Bibliography

Books

Mayuko Fujino

Mayuko Fujino uses stencils layered over collages of magazine pages and found papers to create her illustrations, a very similar technique to the one that I used to create my patterns. Although it is not her main inspiration, she links her use of stencils to the use of stencilling in traditional Japanese textiles, but says that her work is based on personal experiences and interests rather than tradition. She uses collage and stencilling to make her work, seeing the collage as modern and the stencilling as traditional.

 Her Website

Advertisements Using Pattern

Whilst studying textile and pattern design, I began to notice a huge amount of advertisements that made use of pattern, particularly in posters.  Use of pattern is more and more common in graphics and advertising today, and I feel this is often because of the eye-catching quality of a bold pattern. Perhaps because of the huge bombardment of advertising that surrounds us everyday use of pattern has a more gentle approach as it feels more beneficial to our environment, providing ornament or decoration.
 

For the launch of the recent fifth generation Apple ipod collection, Apple’s advertising campaigns featured the new models, used to create a graphic repeat pattern for huge underground posters.  

A similar idea was used in the Mylan drug advertisements in the 90’s. These advertisements make use of photographic reproductions of real objects to create patterns, which made me consider the possibilities that digital printing of textiles could offer.

Anita Ahuja

Ahuja runs a non-profit organisation, Conserve, in Delhi.  Established in 1998, she collects discarded plastic bags found on the Delhi streets and transforms them into textiles by compressing them with heat.  These textiles are then fashioned into bags and other accessories.  Though her work comprises textile construction, the re-use of found materials relates to the use of off-cuts of paper I use to create my pattern designs. In addition to this many of her fabrics are formed into simple striped patterns using the different colour plastic bags.

Though it is her use of alternative technology and re-use of materials that interests me in her work, her textiles and fashion accessories are a by-product of the main aim of her organisation, which has environmental and social concerns at its core.  Environmentally, she makes use of waste and helps to deal with the huge amount of rubbish dumped on Delhi’s streets everyday; but uses this project to provide work and valuable income for the poorest people in Delhi, the ‘rag-pickers’ - the lowest caste in Indian society. By employing these people to collect rubbish for her, and to help making her designs, she is able to provide these people with a little money for food, healthcare and education.

 

 

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Japanese Stencil Dyeing

The use of stencils to transfer imagery and pattern to fabric and paper is used traditionally all around the world, in many different cultures, and is a fore runner to screen-printing.  What makes the Japanese stencils stand out in particular is their incredible intricacy and detail, so much so that the stencil itself could be a beautiful piece of art, without it being used for its intended purpose.

In Japan, stencils were used to apply rice-paste to un-dyed fabric. The design would be transferred to the cloth by pushing the paste through the holes gently with a large soft brush. When the paste had dried, the fabric was then dyed in indigo.  When dry, the paste would be soaked off, revealing the colour of the un-dyed fabric under the indigo, in the pattern of the stencil.  These designs ranged from one colour, and therefore one stencil layer, all the way to detailed patterns that involved the transferral of many layers of the design separately, using different dyes, similar to the way an image is created in many colours in screen printing.

It is always interesting to place a stencil over a pattern or textured surface. It creates windows and eyelets that divide the pattern underneath into sections, changing the overall look of the surface, by combining the two different designs.  It was this aspect of the use of stencils that intrigued me.  Finding throughout this project that I was constantly questioning the difference between an illustrator and a pattern designer, the use of stencils allowed me to impose my own drawings on to my collaged pattern surfaces.  I was interested also in the combination of two entirely different patterns, and the way they clashed or complimented each other.

Ikats

Ikats are woven textiles that are created all over the world most notably in Japan, China and Central Asia. The warped patterns on them are created by tie-dyeing the unwoven threads in patterns. When the threads are woven together, the pattern is formed by the changing colour of the dyed threads, but creates a ‘shifted’ version of the design. Though actually a process of surface design created by the construction of the fabric, ikats have been one of the main influences on my work. 

The ikats worn as part of traditional dress in such countries as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan were a way of creating elaborate personal costumes, and were also often used as wall hangings for home decoration.  In Central Asian cultures, the use of fabric and garments is very important. Ikat robes were often given to important visitors as gifts.  Made from silk and when woven painted with an egg-white solution to stiffen the fabric and make it glossy, the ikats could be incredibly expensive, and so were reserved for those of high social status or special occasions.  Often officials or members of royalty would wear up to ten robes at once in order to show off their wealth and status.  Cheaper versions of the silk ikats were also woven using silk and cotton threads or just cotton threads. 

I first discovered ikats whilst looking at bold and brightly coloured floral fabrics designed by Russian factories for import to the Central Asian markets.  These Russian fabrics were very cheap and used by the peoples of Central Asia to make every-day robes, or line the insides of traditional robes made out of the local ikat fabric.  It was the clash of these two very different fabrics used to make the robes that appealed to me the most, and made me consider the clash of surface within collage. The warped ikats suggested the feel of striped cloth to me, whilst the shifted patterns of the original design suggested a narrative to the fabrics, like a faded design worn away over time.  I began trying to re-create this feeling within my own pattern design, both visually with stripes of different tones of a certain colour, and with the re-use of found imagery, through the use of collage.