William Morris and Brother Rabbit

Illustration: William Morris. Brother Rabbit textile design, 1882.

William Morris textile design Brother Rabbit was designed in 1881, although not released commercially until the following year at his new Merton Abbey works. It was released in a number of colourways including red, green and the above blue. It was also released in wallpaper format and has become a firm favourite of the more stylised approach taken by Morris in some of his 1880s designs such as St James, Strawberry Thief, Granada and Ispahan.

What Brother Rabbit has in common with the other designs mentioned, is both the surprising formality of Morris, but also the larger European influence, which seemed to grow stronger as Morris career developed and as his experience of styles and decorative eras outside of England, became apparent.

To be fair Morris work always had as its inspiration the broader medieval sphere of northern Europe of which England was a component part. Morris was very familiar with a range of textile based work that had been produced in Northern France as well as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany across generations during the medieval and renaissance periods. However, although he was interested in and understood to a certain extent the medieval and renaissance periods south of the Alps, they did not appear as obviously in his textile work as that of Northern Europe. However, in an increasing number of textile design pieces from the late 1870s onwards, the influence of Italy in particular, became much more apparent.

Morris constantly studied textiles amongst other artefacts that had been collected at the South Kensington Museum, the future Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Although largely European in context, at least in the early collections of the museum, because of its position within the British Empire there was also a considerable and relatively wide-ranging collection of Indian origin which Morris was to use as a comprehensive influence, particularly in his carpet design work. In the context of Brother Rabbit he became genuinely entranced with the sophisticated silk work of Italy, but not necessarily from one period in particular and certainly not contained within his old medieval standard. For example, Brother Rabbit is said to be derived from a seventeenth century Italian design, long after any time period in which Morris is usually associated. However, many of these designs featuring opposing and paired animals both existing and imaginative, have a long history that flows back to the Islamic expansion when Islamic armies and populations were a regular feature of Sicily and Southern Italy and the museum was voraciously collecting specimens from al these time periods and geographical locations. Of course, with most pattern work, design details can always be traced back much further that at first assumed. The type of symmetrically opposing figurative decoration that was used so successfully by Morris, can be traced back through the initial Islamic influence, to Byzantium, ancient Persia and through that culture to the work produced in Assyria, Babylonia and beyond.

Although much of the work that inspired Morris had originally been woven, he decided to reproduce the textile work by using the discharge dyeing technique, which is basically produced by dyeing a fabric and then removing some of the dye by printing with bleach by overlaying a specific pattern onto the fabric. It is a technique that Morris perfected over time and was used to good effect, although some of these design pieces were also traditionally block printed. In some respects the wallpaper pattern work that used Brother Rabbit and other designs in this style, made much less sense than the reworking of woven pattern work to printed. However, Morris who always preferred fabric covered walls rather than wallpaper, whether that be tapestry or panels of woven fabric, could be justified in trying to give the appearance of sumptuous seventeenth century fabrics or even incrementally earlier periods, to a later nineteenth century domestic home. That it probably was not particularly effective, although conceivably profitable, must have sat uncomfortably with Morris.

It is interesting to note that even though Morris produced increasingly more work in this symmetrical mode, his compositions did not become correspondingly simpler in appearance. His pattern work was as convoluted and overlaid as his previous more organic styles. Nature still seemed to be at the heart of his work, no matter where the influence originated. It could be said that although Brother Rabbit might well have been inspired by Italy in the seventeenth century, much of the work was still produced by an Englishman in love with his very English garden and all that that entailed. Having said that, the title Brother Rabbit is said to have derived from across the Atlantic, with the American Uncle Remus stories of Brer Rabbit, which were said to have been a favourite amongst Morris and his family.

Further reading links:
William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
William Morris: Patterns & Designs (International Design Library)
Designs of William Morris (Phaidon Miniature Editions)
William Morris
William Morris (Temporis)
William Morris on Art and Socialism
The Beauty of Life: William Morris and the Art of Design
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Home
The Essential William Morris Anthology (12 books) [Illustrated]
William Morris and Morris & Co.
V&A Pattern: William Morris: (Hardcover with CD)
William Morris
William Morris Designs CD-ROM and Book (Full-Color Electronic Design Series)
William Morris Decor and Design
William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (Spectre)
The Gardens of William Morris

Creative Dyeing from India Flint

Illustration: India Flint. Original textile work.

The Australian textile and dye artist India Flint has taken elements from her family history and turned it into a creative journey that gives the impression of becoming a lifelong one. Flint has always been intrigued and imbued with her family's make-do-and-mend attitude. An interest that has taken up her family's particular practical interest in textiles and natural dyeing, expanding the experience to produce work that is staggering in its range of complexity. Using a variety of raw materials and experimental processes, she has managed to deliver an ever-widening range of unique colours and textures.

Although this article could well concentrate purely on the textile artwork of Flint, it seems more pressing and relevant to focus on her groundbreaking work concerning the natural dyeing process. It is her belief in achieving a near-zero impact, within a textile dyeing capacity, that has become an inspiration to others not only in Australia, but also across the globe. It is a belief that could will impact on all those involved within textile art and crafts and seems well worth expanding within this article.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

One of the major concerns troubling the modern textile world, whether professional or amateur, mass or hand-production is the impact that textiles and particularly that of the dyeing process, has on the environment. Commercial dyes are both hazardous to the world around them, whether that be the natural world, workers who produce and are employed within the industry, or communities that depend on that industry. Flint herself has taken the stand of only using specifically naturally sourced dyes in her work. However, she has pushed her personal beliefs and judgements concerning natural dyeing much farther than most. She has in fact produced an ongoing dyeing project that aims to project and publicise the natural dyeing qualities to be found in many, if not all vegetable plant life. This is not a case of using onion skins to produce insipid tones of yellow. Flint has produced a startling spectrum of colour and tone variety from forms of plant life that most textile users would never dream of finding useful or relevant.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

The images portrayed in this article were all produced using various hand-dyeing techniques and processes, some on fabric, others on paper. It seemed important to emphasise the staggering range of colour variation that Flint has been able to achieve purely through the natural dying process, and this surely must be an inspiration and guide to us all. Her ongoing experimentation with raw materials for dyeing, using both the mundane and the obscure, must in time be seen as a unique and important record towards the vocabulary of the natural dyeing craft that will be used for generations to come.

It can only be imagined where this rich creative journey will take Flint next. So many of us either take the natural world for granted or use it as an observational tool for compositional or inspirational work only. However, few of us nowadays see the natural world as forming any part of a practical function, and if we do, it is usually extremely limited in scope as to its practical and personal relevance. Flint's seemingly universal inspirational use of raw materials within the dyeing process surely must make us think again about the natural world around us. Our world is much more versatile and useful than we have been led to believe. If Flint can achieve such inspirational colours and tones from personal experimentation and a belief in the ability of the natural world around her, you have to wonder what could really be achieved if all those inspired by the world of textiles were to use the same level of experimentation and unfettered enthusiasm.

Illustration: India Flint. Textile artwork.

Flint's journey of experimentation and exploration should be a revelatory inspiration to all those involved in textiles. It is an art and a craft that by its very nature embraces the inventive, the investigative and the exploratory. To be able to push the boundaries of any aspect of this world should be a natural reaction and any individual artist, craftsperson or designer who does so should be applauded.

Flint has exhibited across Australia and extensively within Europe. Her work can be found in a number of collections on both continents. She has produced stage costumes for contemporary dance, has been involved in a number of publications promoting natural dyeing and runs various workshops. All this information and more can be found on her comprehensive website. Anyone wishing to follow Flint and her creative journey should sign up to follow her regularly updated blog Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost. Links to Flint's website, blog and books that are available on Amazon, can all be found below within the Reference links section.

Illustration: India Flint. Dyed paper work.

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

Reference links:

Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles
Felt (Handmade Style) (Handmade Style)
Island Life: Inspirational Interiors

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 Oldest Known Textile Fibre

Archaeologists and paleobiologists have discovered flax fibres in Georgia, the country not the state, that are more than 34000 years old. The flax was apparently not part of a domestically grown crop, but was harvested from the wild and is the oldest example of humanly worked fibres yet found.

While there seems to be much argument and heated discussion about which came first in the textile world, vegetable fibres or stray hair fibres from wild animals such as early sheep and goats, it seems likely that it would have been the vegetable fibres. The technique of twisting braiding and rudimentary spinning would lend itself much more obviously to the immediate versatility and plentiful supply of vegetable fibres as opposed to that of the less convincing occasional nature of matted stray animal fibres.

Flax for example, is extremely versatile and even in its roughened state can be used in various thicknesses for rope, string and fine thread. Some of the flax fibres found in Georgia were indeed twisted which gives strong evidence that some form of string and thread was present 34000 years ago.

String might appear to us to be a minor element in the history of the human use of textiles, but it helped to revolutionise human survival and development. It was this technological invention that was creatively used by adept nomadic peoples for a whole range of practical purposes such as traps, nets, shoes, binding together bulky items for transportation purposes, and perhaps more importantly, for rudimentary basketry which was the great forerunner of both woven textiles and ceramics.

Interestingly, some of the fibres had also been artificially dyed, which leads on to ideas about the early decoration and ornamentation of humans and their accessories. What is perhaps more important, regards the history of the collection of plants for dying purposes. It is still not known how old the technology of textile dying is, but because there was such a wide range of dyed fibres found in Georgia, ranging from black, through turquoise to pink, it gives the impression that the technology was relatively advanced and so could go back much further than 34000 years. It would be interesting to know how long this relationship between worked fibres and dying techniques has existed.

Although there is much supposition and very little hard evidence for textile techniques at the site in Georgia, the evidence of twisted and dyed natural fibres does pose the question as to how far back our relationship with textiles really does go and at what stage the technology of braiding, basketry and ultimately weaving appeared.

Further reading links:
Science magazine
Stone Pages
Science Daily
National Public Radio
EurekAlert!
Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean
Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary ... Office, Washington, 1884, pages 393-425
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States Thirteenth Annual Report of the Beaurau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution1891-1892, ... Printing Office, Washington, 1896 pages 3-46
Prehistoric Textiles of the Southwest (Southwest Indian arts series)
Hallstatt Textiles BAR S 1351
Isotope sourcing of prehistoric willow and tule textiles recovered from [An article from: Journal of Archaeological Science]
Stepping Through Time: Archaeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times Until 1800