, she is able to forge a link between colour and texture that is both personal and individual, something that can never be truly said for bought fabric.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Flight to the Future.

The abstract process and the compositional layout allows the artist free reign over colour balances, textural juxtapositions, and tonal harmonies that seem effortless to the viewer, but are obviously hard to produce creatively without appearing indistinct and in many ways incomplete.

Davis is well aware that her coloured and textured fabrics have to balance compositionally, optically, and even emotionally. Each of these compositions has areas that are cut up into smaller sections of light and dark, placed next to areas where the dyed fabric is allowed to expand over much larger sections of the work. This carefully balanced juxtaposition helps to break up the colours and textures and allow the eye to roam over the composition, picking out small sections and details of interest.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Infrared.

Close ups of Davis work show that the stitch-making is also part of the process, as it is in many art quilts. However, by looking at a close up detail of Black Rain for example, it can be seen that the artist has also added a whole section of beading work as part of the textural and tonal process. This added mark-making process produces yet another layer of textural quality to the piece, allowing the work to be seen from a distance or close up, producing a different quality and experience every time.

Illustration: Helene Davis. Nexus.

These abstract pieces of artwork have been created by using a number of the processes found within the hand-dying craft and that of quilting. However, the way they are re-used and re-combined allows the artist to produce an extraordinarily tactile and sensory experience of colour, texture, and tone. Each piece is a balanced use of these processes, and one that cannot be re-conceived or re-connected after its creation.

Illustration: Helene Davis. World Upside Down.

The work of Helene Davis can be found on a number of sites on the Internet. Some of her work can be seen here. There is also a site, which can be found here, where many more of her hand-dyed fabrics can be seen.

All images are used with the kind permission of the artist.

The Creative Artwork of Cynthia Corbin

Illustration: Cynthia Corbin. Permeable, 2008.

It is sometimes difficult to categorise Cynthia Corbin's work as it is so much more than the title of quilting or even textile art can do justice to. The techniques used in order to produce the resulting textural and painterly aspect of her work could very well be seen as on a literal par with some of the best efforts of fine art abstract painting.

The fact that Corbin does indeed work with fabrics and stitching and not oils, acrylics or pastels is all the more remarkable as all the fabrics used are individually painted with dyes, rather than bought or dyed en masse. This attention to detail, taking each separate fabric as a project in its own right, allows Corbin to build up a unique library of artistic moments which gives her a perspective towards quilting that is much deeper, more personal and certainly more creative than most.

 Illustration: Cynthia Corbin. Blocked, 2008.

It is the mark making techniques and textures that have added a completely new level of richness and singular creativity to her work. These elements, which often seem more reminiscent to that of fine art printing or pen and ink drawing, create a surface that can be explored in its own right. That Corbin could easily be satisfied with that singular result is obviously not part of her creative makeup as she then applies the technique of building up multi-layers that take their strength from the traditions of quilting. However, she also challenges the formulas and preconceptions of that tradition, asking us to see beyond the limits of the craft and accept in full the compositional use of a whole series of techniques of surface and much deeper textural formulas that take this work well beyond both quilting and textile art.

The work that Corbin produces is worth seeing purely for its unique and therefore personally artistic and creative approach, but it also has an elemental sense that takes us out of ourselves and allows us to explore the fundamental use of colour and texture on an emotional level, rather than an intellectual.

Illustration: Cynthia Corbin. Removed, 2008.

Cynthia Corbin teaches various classes and workshops, is a lecturer and has exhibited her work widely both inside and outside the US. She has a full calendar until at least 2011 and it seems there is very little that Corbin has not achieved or is willing to achieve within her discipline. There is also a comprehensive website where you can see much more of Corbin's work and includes more information about her lectures, classes, workshops and exhibitions. The website can be found here.

All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Illustration: Cynthia Corbin. Storm Door, 2008.

Reference links:
Cynthia Corbin Website

Jozef Czajkowski and the Polish Applied Art Society of Cracow

Illustration: Jozef Czajkowski. Rug design, 1925.

Jozef Czajkowski is mostly known for his work as both a fine art painter and as an architect in his native Poland. However, he was also known as an educator and as a man with a passionate interest in reviving a whole range of Polish based skills and crafts.

Czajkowski became a founder member in 1901 of the Polish Applied Art Society, which was founded in the city of Cracow, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. Poland itself did not exist as a political entity and was not to do so until 1919.

Illustration: Jozef Czajkowski. Rug design, 1925.

The Society's aim was to strive for the creation of a Polish national style within the applied arts, one that would both use the traditions of Polish arts and crafts, but would also take those traditions into the contemporary world of the early twentieth century. This was all part of the ongoing issue of Polish self-determination. The Polish population were split between the empires of Russia, Germany and Austria, they had no identity of their own, and indeed any mention of Poland on any contemporary map or atlas only applied to a province or region rather than a state. Many Poles believed that the political aim of an independent Poland was certainly achievable and by keeping the identity of Polish traditions alive, whether that be through art, craft, architecture, literature or music, their identity would also remain alive and be seen by the rest of Europe as a viable culture, very much in the form of a distinct people waiting for a nation.

Illustration: Jozef Czajkowski. Rug design, 1925.

Although the Polish Applied Art Society may have had a relatively limited lifespan as did many decorative and art based societies of the period, it did help to create, along with other Polish based societies, organizations and groupings, an interest in Polish traditions within the decorative arts, with a particular emphasis on textiles. So much so that by the time of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, the newly independent Poland had a large percentage of traditional and contemporary textile based work to display at their pavilion in Paris.

Illustration: Jozef Czajkowski. Rug design, 1925.

Czajkowski had both the honour of designing the Polish pavilion as an architect, while also being able to display some of his own textile work, gained from the experience of his time with the Polish Applied Art Society, but especially commissioned by the Polish government for the occasion. It is interesting that a number of rugs that took pride of place within the pavilion were produced by fellow Polish Applied Art Society members such as Edward Trojanowski, but also a number of the rugs were woven in Cracow, the founding centre of the Society.

Czajkowski's rug designs are both bold and contemporary and, along with the other rugs seen at the Polish pavilion, created a big impression amongst both the public and the French organisers of the exhibition. Although the rug design work does seem impressively 'modern' for the period, the work also owes a great deal to the traditions and skills of countless generations of Polish decorative work. However, perhaps the work within the Polish Pavilion of 1925 owes an even greater debt to the work fostered, at least in part by the Polish Applied art Society and the city of Cracow.

Illustration: Jozef Czajkowski. Rug design, 1925.

Further reading links:

Contemporary Polish Folk Artists

Polish Wycinanki Designs (International Design Library)

Polish textiles, old and new

Polish Folk Embroidery

22 Polish Textile Artists

Polish art;: Old folk-woodcuts, modern graphic art, woollen and linen textiles;

European Folk Art Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Out Looking In: Early Modern Polish Art, 1890-1918

An Outline History of Polish Applied Art

Early Polish Modern Art: Unity in Multiplicity

Polish Art and Architecture, 1890-1980: An outline history of Polish 20th century art and architecture

Cracow: A treasury of Polish culture and art

Ukrainian Embroidery

Embroidery has always been an important element of Ukrainian textile crafts. There is no simple uniform style that can be seen as instantly apparent as belonging to Ukrainian embroidery, and this has always been seen as both its attraction and strength. Practically all areas of Ukraine have separate and regional differences in design work, colour use, types of stitch work and numerous combinations of those elements.

Embroidery has a long history in Ukraine, with archaeological evidence going back to at least two thousand years, though the actual development of embroidery in the area seems to go much further back in time.

An important and probably dominant aspect of embroidery was clothing and costume. Although there was an element of usage domestically and within the church, most Ukrainian embroidery design work was used within national costumes and wedding ceremonies, usually for both men and women.

Much, if not all of the work, despite its use by both sexes, was produced by women. It was usually made by and for family members on an amateur and wide scale basis until at least the nineteenth century when embroidery began to be seen as a skilled craft though the amateur contribution was still a significant element even into the twentieth century.

Much of the design work, like embroidery in other areas and regions of the world, is very much floral based, though there is a large abstract and geometrical element in the work as well. There is also room for elements of realism, topicality and a reflection of the surrounding contemporary world, as can be seen in  the first illustration shown in this article, where a car can be seen travelling along a city road.

All the pieces of Ukrainian embroidery shown in this article were exhibited by the Soviet Union at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. They were part of a large showing of embroidery skills from across the Union, with the work from Ukraine making up a significant portion of the exhibition.

Embroidery is still very much a part of the national identity of Ukraine with many women in both Ukraine and the larger world community that now makes up the Ukrainian population, still producing embroidered work. While some of the regional variation may have been lost, the overall health of Ukrainian embroidery skills is still very good, much better in fact than some other areas of the world where traditional embroidery skills are having to fight a long and protracted battles in order to survive.

There are various websites across the Internet that deal with many aspects of Ukrainian embroidery, past and present. A few sites that might be useful to anyone with an interest in Ukrainian embroidery are as follows: The Ukrainian Museum, which although US based, does have a wealth of information dealing with Ukraine and the larger Ukrainian population, particularly in the US. They have an embroidery page, which can be found here. Another site is Ukrainian Embroidery Patterns, which gives detailed diagrams of various designs that they have kindly made available for any interested embroiderer. The site can be found here. The last site is that maintained by the Welcome to Ukraine magazine. They have an article highlighting four of the best Ukrainian embroiderers. The site can be found here.

Further reading links:
Ukrainian Museum Archives
Ukrainian Embroidery Patterns
Welcome to Ukraine 
Ukrainian embroidery
Ukrainian Drawn Thread Embroidery: Merezhka Poltavaska
Ukrainian Embroidery Techniques
Knyha ukrainskykh vyshyvok =: The book of Ukrainian embroideries
Ukrainian Embroidery Designs and Stitches
Ukrainian embroideries from collection and designs of Maria Kutsenko
Beginning Ukrainian Embroidery
Ukrainian Clothing: Ukrainian Folk Dress, Ukrainian Embroidery, Zupan, Ukrainian Wreath, Kontusz, Kozhushanka, Sharovary, Ochipok, Kozhukh
Ukrainian Bukovinian Cross-Stitch Embroidery
Book of Byzantine-Ukrainian Ecclesiastical Embroidery