Vale Robert Foster

The Canberra arts community was shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic death of iconic designer, Robert Foster, yesterday. Rob was a huge figure in the national and international art scene, and many will recognise, and even own, one of the jugs that catapaulted his design business. The picture above was in an issue of Vogue in the early 90's and shows my 'Preserve' fabric bordering a photo of Rob's new jugs at the time. Little did I know that I would be moving to Canberra and having a lot more to do with Robert through ANCA and Craft ACT way back then.

Robert mentored many emerging Canberra artists, and was instrumental in helping launch their careers. He also collaborated with other artists and designers, creating new products into the F!NK range. He will be sorely missed and his passing has left a gaping hole in the heart of the Canberra and Queanbeyan communities. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. Vale Robert.

Winter in Canberra

Since my return from Indonesia last month I was caught up in moving house, unpacking boxes and trying to get my body and mind acclimatised to Winter in Canberra again.....

This morning it SNOWED! and here is a view from the comfort of our new kitchen. It is always so exciting to see visible evidence of how cold it is outside, so I just love the snow....for a while.

I will be blogging regularly for the next couple of months as I have started my new Artist in Residency at the National Museum of Australia (NMA), working with the People and the Environment team (PATE) and doing some research and development for a new body of work inspired by their botanical collection. I was fortunate to receive Australia Council funding to enable me to spend time here accessing their collection and delving into their database of objects for this period of research and development.  I am still in training mode - learning how to use the electronic museum (EMu), Piction, the computers, photocopiers and phone, remembering to swipe my ID pass (and to bring it with me everyday) fight for a carpark, and most importantly, remember what all the acronyms stand for! 

Anway, today was quite special because I met Lyndy, one of the women I met on the Indonesian textile tour, for lunch and showed her around the museum. It was fun reminiscing about our hot and humid holiday  as we sat eating steaming bowls of soup, rugged up with boots, coats and scarves. Lyndy at least was wearing a beautiful ikat scarf from Ende.

As mentioned I will be blogging at the end of each week, but I will just take this opportunity to thank the NMA and the Australia Council for such a fantastic opportunity that will enrich my arts practice no end.

Day 15 - Rinca to Labuan Bajo

Another beautiful sunrise on the way to Rinca island, and all the more poignant because this is our last day on the Ombak Putih. Rinca is one of the four islands that are home to the prehistoric Komodo Dragons, and it lies within the Komodo National Park.

We were guided by Kamli who comes from Rinca. Although the guides live on site when they are working Kamli said that sometimes it takes him 6 hours to get to his village when he is going home because of the danger involved. Not only are there Komodo dragons, there are snakes, wild deer and buffalo to contend with. He sometimes has to run up a tree to sit out the danger. Although, having said that, baby Komodo dragons live in trees for the first couple of years after hatching, and they are not that small.....

Most of my photos were taken on my camera because of the lighting conditions - so the ones taken on my ipad were not so good. This is OK  in terms of lighting, however it is of a 'romantic' nature. I guess we were lucky to see that.....at least they weren't eyeing us off  instead. Although the Komodo look sluggish they can actually run up to 60 km/h and thats a whole lot faster than me! Their bites are toxic and contain Listeria bacteria, so they are really to be avoided. They immobilise their prey and then tear off chunks and swallow whole, no chewing. Their jaws can dislocate to enable them to swallow whole animals. The park is littered with skulls of buffalo and other victims.

The terrain of Rinca was quite different to other islands we have been on and I was quite nervous walking along, making sure I kept up with the group.  Even so, I walked loudly and carried a big stick....

After our visit to ghe Komodo, we continued sailing towards Labuan Bajo to catch our afternoon flight back to Bali. The crew decided to put up all the sails, which was a spectacular sight.

We then went ashore to a small sandy beach and had our last swim and snorkle. It was perfect....except for those parrot fish who wanted to nip you every so often!

This trip has been an amazing adventure and I have learnt so much about Indonesian textiles from remote islands, their cultures and their dyes. It was truly an honour to be guided through the process by David and Sue, whose knowledge, love and passion for not only the textiles but the people, is immense. They were generous to a fault and it is hard to imagine, in fact impossible to imagine trying to do a similar trip by yourself. Their personal connections with local guides and weavers and dyers on these islands is testament to their committment to help these people continue to produce  and practice their textile art in a sustainable way. The wonderful thing about this trip was also the other passengers, who all came with their knowledge and expertise, and not always in textiles. It made for lively and stimulating conversations over delicious meals and bumpy car rides and our friendships formed bonds that I hope will act as warps and wefts for future interaction.

What a great trip this has been, I am so greatful to Sue and David and all the crew of Seatrek for making it such a memorable and informative one!

Day 14 - Waingapu, East Sumba

This morning we moored at Waingapu and were met again by local guide and textile workshop owner, Freddy. We were driven in several cars to his workshop where they produce beautiful ikat for hinggi and lawu. All the designs and ikat tying are done in-house, as is the morinda dyeing and weaving. The indigo is outsourced to specialised artisans.

This is Freddy and his wife at the entrance to his workshop with Davidin the background.

Freddy explained how designs are laid out, then drawn up using  blue and red pencils. The master ikat artist then starts to tie each section using a long knot and thread for the morinda ties, and a shorter thread for the indigo. It is painstaking and exacting work which can take months to complete a single piece.

Many of the staff have been with Freddy since he started his workshop about 15 years ago, and there is careful attention to detail so that each ikat is as sharp and precise as possible because they use only 6 threads per bundle instead of the usual 12 threads per bundle.

A section of tied ikat before dyeing.

I thought they might need a hand pounding the morinda roots before dyeing.....

Once the first layer of indigo has been dyed, the tied warp is soaked in water to get rid of the ash and then it is soaked in a candlenut mordant for 2 days to ensure the cotton soaks up as much as possible. The warp is then left out to hang for 3 months so that the fatty acids stick to the indigo and mordant the fabric for the morinda dyeing. Freddy's workshop dyes the warp in the morinda twice to ensure full colour penetration.

Once the warp has been fully dyed, the threads are focussed by an expert ikat maker, to ensure they have retained tension to provide the sharpest detail possible. They can then be woven by the two weavers there.

Another detailing on these fabrics is the kabokil. This border is woven once the fabric has been cut from the loom. The excess warp threads are turned to the side and are rewoven as the weft to make a decorative striped border at the top and bottom of the fabric.

We can now start to realise why these textiles take such a long time to produce and how complex the whole process is. It is only once you understand how many skills are involved in making one piece of cloth that you realise why prices deserve to be high for such quality.

Some of the many beautiful cloths for sale in Freddy's gallery.

From Freddy's workshop we took a short stroll to the neighbouring royal village of Prailiu, where many textiles, jewellery and carved goods were offered for sale. It was amusing to see the same people we saw yesterday at another harbour, and they continued to follow our every move at each stop we made, even trying to bargain with us as we pulled anchor and sailed away!

After lunch we went to  a rarely visited village where we were welcomed by ikat clad warriors on horseback. It was pretty wild and raw, and we were warned not get close to the horses as they were not well behaved. The whole village turned out for a welcome ceremony, and it was really quite different from what we had experienced before - the crowd was very vocal and boisterous and I was dreading the final dance where, as usual, we were invited to join in. It was all OK however, no complicated steps and perhaps by then the effects of chewing betel had sunk in.

We were also invited into a house which contained the bodies of two deceased family members - one was recent, and the other had been there for 15 years, just in the family living room. Because it was so dark I had to use my camera so will pist photos of this at a later date.

On our way back to the ship we stopped by a cathedral to see the statue of Christ dressed in Sumbanese ikat.

In the afternoon we set sail for the island of Rinca and in the evening it was a final night party with everyone dressing in the textiles they had bought along the way. Most of these textiles were woven to be worn, not as heirlooms, so it was not disrespectful for us to use them, in fact it was a celebration of the skills and talents of all the weavers and dyers we had seen over the past 13 days.

We all enjoyed drinks on the upper deck before gowing downstairs for a wonderful meal followed by traditional music from the crew. Still.......I was in bed by 9pm, getting some sleep before our last day on the boat and thinking about the Komodo Dragons to come....

Day 13 - Sumba

I woke up a bit later this morning and the sky was quite overcast, not much of a sunrise, but in retrospect this looks pretty spectacular. We were also joined by a pod of dolphins, lumba-lumba, to the side of the boat as we sailed towards the east coast of Sumba. We landed on the beach at Mololo and were driven by our local guide, Freddy, to the royal hamlet of Pau, where two Princesses live.

Most of the rice fields we saw on our way to Pau are owned by the King and are farmed by Suvanese slaves - yes slavery is still alive and well in Sumba and these slaves are known as papangan.  The two Princesses, Tamunambu Pakki and Tamunambu Tokung, are known for their very fine  pahikung weaving. This weaving is a supplementary warp technique which uses a white supplementary warp. The pattern defined with liddy sticks on a separate piece so that in effect the design is in front of them, like a cartoon, and the pattern is copied or transferred below.

This piece has been warped up with the top white supplementary threads. You can see the bottom indigo layer below and the pattern with the liddy sticks.

Here is another showing the weaving of the supplementary warp. The technique of ndatta is then employed, and this is the individual colouring of motifs or threads by using a brush, often a toothbrush, once it is woven.

Both Pau and nearby Rende are royal hamlets and these tombs are an integral  and very important part of life. When an aristocrat dies, the body is placed in a foetal position and wrapped in his or her finest cloth. The body is then bound with a lot of other cloths, but these do not have to be important ones. The last cloth however must be another fine cloth. The body is put in a coffin and placed in the family, home for up to several years.....right near the kitchen....! Death is an accepted part of life, and by leaving a substantial amount of time between the death and the internment of the body allows the family plenty of time to raise funds for the funeral - the calculating of how many animals will be slaughtered, raising the funds, inviting relatives, organising accommodation etc. it is as far away from the Western idea of death and burial as chalk and cheese.

Although the sacrifice of slaves when an aristocrat dies is prohibited there are stories about certain 'unfortunate accidents' that happen around these mausoleums involving the papangan that perhaps were helping to raise the large stone lids to inter the body of the deceased......

Overall we saw some gorgeous examples of woven cloths inside the Princesses house but this was done with little light and we were not allowed to take the cloths outside. It was all hush hush business so the people outside could not see what or if any cloths were being sold.

Rende was a similar village, slightly differently set up but with similar tombs and cloths. However, the Princess there wove some very fine baskets and showed us her collection.

Some of the cloths for sale around the village, employing a variety of techniques including ndatta, pahikung, ikat, mud dyeing, beading and indigo.

Two examples of Rohu Banggi, which are about 6-7m long. These were wrapped around the man's body to protect him like armour.

Textile production on Sumba is a cooperative venture - tasks are divided amongst villages for ikat tyeing, indigo dyeing, morinda dyeing and weaving. Most of the yarns we saw were commercially spun, and there were varieties in quality from those using commercial dyes, those using nautral dyes and those using a combination, especially with the ndatta cloths. It was also hard to tell whether the mud cloths were made with natural or synthetic dyes.

After a long hot day of looking at textiles we went ashore at night to have a wonderful beach barbeque that the staff of the Ombak Putih had prepared for us. Out on the dark beach, lit only by tea candles in the sand, we got to see a beautiful display of stars in the night sky with the Ombak Putih lit up and floating in the sea before us. Bliss.

Day 12 - Gurusina, Flores

We sailed overnight across the Savu Sea to the Bajawa Regency at the foot of Gunung Inierie. There is one active volcano in this area which is Ebu Lobo.

Our first trip was to visit Gurusina, home to the Ngada tribe, which is a matrilineal society - females inherit the house and the husband must move into her village or house and leave his own. This area has some really different architecture and rituals, which were explained in our nightly lecture by David and Sue.

This photo shows the village layout with 3 'parasol-like' structures in the centre and three narrow houses behind. These are the male (Ngadhu) and female (Bhaga) shrines respectively. In the male shrines they slaughter buffalo, whereas in the women's shrines they slaughter pigs and chickens.

The thatched roofs of the houses (sa'o) differ and many are decorated with a row of buffalo horns or pigs jaws on the front post. This signifies the number of animals sacrificed by that family for ceremonial purposes such as funerals etc. 

There are two types of house - the Tip house and the Trunk house. Villagers dry coconut and cocoa, and sell candlenut and vanilla pods as well as cinnamon bark. The houses are on terraced levels around the central area where the shrines and megalithic altars are.

Next, we went to the village of Bena which was very similar but had a great view from either end of the village.

We saw women weaving on their front porches with cloths for sale hanging, but many of these were woven in commercial yarns and their bright colours did not appeal to me.

At the very top end of the village we climbed to the top of a small hill where there was a catholic shrine.

The view from the top was spectacular, and the ipad camera does not do it justice.

As we left the village by car, there was another house on the road with a beautiful assortment of naturally dyed yarns waiting to be woven.

After a long hot day, we cooled down with a refreshing swim on a nearby beach, searching for shells on the shoreline, followed by a hot shower and 'arak-attack' cocktails on the upper deck before supper....thinking of what the weather is like in Canberra at the moment.....and only 2 days left of the cruise!

Day 10 - Kupang, East Timor

This photo was taken at 5.30 this morning as we approached the West coast of Timor after sailing overnight from Lamalera in Lambata. We disembarked at the old harbour where Captain Bligh landed in 1789 after the mutiny on the bounty, right out the front of Teddy's Bar. 

We were accompanied by local guide, Tony, for the day. Our first stop for the day was to visit the King of Amorosi.....

We were greeted by the children, some of whom were the King's grandchildren, who took our hands and guided us to the ceremonial welcome by elders, then onwards to the King's house ( I am not sure if that is called a palace in Amorosi)....

Again we were taken through the dyeing and weaving processes. To make  a dark black dye, the women dye firstly with indigo, then Morinda and then lumpur which is a mud, I guess iron-rich. They produce a purple from jati leaves and yellow comes from saffron or the skin of pomegranates and the bark.

These are balls of candlenut mixed with daun uta runa and water ready for pre-mordanting for Morinda dyeing.

This is the Morinda root alongside Loba bark.

Preparing the Morinda and indigo dyestuffs.

After watching the fabric dyeing we went to the papermaking studio where the King's 3rd daughter makes handmade paper from plants. There are 27 plants on the property she can use, but today she demonstrated making paper with the skin of the banana trunk and rumput gaja, a type of elephant grass.

The King of Amorosi, Bapak Robert Koroh, is a well-known printmaker who has had exhibitions at Nomad Gallery and whose work is in the collection of the NGA.

Before returning to the Ombak Putih for lunch we went to the  Museum which was fairly modern and veiwed their collection of textiles on display, again behind glass, so photography was difficult. They also had a lovely collection of baskets and jewellery, tools and ceramics.

This is a detail of an Amarasi weaving using natural dyes ( Morinda and indigo). The decorative motif in this design is called the "Bao naki", often worn by aristocracy.

In the afternoon we had another natural dyeing demonstration which was excellent, and we learnt a bit more about pre-mordanting with the nitas tree, using the skin of the fruits and the leaves, as well as a few other plants.

It was also the first time I saw them adding an alkaline water to the Morinda dye to effect the red colouring.

However some of the most charming things about going into a village is meeting the locals and I have just fallen in love with the young children who are so happy to connect with you, they are so cheeky and adorable!

The weaving was also beautiful and many of us were laden with purchases, wondering how we are going to get them home !

And of course the day ended with another beautiful sunset as we sailed towards Suva, our next destination.