ArtDiction November/December 2020

Habitual. Art.

Fashion: Textile Design & Tairloring Volume 26 November/December 2020 www.artdictionmagazine.com

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ArtDiction is a platform for artists to display their work and a resource for the habitual art lover.

Staff

Devika A. Strother, Editor-in-Chief devika@artdictionmagazine.com Isabella Chow, Associate Editor bella@artdictionmagazine.com Phillip Utterback, Staff Writer phillip@artdictionmagazine.com

Contributing Writers Shihaam Hassanali Linda Writer Jann Yanga

Devika Akeise Publishing assumes no responsibility for the opinions expressed by authors in this publication. Š2020 of Devika Akeise Publishing. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

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FEATURES 16 Rwanda’s Couture Niyitanga Olivier is a young designer from Rwanda who’s making waves in the fashion industry with his couture de signs for men and women.

24 The Art of Tailoring In this article, we discuss the history of tailoring and how it has become an indispensable component for the fashion conscious.

28 Nature-Inspired Textile & Print Designer Elizabeth Rachael designs the nature-inspired prints you love to wear.

36 A Crash Course in Textile Design Here, we dive into textile design, including its process, and explore how your favorite prints are brought to life.

40 Watercolor Batik -- Tools of the Trade

Cover photo courtesy of Niyitanga Olivier.

Belle (Martha) Heppard provides a detailed list of the tools you will need to create your own Watercolor Batik

In Each Issue 5 small talk 6 news 8 books 11 exhibits 13 music 46 artist & ad index

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Rachael.

ArtDiction | 4 | November/December 2020

small talk

By anttoniart

C

OVID-19 is still out there, and we are still in here — the house. Sometimes I look outside my bedroom window and scan my neighborhood street as if this simple act can determine the level of threat the virus poses for the day. It’s silly, I know, but something tells me you can relate.

The pandemic has impacted all of us in various ways. The art industry is no exception. Particularly, the buzz around Fashion Week (past and upcoming) sounds slightly different as these renowned events have altered the way they present to the public. These highly anticipated events have scaled backed their invites to the chosen few, while others have had to take a backseat and watch via the internet. This turn of events made me contemplate the aspects of fashion that aren’t always at the forefront. So, in this issue we dive into the art of textile design as an overall process, complemented by the interview

conducted with Elizabeth Rachael — a textile and graphic designer. We also explore the art of tailoring and how it became popular (and necessary).

Niyitanga Olivier brings us couture design by way of Rwanda. His art has already garnered local awards, and he’s certainly guaranteed to earn more. He’s also started a digital fashion line to keep up productivity during the pandemic.

We also check back in with Watercolor Batik artist, Belle Heppard. She guides us through all the tools we will need to create our very own masterpiece.

As we inch closer towards the end of the year, continue to be diligent in your efforts to stay safe and healthy.

Pandemic fatigue is real! But we will get through it. See you next year!

ArtDiction | 5 | November/December 2020

news

‘Junk Bond King’ Michael Milken to Open American Dream Museum Michael Milken, better known as the “junk bond king,” has reinvented himself once again. Milken has a sorted resume that includes working at a diner during high school, becoming one of the highest-paid financiers of all time, being convicted of securities fraud and serving time in prison, and finally remaking himself again as a philanthropist for medical research. Now, he is the founder of a museum—the Milken Center.

A 60,000-square-foot exhibition space in Washington, D.C., the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, a will open July 4, 2023. “It will tell the story of American Dream through the eyes of people who have sought the American Dream, but we’ll also be asking people to define their American Dream,” Kerry Murphy Healey, the center’s president said in an interview.

“We’re trying to capture those stories and the evolution of the idea of the American Dream. We want to weave storytelling into what we do, so that whoever comes through the doors, they find the stories of people like them inside.”

The center will be housed in the Riggs National Bank building on Pennsylvania Avenue very close to the White House.

Shalom Baranes Associates, which also renovated the Pentagon and the Main Treasury Building, is the named architect of the project.

Courtesy of the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream.

flesh out the tapestry of the American Dream.”

Healey added that the center will include a five-story, modern atrium and a solicitation for proposals for public art will begin in January 2021.

Baltimore Museum Halts Art Sale Amid Escalating Controversy

“We’re interviewing multichannel design firms to help us envision the space, which will include the newest technology but also historic documents from partners who have been reaching out to us,” Healey said. “And there will be art created by the public that relates to the American Dream, so we expect to have an ongoing effort to solicit submissions, whether for essays, photographs, spoken word poems, or film, to

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently announced that it will suspend the sale of three paintings in its collection. The decision was made just before the Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in which two of the works, Brice Marden’s “3” (1987-1988) and Clyfford Still’s “1957-G” (1957), were slated to go under the hammer. A private sale of the third work, Andy Warhol’s “The Last Supper” (1986), was to be brokered by the auction house; it has also been halted.

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“The decision was made after having heard and listened to the proponents and the detractors of the BMA’s ambitious Endowment for the Future and after a private conversation between the BMA’s leadership and the association of Art Museum Directors,” said a statement from the museum’s leadership and board of trustees.

The museum has faced a flood of backlash against the deaccessioning plan in the last three weeks, including the resignation of two honorary board members, threats from two philanthropists to withdraw pledges, and a spate of critical op-eds and open letters.

A group of former presidents of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) sent a letter to BMA board chair Clair Zamoiski Segal urging that the museum reconsider the sale.

Among its 12 signatories as were Maxwell L. Anderson, former director of the Whitney Museum; Madeleine

Grynsztejn, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Arnold Lehman, director emeritus of the Brooklyn Museum.

“We look forward to working with the BMA’s trustees and staff to rebuild community relationships and strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that will ensure the BMA remains relevant and responsive to its community going forward,” said Laurence Eisenstein, a former trustee who drafted an open letter against the deaccession that has garnered over 200 signatures.

In its statement announcing the halting of the sale, the museum said that it had previously discussed the deaccession with AAMD and had secured the organization’s support.

“The BMA was in touch with the AAMD leadership early this fall in advance of announcing its plans for the Endowment for the Future. In private and public statements, the AAMD affirmed that the BMA’s plans were in alignment and accordance with the resolutions it passed in April 2020,” the statement reads. “However, subsequent discussions and communications have made clear that we must pause our plans to have further, necessary conversations.”

The combined public and private sales of the paintings were expected to bring in $65 million to fund staff salaries, equity programs, and new acquisitions of underrepresented artists as part of the BMA’s new “Endowment for the Future” initiative.

In its statement, the museum affirmed its commitment to the plan.

“We believe unequivocally that museums exist to serve their communities through experiences with art and artists. We firmly believe that museums and their collections have been built on structures that we must work, through bold and tangible action, to reckon with, modify, and reimagine as structures

Banksy’s “Show Me The Monet” (2005) sold last night for nearly $10 million. (photo by Michael Bowles/Getty Images for Sotheby’s).

that will meet the demands of the future,” the statement reads. “We do not abide by notions that museums exist to serve objects; we believe the objects in our collection must reflect, engage, and inspire the many different individuals that we serve.”

“Our vision and our goals have not changed. It will take us longer to achieve them, but we will do so through all means at our disposal. That is our mission and we stand behind it,” it concludes.

Banksy Painting Sells for $10M, Surpassing Its High Estimate A painting by the anonymous British street artist Banksy recently sold for £7.6 million (~$9.8 million) at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London. Surpassing its pre-sale estimate of £3 million (~$3.9 million) to £5 million (~$6.5 million), it is the second-highest price ever paid for a work by the artist.

In “Show Me the Monet” (2005), Banksy puts his own spin on Claude Monet’s iconic paintings of a Japanesestyle wooden footbridge in his water lily garden in Giverny. Banksy interrupts the tranquil Impressionist scene with ArtDiction | 7 | November/December 2020

half-submerged shopping carts and a bright orange traffic cone, and he offers a critique of consumerism, excess, and environmental waste.

The work was included in one of Banksy’s earliest gallery exhibitions, Crude Oils: A Gallery of Re-mixed Masterpieces, Vandalism and Vermin, held at 100 Westbourne Grove in London in 2005. It was among 22 hand-painted canvases that reworked and subverted traditional modern masterpieces, including a painting of a vase filled with dead sunflowers based on one of Vincent Van Gogh’s most recognizable images and a portrait of the model Kate Moss based on Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Monroe” series.

The show also notably included 164 live rats, a living representation of one of Banksy’s recurring motifs. Early on in his career, he spray-painted the rodents onto London subway cars and murals as a form of social commentary, inspired by the French graffiti artist Blek le Rat; they continue to feature prominently in his works. Last October, Sotheby’s sold Banksy’s “Devolved Parliament” (2009), an oil on canvas depicting Britain’s House of Commons overrun by chimpanzees, for £9.9 million with fees (~$12.1 million), setting an auction high for the artist.

Roy Lichtenstein, Lincoln Center Poster, pen and ink on paper, 1966.

books The Cold Millions Jess Walters Harper Collins October 2020 Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions centers around 16-year-old Rye Dolan and his 23-year-old brother Gig. The pair have spent months tooling around the western United States, working odd jobs and hopping rails as it suits them. As the book opens, they’ve landed in Spokane, Washington in 1909 just as the nascent union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) (see Beyond the Book), is poised to battle the town’s wealthy business owners and corrupt police force over free speech issues.

The idealistic Gig is drawn into the conflict, pulling the idolizing Rye right along with him into the fracas, setting each on a path that will forever impact their lives and their relationship.

The author has chosen a very specific time, place and event for his novel: it is based on the Spokane Free Speech Fight of 1909, which resulted in the incarceration of hundreds of activists and workers and unfolded much as Walter outlines in the book. Many of the characters, too, have real-life counterparts, such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a pregnant 19-year-old union organizer from New Hampshire, and Spokane Police Chief John Sullivan, among others. Beyond just the events, though, the author’s attention to historical detail is impressive, truly transporting readers to an earlier era.

Even his prose seems appropriate for the time period; its cadence may be challenging to get into at first, but once one adjusts, the writing style enhances the book’s feel of being set in a Western city at the turn of the century.

Spokane felt like the intersection of Frontier and Civilized, the final gasp of a thing before it turned into something else – the Last Rush Town, Gig called it, for the silver rushes in the foothills, but also the rush

of railroad and bank, school and merchant, brick, stone, and steel, old-growth timber turned to pillared houses, hammers popping nonstop against the wild, a mad rush to log and pave the whole world.

Most of the story is told in the third person from Rye’s viewpoint, with an occasional first-person chapter narrated by one of the other characters. Unlike many novels where the narrative voice changes from chapter to chapter, here the firstperson sections make up just a small percentage of the novel and seem more like a break in the story than just a shift in perspective. The main characters each get one or two of these interludes, and in it they “break the fourth wall,” so to speak, directly addressing their story to an unknown audience. It’s a different spin on this technique, but one I thoroughly enjoyed.

Rye is clearly the heart and soul of the book; at one point he remarks that he feels like he’s being carried along by the tide of history without being able to impact it, and indeed he’s not wrong. One of the things that makes the book brilliant, though, is how the teenager learns to adapt to the events swirling around him, maturing into a man with his own thoughts and will.

In addition to Rye, The Cold Millions is rife with three-dimensional characters, and whether they’re historically based or not, they come across as real. Readers could spend a lot of time googling them (as I admit I did), but it’s a distracting exercise; in the acknowledgments, the author urges readers to “treat even the historical figures as fictional characters,” and it seems like that’s the best approach to take. In spite of there being a relatively large cast, each character is so well-drawn that I had no problem keeping track of who was who and delighting in each one’s quirks.

Given publishing timelines, Walter certainly began writing this novel well

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before 2020’s protests, which have sparked debate about citizens’ rights under the First Amendment. Despite the events on which it is based taking place a century ago, I found the plot extremely relevant to today’s concerns.

Historical fiction doesn’t get any better than this; its fast pace, stellar writing and compelling characters make The Cold Millions a winner, and I highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in this period of American history. Walter’s fans will certainly find much to love about the book, and it will likely attract him many new followers as well.

Book reviewed by Kim Kovacs .

An Inventory of Losses Judith Schalansky Harper Collins December 2020 With each passing year, parts of the world are lost. Species become extinct. Old texts fade from print.

Artifacts are buried. Islands slip into the ocean. In An Inventory of Losses, Judith Schalansky surveys some of the things that have not held up to the test of time. From the Caspian tiger to the love songs of Sappho, readers are sure to learn something new about something that no longer exists.

Judith Schalansky is a German writer, editor and book designer based in Berlin. She has written five books that have been translated into over 20 languages. Her most famous publication to date is Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will, an imaginative ode to obscure places. An Inventory of Losses debuted for German readers in 2018. Now, two years later, translator Jackie Smith brings it to an English-speaking audience.

The book is organized into twelve chapters based on the twelve marvels Schalansky explores, including

books “Kinau’s Selenographs,” “Tuanaki Island,” “Villa Sacchetti,” “Palace of the Republic” and “The Seven Books of Mani.” It is a hand-selected museum of oddities, united only by their temporal existence. Because of this story-by-story, object-by-object structure, casual readers will enjoy dipping in and out at their leisure.

An unusual and somewhat unexpected feature of this book is the writing style.

Instead of simply describing the objects, animals and places that no longer exist and explaining their significance – what one might expect from nonfiction – Schalansky chooses distinct fictionalized voices for each chapter. She creates these narrative voices through her research into these disparate treasures, pieced together from contemporaneous sources such as scrolls, maps, ancient tales, song fragments, slabs of stone and captains’ diaries. In one chapter, readers are brought along to the ancient

Roman games, witnessing the bloody showdown between a now-extinct Caspian tiger and a lion. In another, readers are in the mind of a lonely, distraught, age-obsessed movie star wandering the streets of New York in 1952. In “Tuanaki,” readers meet a researcher who stumbled upon lost islands documented on an outdated library globe; the researcher imagines how Indigenous people and colonizers may have understood one another or interacted over the course of time.

Although this narrative style allows Schalansky to be historically accurate while experimenting with storytelling techniques, it can be disorienting.

Points of view change often, from first to second to third, as does the gender and time period of the narrative voice.

One downside of this is that the voice offers no sense of continuity in terms of the larger themes in the book, and the start of each chapter can be clunky

www.resilienceauction.org

as the reader tries to figure out where and when they are situated in the story and how the narrative will relate to the subject at hand.

Circling around ideas of loss, memory and ruin, Schalansky offers readers an unorthodox take on endings.

In the preface, she explains that “Fundamentally, every item is already waste, every building already a ruin, and all creation nothing but destruction.” Yet, she concedes a sort of optimism centered around second chances, particularly those instances when someone unearths something spectacular after years, decades or centuries of hiding and the past lives again.

An excerpt from An Inventory of Losses, an essay called “The Von Behr Palace,” is published in Asymptote.

Book reviewed by Jamie Chornoby .

exhibits Jeny Howorth - Lulu Serena Morton Jeny Howorth’s works of art are like time capsules. They hark back to a time when young people read and collected all sorts of magazines, ripped out the pictures and stuck them on to bedroom or study walls. Appropriating artwork, collecting and listening to music was a shared generational activity much as social media is today.

Howorth’s artistic North London upbringing provided early exposure to what was happening in British culture and she was encouraged to be creative. Later through her career she was surrounded by art directors, fashion editors and photographers and within this likeminded group achieved recognition as one of the most successful British supermodels of her generation. Alongside her professional work, Howorth was obsessively collecting images from books and magazines and she started to build the montages which capture her life, loves and influences.

The examples of collage, viewed in museum exhibitions, was appropriated into British pop art making and was a contemporary visual language. Pasting up your choices you freely join a tribe.

It was an agreeable pastime for an internet-free youth who unwittingly would leap from an industrial world to electronic future, when house music exploded upon the night club scene. Howorth has taken that memory base and the behavior of a generation and immortalized it into these iconic, splendidly boxed collage works.

About Time: Fashion and Duration Metropolitan Museum of Art The latest exhibit at the New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art explores fashion’s reputation and reinvention at is relates to time. The show had been delayed for months by the pandemic, and that time was used, in part, to tweak its presentation on account the Black Lives Matter movement.

Normally the city’s social event of the year, 2020’s Met Gala organized by Vogue Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour -which usually opens the costume exhibit -- was cancelled, like every major indoor gathering since midMarch.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Met, Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Costume Institute, aimed to highlight the museum’s own collection that includes 33,000 pieces of clothing and accessories.

“When I began working on the show, it started off as this sort of meditation on

Ketchup Kate, 2018; Collage 80 x 80 cm.

Time,” which will run until February 7.

However, Bolton did not want to focus on chronology, instead presenting concepts in pairs -- two pieces, two parallel time periods with similar aesthetics, for a 124-piece show featuring a single gown to close. “By having past and present coexist together, it sort of takes you outside of the confine of chronology and makes you think about time very differently,” Bolton said.

Fashion is on display during the press preview for the The Costume Institute’s exhibition “About Time: Fashion and Duration” on October 26, 2020, which will be on view from October 29, 2020 to February 7, 2021 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The show traces 150 years of fashion, from 1870 to the present, along a disrupted timeline, in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.

fashion and temporality,” he told a press preview of the exhibit entitled “About

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The concept of the exhibit creates an ongoing dialogue between older pieces from the 1870s when the Met was founded and more recent items from the 1960s and beyond. For example, elements that were popular in 1870s-era wardrobes are seen again in the work of modern designers considered particularly innovative, including Alexander McQueen, Yohji Yamamoto, and John Galliano.

exhibits “Fashion is always for the movement, always about this succession of time and notions of, novelty and ephemerality and sometimes obsolescence and that’s one aspect of time,” Bolton said. “But at the same time fashion looks back on itself often.”

With shorter skirts and dresses and cuts that flow rather than restrict, modern designers give a contemporary edge to older pieces, like the iconic Chanel jacket.

A mini-skirt pairing gives the piece a facelift, thanks to the innovation of Karl Lagerfeld, a master of reinterpretation. Today’s designers play with a far wider spectrum of materials than were available to their predecessors, thanks to technological progress and the evolution of use and taste.

Raf Simons embellishes a 2013 black strapless bustier dress with the satin flowers of Hubert de Givenchy in 1957 but in leather, a material only in recent decades popular with womenswear.

And sometimes older styles stand the test of time: Yves Saint Laurent’s tuxedo for women, for example, or his belted mini-dress of 1966.

Bolton decided to modify the show in light of the enormous anti-racism protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd in May. According to Bolton, the original version included “some designers of color... but not a huge amount.” He and Wintour worked together closely to make the tweaks.

Vogue’s leader has faced accusations since June from some collaborators and journalists of long favoring fashion created by and for white people, and sidelining people of color at Conde Nast.

Wintour, 70, attended the press preview of the exhibit but remained silent.

“Undoubtedly, I have made mistakes along the way, and if any mistakes were made at Vogue under my watch, they are mine to own and remedy and I am committed to doing the work,” one of fashion’s most powerful figures told the Times recently.

Clyfford Still, (left to right) “PH-931” (1974), “PH-891” (1972), “PH-892” (1973) (image courtesy Clyfford Still Museum).

Changes at the exhibit include a contribution from Black American pioneering designer Stephen Burrows, next to a Xuly.Bet dress from the Franco-Malian designer Lamine Kouyate.Bolton made assurances that the initiative would not be short-lived, saying all exhibitions will now include diversity efforts.

The Late Works: Clifford Still in Maryland Clifford Still Museum Clyfford Still was one of the longest living artists of the Abstract Expressionism movement, but remains best known for his work made between 1942 and 1960.The exhibition The Late Works: Clyfford Still in Maryland, now on view at the Denver museum devoted to the artist, offers a historical pivot by focusing on the last 20 years of his life, revealing his most productive period and foregrounding work that is rarely discussed.

“I had taken [the densely worked paintings] as far as I could go and felt I was coming up against a dead wall of abstraction, manipulation and device,” Still told biographer Betty Freeman in 1962, a year after leaving New York City to live in rural Maryland. That year he started simplifying his compositions, working more economically like other mature artists such as DeKooning in his late “ribbon” paintings or Motherwell in his Open series.

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Many argue it was Still’s exit from New York — or his refusal to sell his work — that deterred critical responses to the 372 paintings and 1,132 drawings made in Maryland. However, reception was more likely darkened by the declining popularity of Abstract Expressionism.

“Those understood to be making ‘the next inevitable step’ now work with any material but paint” wrote Artforum editors in September 1975. After all, the artist had an aggressive exhibition calendar that proves he never stepped away, including shows at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art (1963), at Albright-Knox (1966), at New York’s Marlborough-Gerson Gallery (1969), at SFMOMA (1976), and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1979).

Less visible in the galleries are the sentiments of a professional artist with doubts. Distressed remarks about whether paintings would be misconstrued as pretty or that he was already part of history, “a dead man now,” were recorded by Freeman in her notes. The paintings are distinct, complicated, and sometimes vulnerable, a description rarely associated with Clyfford Still.

The Late Works: Clyfford Still in Maryland continues through February 21, 2021 at the Clyfford Still Museum The exhibition is curated by Dean Sobel.

music Tashi Dorji Stateless

and Wеѕt ѕеnѕibilitiеѕ in “Stаtuеѕ Crumble, Hеrоеѕ Fаll,” аnd аlmоѕt bаrоquе, lilting figurеѕ thаt he puckers and twists out into ѕtrаngеr mutations оn “Thе Swеlling Fruit About tо Shatter thе Huѕk оf thе Old Wоrld,” аlwауѕ with a with a mаѕtеrful balance of sparing рrесiѕiоn аnd dirесtnеѕѕ thаt hоldѕ listeners tо a seat-edge intensity bеfitting оf thе album’s intеntiоnѕ. beabadoobe Fаkе It Flоwеrѕ

Rare ѕtudiо rесоrding оf ѕingulаr guitаriѕt Tashi Dоrji improvising in hiѕ maverick vеrnасulаr of Amеriсаn-Bhutаnеѕе bluеѕ - a must сhесk if you like Keiji Haino, Derek Bаilеу, Cam Deas, Ben Chаѕnу, and Sir Richard Biѕhор.

Arriving аftеr Dorji’s collaborations with еvеrуоnе frоm Aаrоn Turnеr tо Mеttе Rаѕmuѕѕеn аnd C Sреnсеr Yeh in recent уеаrѕ, thе hugеlу vеrѕаtilе imрrоviѕеr iѕ ѕроtlightеd ѕоlо with uttеrlу сарtivаting rеѕultѕ in Stаtеlеѕѕ.

Prеѕеntеd аѕ аn intеnѕеlу emotive еxрrеѕѕiоn оf the “соnfuѕiоn, rаgе, hеlрlеѕѕnеѕѕ аnd resolve оf аn immigrаnt in Amеriса today” thе rесоrding witnеѕѕes Dоrji tаkе bluеѕ guitаr bасk to itѕ lуriсаllу еxрrеѕѕivе rооtѕ as a vоiсе оf diѕроѕѕеѕѕеd реорlе, rееling оff a burning rаngе оf еmоtiоnѕ from his flying fingеrtiрѕ thаt ѕреаk tо hiѕ еxсерtiоnаl ability tо соnjurе flееting fееlingѕ, sustain оr suspend diѕbеliеf, and remarkably сhаngе direction in the blink of аn еуе.

Frоm thе ѕоng titlеѕ tо the unmistakably imраѕѕiоnеd inѕtrumеntаl dеlivеrу, Dоrji hаѕ a lot to say аnd dоеѕ so in bеguiling ѕtуlе rаnging from flurriеѕ оf quiсk-witted bаrbѕ thаt ѕоund likе twо guitаriѕt duеlling in the parts оf “Rеfuѕаl,” tо a ѕреllbinding quiсk/ѕlоw fusion оf Eаѕt

Thе fact thаt beabadoobee released hеr very firѕt ѕоng, “Cоffее,” аll thе wау bасk in 2017 might come аѕ a ѕurрriѕе tо anyone who only bесаmе fаmiliаr with hеr music this уеаr, whеn Cаnаdiаn lо-fi аrtiѕt Pоwfu ѕаmрlеd thе track оn his confusingly titlеd virаl hit “dеаth bed (соffее fоr уоur hеаd).”

Hеr vосаl рrеѕеnсе is аrguаblу the mоѕt еnсhаnting element of аn otherwise раinfullу mеdiосrе rеmix, but thе ѕоng quickly bесаmе a fаvоuritе оn TikTok, thuѕ introducing 20-year-old Bеаtriсе Kristi’s bеdrооm рор ѕоund tо a nеw audience. Thоugh it wоrkеd in соntеxt, it’s a ѕhаmе thаt hеr vоiсе wаѕ mostly reduced to a wаrреd, ghоѕtlу есhо; even оn hеr second ѕinglе – and ѕtill hеr second mоѕt рорulаr song – hеr rеѕеrvеd vocals pirouette аrоund thоѕе of fеllоw

ArtDiction | 13 | November/December 2020

rising indie аrtiѕt Oscar Lang as they dеlivеr a hеаrtfеlt rеnditiоn of “Mооn Song” frоm thе film Hеr.

Hеr dеbut full-lеngth аlbum, Fake It Flowers, is fаr frоm thе first inѕtаnсе where hеr vоiсе tаkеѕ сеntеr stage, but there are сеrtаinlу a lоt mоrе реорlе рауing attention thiѕ time аrоund. Sinсе firѕt еmеrging in the scene, thе London-based ѕingеr-ѕоngwritеr hаѕ ѕlоwlу bееn shifting аwау frоm hеr lo-fi acoustic ѕtуlingѕ tо еmbrасе a more guitаr-hеаvу sound thаt’ѕ shamelessly indebted tо 90s аltеrnаtivе rосk. Shе’ѕ not ѕhу аbоut wеаring thоѕе influences on hеr ѕlееvе, еithеr; her previous EP, 2019’s Sрасе Cаdеt, inсludеd thе ѕоng “I Wiѕh I Was Stephen Mаlkmuѕ,” a dirесt tributе tо thе Pavement frontman. But оn hеr debut, ѕhе’ѕ сrаftеd hеr mоѕt соnfidеnt and polished artistic statement yet, a сlеаr ѕtер fоrwаrd for an аrtiѕt ѕtill diѕсоvеring hеr musical idеntitу.

The mаjоritу оf the ѕоngѕ here would work оn catchiness alone, but Bеа infuѕеѕ thеm with еnоugh personality tо also make thеm emotionally еngаging. Opener “Cаrе” burѕtѕ fоrth with bright mеlоdiеѕ and a рlауfullу ѕсоrning сhоruѕ, аnd thе ѕаmе kind of ѕеlf-аѕѕurеd attitude саrriеѕ over оntо trасkѕ likе “Dуе it Rеd.” Aѕ сhееrfullу infectious аѕ thоѕе tracks саn bе, thеу dоn’t quitе mаtсh uр tо thе intensity of thе grittiеr moments on the аlbum, likе the ferocious сlimаx of “Charlie Brоwn” – closer to Nirvana thаn аnуthing Cоldрlау еvеr lаid thеir hаndѕ оn – оr thе thrilling, grungy “Sorry.”

What mаkеѕ beabadoobee’s tаkе оn 90s rеvivаliѕm diffеrеnt and lеѕѕ dеrivаtivе is thаt, as muсh as ѕhе аttеmрtѕ tо rесrеаtе those sounds, ѕhе аlѕо diѕрlауѕ a dеереr understanding of what mаdе thеm resonant in thе firѕt рlасе. Adding

string аrrаngеmеntѕ оr sweet, poppy choruses to an оthеrwiѕе heavy trасk doesn’t nесеѕѕаrilу make it any lеѕѕ аuthеntiс, as long аѕ thеу ѕеrvе to enhance itѕ еmоtiоnаl content; nеithеr does juxtароѕing thеm with thе intimacy of a lо-fi асоuѕtiс сut.

The stripped-back “Back tо Mаrѕ” may nоt hаvе the еndеаring ѕсruffinеѕѕ оf hеr bеdrооm rесоrdingѕ, but hеr vulnerable lyrics are mоrе еvосаtivе thаn еvеr аѕ she ѕingѕ, “Take mе tо thе south оf Frаnсе whеrе wе соuld just bе old friends/ Wе’d gо tо the beach and уоu could brаid my hair.” “Emо Sоng” is аnоthеr lоw-kеу ballad thаt, rаthеr thаn feeling trite, manages to augment the lullаbу-likе quаlitiеѕ оf Bеа’ѕ ѕоngwriting with wаvеѕ оf wоndеrfullу dreamy synth flоuriѕhеѕ.

Bktherula Nirvana Bktherula’s 2019 brеаkоut single “Tweakin’ Tоgеthеr” iѕ likе a fаirу tаlе mаdе to bасkdrор a day in thе lifе оf the most Inѕtаgrаmmаblе соuрlеѕ you can imаginе. (Maybe the оnеѕ who film each оthеr dоing triсkѕ at thе ѕkаtераrk. Mауbе thе оnеѕ whеrе both are so fаѕhiоnаblе; it рhуѕiсаllу mаkеѕ уоu ѕiсk. Or thе оnеѕ who ѕееm ѕо inѕераrаblе thаt they muѕt hаvе nеvеr had a diѕаgrееmеnt.) Her muѕiс саn range frоm fluttery and lоvеѕtruсk to songs dеlivеrеd with the angst of someone whо wоuld ѕtоmр оn thе humаn body thаt fеll tо thе ground during a mоѕh pit. “Twеаkin’ Tоgеthеr” is ѕо gооd because it’s a mix оf bоth,” ѕhе rарѕ оn the opening linе, so softly it’ѕ like ѕhе’ѕ fliррing оff hеr сritiсѕ with a ѕmilе оn hеr fасе. Yеѕ, it’s an unrealistically cool lоvе song. There’s nо tеаrѕ, indесiѕivеnеѕѕ, оr paranoia. Thiѕ mythical реrfесtiоn iѕ thе trасk’ѕ flaw, but also раrt of thе арреаl.

Thоugh thе аbѕеnсе of mоrе subtle еmоtiоnѕ didn’t аffесt “Twеаkin’ Tоgеthеr,” it iѕ a glаring iѕѕuе on thе 18-уеаr-оld’ѕ dеbut mixtаре, Love Sаntаnа. The рrоjесt fееlѕ likе unfinished аnd ѕhаllоw ѕсаttеrbrаinеd ѕkеtсhеѕ wеrе rushed out tо hеlр extend thе lifе оf hеr brеаkthrоugh ѕinglе. Admirаblу, though, thе rесоrd

hаѕ рlеntу of idеаѕ; she attempts to расkаgе hеr рunk spirit with an еndlеѕѕ bаg оf Atlаntа-rооtеd mеlоdiеѕ, the loose improvisation оf рunсhеdin PG Cоuntу, Maryland rap, and the whimsy of SоundClоud’ѕ melodic crooners. A соuрlе mоrе mоnthѕ оf аllоwing thе соnсерtѕ tо bаkе wоuld have hеlреd, as it dоеѕ оn hеr nеwеѕt mixtape, Nirvаnа.

Prior tо Nirvаnа, thе most mеmоrаblе Bkthеrulа ѕоngѕ were the оnеѕ whеrе hеr vocals wеrе аѕ light аnd airy аѕ hotel рillоwѕ. Thаt’ѕ not true anymore; оn thе tape, Bk iѕ mоѕt captivating whеn ѕhе sounds rеаdу tо stuff trifling dudes in lockers for not rесiрrосаting her feelings. On “Welcome” Bk сhаntѕ аѕ if she’s lеаding a seance, аnd thе nоiѕу Digital Nаѕ bеаt will rеѕоnаtе with аnуоnе who has ѕреnt too muсh timе liѕtеning to the Prо Skаtеr ѕоundtrасk.

It is presented in the Sylvia Neil and Daniel Fischel Galleries on the museum’s second floor.

Grateful Dead Amеriсаn Bеаutу On November 1, 1970, thе Grateful Dеаd rеlеаѕеd what wоuld bесоmе thеir crowning асhiеvеmеnt – thеir fifth ѕtudiо аlbum, Amеriсаn Bеаutу.

Hоt оn thе hееlѕ оf Wоrkingmаn’ѕ Dead, the band leaned tоwаrdѕ fоlk rock аnd Amеriсаnа for these twо records inѕtеаd оf thе uѕuаl psychedelia rеflесtеd in thеir рrеviоuѕ LPѕ.

It was a riѕkу mоvе еvеn fоr a bаnd who’s nо ѕtrаngеr tо muѕiсаl еxреrimеntаtiоn.

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Reissued this month for its 50th anniversary, American Bеаutу fеаturеѕ some оf thеir finеѕt соmроѕitiоnѕ. It’s mоrе focused, rеlаxеd, and mоving.

Thеу wеrе сlеаrlу аt thе height оf thеir сrеаtivе роwеrѕ. At thiѕ роint, mоѕt of thеir followers knоw the Dеаd excelled in livе ѕеtting. Thеir соnсеrtѕ wеrе ѕо muсh bеttеr thаn their recordings but, American Bеаutу рrоvеd tо bе thе еxсерtiоn. Evеn аѕ thеу fаvоrеd ѕоftеr ѕоngѕ, thеу didn’t lоѕе their сrеdibilitу аѕ rockers.

Rоbеrt Huntеr аlѕо ѕhinеd bу writing some of hiѕ mоѕt роеtiс аnd brilliаnt lуriсѕ. Frоm the vосаl hаrmоniеѕ tо thе arrangements, this is сlеаrlу a mаѕtеrрiесе.

“Box оf Rаin” is flawless frоm bеginning tо еnd. It’ѕ a bit mеlаnсhоliс but bеаutiful nоnеthеlеѕѕ. “Friеnd оf the Dеvil” iѕ аnоthеr Dеаd сlаѕѕiс with Dаvid Griѕmаn’ѕ mandolin playing taking thе whоlе ѕоng to the nеxt lеvеl. Bob Wеir shines оn thе anthemic “Sugаr Magnolia.” “Oреrаtоr” is a bluesy number whilе Cаndуmаn iѕ ѕtill a stellar ѕоng but easily overshadowed bу the оthеr tracks оn the album.

“Ripple” kiсkѕ off ѕidе two аnd thе mandolin рlауing оnсе аgаin created a ѕоniс lаndѕсаре thаt’ѕ beyond mеѕmеrizing. “Brоkеdоwn Pаlасе” ѕhоwеd thе bаnd growing and mаturing muѕiсаllу. “Till thе Morning Comes” iѕ саtсhу аnd infectious.

“Attics оf Mу Lifе” invоkеѕ fееlingѕ оf nоѕtаlgiа. And “Truckin’” is still a standout еvеn with so mаnу mаgnifiсеnt ѕоngѕ оn American Beauty.

It’ѕ nоt juѕt a highlight оf thе аlbum but the Dеаd’ѕ еntirе diѕсоgrарhу.

Amеriсаn Bеаutу is a trеаѕurе trоvе оf classics. Thе Grаtеful Dеаd рrоvеd their studio recordings соuld bе just аѕ mаgiсаl as thеir livе performances.

Revied by Linda D. Writer

Performa Telethon

A Global Fundraiser to Celebrate 15 Epic Years of Performa Wednesday, Nov 18, 2020 2 – 10 PM EST Produced by Performa in collaboration with E.S.P. TV pacegallery.com

Rwanda’s Couture

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iyitanga Olivier is the founder and designer of Tanga Designs based in Rwanda. Taken from his name, which means to give or to provide, Tanga Designs is rooted in elegance and sophistication.

“I’ve been passionate about fashion and being a fashion designer since a young age. Everyone told me that I looked like a model or that I should work at Fashion houses,” he recalls. After sketching (mostly wedding gowns) as young person, Niyitagna finally began to pursue his passions. In 2014, Niyitanga won the best upcoming Fashion designer of the year in the competition presented by Kigali Fashion.

Under Niyitanga’s leadership, Tanga Designs has developed a digital fashion line to help navigate through the pandemic. “Our latest collection is a digital collection named ‘Inyambo.’ Despite the pandemic, we

are able to bring our collection to life.” Niyitanga explains that the digital collection centers around the African culture. “The animal prints, patterns, and mixed colors de ine our roots,” he says. “It’s the ultimate modern collection fusing both old and new elegance, strength, and represents the Tanga brand as a positive force for change.”

Niyitanga has seen immediate success with his innovative digital collection, the obvious being that it is the time-saving component. He adds: “When a client likes an item in the digital collection, I can then make it without sending samples.”

Niyitanga sees himself as a “Legend in the Making” with goals of becoming an international brand that showcases all around the world. “In 10 years, I envision Tanga Design as an international Brand that sells online and also showcase in the big fashion Shows around the world.”

For more information, visit www.tangadesigns.com

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rw/.

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The Art of Tailoring

By Shihaam Hassanali

H

ave you ever slipped into a garment tailored just for you? There’s nothing quite like it. From the beauty of the design to the feel of the texture, both on the surface and underneath, all aspects lend itself to looking your very best. An important element to a made-to-measure outfit is the cut of the garment — how well does it fit?

A custom-made piece of clothing will make you feel and look good, adding to your confidence, poise, and refinement.

The History The art of tailoring has existed hundreds of years dating back to the early medieval period (5th to 10th centuries). Well before sewing machines came into being, people handmade all clothing. Each tailor had a unique stitching pattern and signature that was often a closely guarded secret. It was an artful and noble line of work to be in because everyone, irrespective of social standing, had their clothes sewed.

The word “tailor” appeared first in the Oxford Dictionary in 1297 (the late 13th century) and is derived from the French word “tailler” which means “to cut”. In Latin, the word was “sartor” which means someone who patches or mends garments, and the English derivative, “sartorial” is related to tailored garments.

Bespoke Tailoring in England The earliest tailors came from Europe, as this novelty only diversified in Western Europe between the 12th and 14th centuries. Clothes were made at home, often with a single piece of cloth, and the sole purpose of a garment was to conceal the body. Individual style was of no interest to either the maker or wearer.

However, by the 15th and 16th centuries (i.e. the Renaissance period), garments developed from one of necessity to a representation of self-expression. Single-garment loose clothing became shorter and form-fitting to resemble

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the shape of the wearer. Personal style rose, as did an understanding of how specific designs worked better on certain body types. Bespoke tailors emerged customising garments using a variety of skills and creativity to suit the wearer’s requirements. England became the earliest home of such tailors, giving way to signature style and everchanging fashion trends.

At the time, tailors made different outer garments like cloaks, coats, breeches and more. They used stiff linen and canvas for interlining to give shape, along with horsehair cloth and cardboard stiffened with whalebone for structure.

Wool or cotton padding was used to even out asymmetrical body shapes. Luxury clothing had satin or fur lining to keep the individual warm. In the 19th century, wool was the primary material used in men’s clothing. Why? At the start, wool showed masculinity and patriotism but soon became very fashionable, replacing the silks and velvets of the previous century.

The relationship of master and apprentice It was in the late 11th century that King Henry I gave royal privileges to Taylors of Oxford, thus legitimizing tailoring as an occupation. That propelled tailor masters to take on apprentices to teach them their methods. They learned everything from moulding fabric to the shape of the wearer’s body to developing their own distinctive styles and designs. Creativity and signature style was as important as a fantastic fit, and if the tailor was exceptional at his job, it gave way to high demand.

This encouraged master tailors to take in more apprentices and staff. Masters tasked each tailor with specific roles: some staff, often journeyman tailors, did the cutting, others the moulding, while apprentices had to keep the shop tidy.

The relationship was completely experience-based, and no manuals existed. But, in 1796, The Taylor’s Complete Guide, the first English-language manual on tailoring was released, paving the way forward for others to join its ranks. In 1889, History of the Art of Cutting by E.B. Giles was published, encapsulating the evolution of 19th-century techniques.

Measurements

had freedom of movement. Irrespective of the systems developed, ultimately the keen eye of a master tailor-made the difference. He’d notice the subtleties of a client’s posture, disposition and anatomy, and make allowances for a bulging stomach or uneven shoulders.

One manual, L’Art du Tailleur by de Garsault (1769), details how the author used a strip of paper for taking measurements. The system included creating marks in the strip to measure the breadth of the back and the length of the arm. The modern tape measure was introduced in 1800, initially joined with a compass, ruler, and tracing paper.

Savile Row As with most things, fashion and tailoring also evolved.

The 19th and 20th century saw the formation of fully equipped tailoring establishments. At the top end of the scale were establishments on Savile Row and Bond Street of London’s West End, centred around the elite. Eventually, Savile Row tailoring transitioned from serving only the British aristocracy to include a more international clientele like American financiers and celebrities. What makes a Savile Row suit unique is how structured they are. Tailors use shoulder padding and more canvas, with a focus on straight, angular lines. They’re harder and sharper than any garment made elsewhere.

In the 1980s, a new generation of British designers merged the flawless cut and construction of traditional tailoring with that of haute couture. Alexander McQueen, among those who trained on famed Savile Row, incorporates this emphasis on structure and material into his couture womenswear.

Although custom tailoring plays a small part in contemporary menswear, it still carries prominence as part of a well-dressed man’s arsenal. While the suit has advanced and changed with times, it remains a classic form of attire. People will continue to turn to a tailor for made-tomeasure suits and clothing for that ideal fit and structure.

Throughout history, the systems used for measurements have completely changed. Tailors initially developed complex systems to measure, ensuring the wearer

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Nature-Inspired Textile & Print Designer

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lizabeth Rachael is an artist who specializes in textile print and graphic design with an impressive portfolio of work that has been featured in WGSN, Zara, F&F, and more.

She first discovered textile design through fashion. “Growing up, I had always wanted to design womenswear so when I turned 17, I decided to drop out of my school, and enroll in a local college that taught fashion and textiles,” Elizabeth says. “I soon learnt that I didn’t actually have the patience to design

clothes, and I became completely hooked on textile design.”

Although she studied textile design for fashion for five years, first at college and then at The Manchester School of Art, Elizabeth says the majority of how she designs now is completely self-taught. “Studying taught me the values of design, and how to be experimental with my work, but it was through years of online tutorials that I learnt most of my technical skills,” she recalls.

“My university lecturer once told me that it’s impossible to know ev-

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ery function of photoshop, so I set myself a task to prove him wrong.

I’d enroll in free courses that had nothing to do with textiles from photography to graphic design.

as to tigers. I think I’m drawn to nature because there’s so much room for experimentation and interpretation, which suits my loose drawing style.”

I learnt so much, but I think he was right. It’s impossible to know it all.”

Elizabeth explained that her creative process has changed massively throughout the years.

“I used to spend about a week researching into my own briefs. Going to museums and art galleries, taking photos of different textures and shapes I would see on walks.

Then I’d create a huge mood board and hang it on my wall to design

Elizabeth says she is mainly inspired by nature, and she is known mostly for her florals. But this past year she says something inside her switched. “I found myself doodling and sketching whatever ideas came into my head from banan-

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Ceci nest pas lart ELLE

from,” she recalls. “But now after working in the industry for so long, where time is money and deadlines are tight, I don’t have the luxury of week-long research. It’s more important for me to feel comfortable and in a relaxed environment. That way I can just put pen to paper and let my designs flow.”

Elizabeth’s design work also includes prints for decoration and wall hanging. Her bestsellers tend to feature patterns. “When I design prints for the home, I tend

to design them for myself. They reflect my mood and personality a lot. When I design for fashion, I know that I’m designing for a client with different values than me,” she says. I don’t wear a lot of print or even colour (which I know is really odd for a print designer haha). I’ve learnt to detach my personal preferences from a brief, and design purely from a professional point of view.”

An avid Procreate user, Elizabeth says she designs about 99.9% of

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Calm Calamity Tyrone Webb

her work using the digital illustration app. “Although sometimes it’s good to bring it back to the old school and use watercolours.

They’re definitely my favourite medium because they’re so unpredictable.”

Elizabeth works with other art mediums, which has helped shaped her unique style. “Even though I now design digitally for the majority of my work, I’m always trying to mimic the energy and the way paint flows on paper,” she says.

“In fact, it’s one of the things I

enjoy most about working digitally, pushing the boundaries to see if I can create something that looks as though it been painted in ‘real life.’”

Elizabeth has some creative projects she’s working on for the future. “I have a few exciting collaborations lined up, but I can’t share too much about them just yet. You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled!” Stay up-to-date with Elizabeth’s work at www.elizabethrachael.com/.

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A Crash Course in Textile Design

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olors, patterns, and structure make consumer goods made from fabric unique from one another.

Without variation, the colors of your clothes, blankets, or pillow cover would look plain and repetitive. Making a fabric attractive is no easy task. Nevertheless, it’s possible thanks to the creativity of textile designers. Textile designers are artists. They breathe life into a fabric by infusing it with their creativity.

What Is Textile Design?

Textile design is the process of producing graphics on fabrics.

Textile design can be applied to all types of fabric. Still, the difficulty of producing and the quality of the graphics might differ depending on the type of fabric used. Aside from embedding graphics such as patterns, characters, and colors, the textile design also determines the structure of a fabric-based product.

Textile design can be done using modern and traditional methods.

As an age-old process, cultures all over the globe have different ways of the design process. Traditional

methods in the textile design are batik (see article on Watercolor Batik on page 40), mudcloth, Otomi, shisha, Toile de Jouy, block print, suzani, kente cloth, shibori, farazada, ikat, and Kuba. Modern methods, on the other hand, utilize computer-aided software and printers.

Basic Skills Textile design is closely related to art. Therefore, it will be an advantage if you have prior experience in the fields of painting, sketching, mosaic, and other creative art forms. You don’t need to have an artistic background to be a successful textile designer. Nevertheless, it will be easier for you to understand the techniques and principles if you’re fond of art.

One fundamental skill that you need to develop as a textile designer is a keen attention to detail.

You should be able to recognize potential mistakes and, if possible, the unnecessary elements that don’t contribute to the beauty of the textile print patterns.

You should also have a knack for visualizing the unseen. Profession-

al textile designers think about the overall look of the desired pattern before working. By doing this, they can determine how easy or difficult it is to achieve the textile design that they want the fabric to have. Visualizing can also help foresee possible errors and drawbacks.

Knowledge about the color chart or color wheel is a plus. Textile designers constantly utilize color to enhance the look of a pattern. Furthermore, designers have to ensure that the color on the textile imprint complements the color of the fabric. Being knowledgeable about the relationship of colors is a simple yet very crucial trait that you need to develop. It helps you avert coming up with designs that are senseless and confusing.

Textile Designer Careers So what are the careers waiting for you? As a beginner, you might work as an assistant textile designer. You can also work as a quality assurance inspector or manager for textiles. If you’re into home improvement, you can work as a textile designer for home furniture or get employed in a company that specializes in interior design.

Some textile designers also find themselves in the fashion industry. Textile design and fashion design are closely linked. Most fashion brands, big or small, need capable textile designers to work with fashion designers. Some successful textile designers in the fashion industry are Neeta Lulla, Dai Fujiwara, Aleksandra Gaca, Sonia Delaunay, Raoul Dufy, and Zika Ascher.

Manufacturing Process Textile designers play a vital role in the workflow process of companies who make products out of fabric. They provide the designs and graphics for fabric. Experienced textile designers also help come up with new and better ways of producing fabric. For example, a textile designer might invent more efficient methods of weaving and knitting.

He or she might also change the way the fabric is treated in the factory to develop tensile strength.

Finally, a textile designer might also research a better or cheaper raw material for fabric production.

Some textile designers play a role in quality con-

trol. As inspectors, textile designers look for flaws in the structure and the imprinted design. Textile designers who take this role in the workflow process are those gifted with exceptional attention to detail and experience in the field.

Textile Design and Brand Identity Let’s talk briefly about the relationship between brand identity and textile design. The textile design of one brand can’t be directly copied by another. Brand duplication might result in lawsuits or the pitfall of a brand itself. This is especially true for companies who are top influencers in the fashion industry. The textile design makes one brand unique from another.

For example, some brands use

specific color schemes and patterns that make their brand unique and easy to distinguish. In fact, some luxury brands find success in creating a solid identity in the market by putting a heavier emphasis on textile design rather than the overall style of their products.

Examples of these are Chivasso, Aldeco, Casamance, Christian Lacroix, and Hermes .

Tools of the Textile Designer The first tool that you should invest in is a powerful computer. Note the term “powerful”. Weak computers are useless for a textile designer.

It’s because most of the software that you’ll use for creating textile designs loads the CPU and RAM of a computer heavily. To be specific, what you need is a computer that

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has 4 gigahertz CPU capacity, a graphics card, 8-gigabyte ram, and an i5 or i7 processor.

they might inspire you to come up with a new idea that others haven’t thought about yet.

A sketchbook is crucial even though you already have a computer that’s installed with textile design software. As a textile designer, it’s common to have spontaneous ideas that inspire unique patterns or graphics. These ideas are too precious to be left alone. This is where a sketchbook becomes useful. A sketchbook allows you to draw an idea for later reference no matter where you are.

Finally, you should download all the latest software for digital textile design. A few that I recommend are Artlandia (an adobe illustrator plug-in), Clicdesign (an adobe photoshop plug-in), and Evolution.

Books in textile design are useful whether you’re still learning or a master of the craft already. Continuously reading books will keep your knowledge about textile design fresh and up to date. Furthermore,

Textile design is a solid way for you to earn money and pursue your passion for art. It’s a career that fuses ingenuity, creativity, and intellect. Many who become textile designers become members of the upper echelons of society. That said, becoming a textile designer might be the way for you to achieve a grand and luxurious lifestyle.

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Watercolor Batik

®

Tools of the Trade

By Belle Heppard

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isual artists, from beginning students through professionals know certain instruments (or tools) make or break a masterpiece. Fine artists who paint, know how a specific brush with a specific type of bristle, and even the shape of a brush’s tip, as well as how the bristles are fastened beneath the furuncle, affects their process of creating, as well as the final outcome. This article focuses on just the essential tools, which I have found are “elemental” to my technique of Watercolor Batik®.

-of-the box one ways to use similar others throw-away items, to enhance your art in at least one of many, many ways.

At the end of this article, I will introduce you to one of my frugal art tools created from what otherwise are “disposable” objects. I hope this spurs you on to join me in thinking outside

Paints I use professional artist quality paints that’s demonstrated in Chapter 8 where I delineate which colors I use from each line.

Several simple household items (which might otherwise be discarded), for a frugal and innovative artist, can become one’s favorite tool or device. In this chapter I outline the items which I have found are useful for a Watercolor Batik.

WATERCOLOR SUPPLIES

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You may have your own preferences for a line of watercolor, so please feel free to use what you already have and add to your collection as needed.

With all of these brands of watercolors, I can titrate the ratio of water to paint and achieve very light washes (translucent if the paint is a translucent watercolor) as well as very dark washes. All three paint brands come from fine artist pigments, are archival, lightfast, and transparent (unless opacity, such as Titanium White, is an inherent part of their color). Due to their purity, I can remix colors fairly accurately when needed. If these colors dry out on my palette or mixing container, they rehydrate well with a drop of water and the Dr Ph Martin line occasionally will need a drop or two of isopropyl alcohol; Brushes The majority of my brushes are 100% nylon or a synthetic faux sable. I use a #5 sable round brush and various other sizes depending on my painting.

They include a 0, #2, #4, #6, #10 and #14 rounds for paintings up to 25 x 37 in. (the largest sheet of Ginwashi rice paper I have found, although recently I have heard it can be bought in a roll 3 x 30 feet. I also frequently use a 1-inch flat, 2-inch filbert, and a 3-inch flat for paintings between 16 x 20 in. and 24/25 x 37 in. (I have found that the paper size varies slightly from sheet to sheet). I am careful to wash my brushes out after using them and dry them flat.

Additional Supplies I use sketching paper with an H or 2H graphite pencil to capture my inspiration, and I use a kneaded eraser while refining my sketch. Refer to Chapter 7 where I explain more about my preferred “Touch-Up” tools. I keep two water containers close by. I like to rinse my brushes first in one container of clear water, and then rinse them in the second to help remove any remaining color from the bristles.

Scrap paper is helpful for testing color mixes. It’s also helpful to have extra containers/dishes for mixing colors for large washes. That way, I do not need to keep remixing certain colors in the middle of a wash. I use cleaned containers such as those left over from purchased yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.

Paper towels are needed to clean and dry brushes. Do not use paper towels or tissue to blot the painting unless desperately needed, as even gentle blotting can tear the rice paper. Also, use an old kitchen towel for drying clean brushes.

PAPER Traditionally, fabric has been the support for dye-based batiks, but I will be teaching you in this book how to use the wax resist technique of batik with watercolor on fine rice paper. Rice paper and other fine papers from nature come in many thicknesses, colors, and styles. Some even have silver or gold threads running through them! I like to work with two particular types of paper and have detailed them below.

BRUSHES FOR THE WAX Designate certain brushes for waxing. I use older watercolor brushes that have lost their tip or inexpensive synthetic brushes. A “O” round is what I use for finer work, 1/2-inch flat for medium-sized arec}s , and a 3-inch synthetic house painting brush for the largest areas (for example, when I am covering the entire painting with wax in the last few steps of batiking). I know others who prefer natural hair bristles. Start by using one or two older watercolor brushes and experiment with how they handle the wax. If you like how they work for your watercolor paintings, they will probably be just fine for waxing. A set of the three brushes detailed above will have a life of about 40 to 50 half-sheet paintings, and then they will need to be replaced because of fraying of the bristles.

TJANTING I use the small tjanting whenever I need line work in a batik, such as when signing my name and saving linear aspects of a painting. Although batik artist friends also use the larger tjanting, I find it lets out too much wax for my style of batiking on rice paper. I also use the small tjanting when I need to apply wax in a tight comer or narrow space.

Part of the trick to using any tjanting is to dip the reservoir into the hot wax and then, as it is brought out of the wax, tum it on its side (this allows it to hold the hot wax but not let the wax pour out through the spout). Once it is out of the crock pot, I pull the tip along a short segment of a paper bag so if wax has pooled on its tip, this is wiped off before I put the instrument over my painting. If this is not done, occasionally a drop of wax will fall as I bring the tjanting to the area where I want to apply wax or a large drop of wax will settle into the first spot where I touch the tjanting down on my rice paper, resulting in a much larger area of wax application than intended.

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Practice using the tjanting before using it on a batik. After I use the tjanting and set it aside when applying watercolor to my painting, I find the next time I use it I need to hold it in the hot wax against the interior side of the crackpot for about 20 seconds so the hardened white paraffin wax (remaining in the reservoir after its last use} can melt, and then new hot wax can be captured in the reservoir. When the dried wax melts, sometimes a little bubble of air will come up from the reservoir and the previously white wax becomes clear.

Called an Encaustic Flow Pen, although it was originally designed for traditional batik artists. Enkausticos Wax Art Supplies suggests that it be plugged into a temperature regulator and that this, in tum, is then plugged into the wall outlet. An artist friend who uses this instrument finds that it quickly reaches very high temperatures even with the regulator. I have only learned of this electric flow pen. I have not yet tried this tool, but will be ordering one soon to evaluate for appropriateness for this method. Because of my friend’s concerns, I plan to plug it into my outlet just prior to my using the tool and utilize it in as many areas as possible.

Then not only will I turn the switch to off” but I will also unplug the device from my outlet.

BOARD Almost any board larger than your paper will work. I happen to use either a Masonite art board which is 24 x 24 in., or a plastic art board for my smaller paintings (for my largest paintings I use a piece of Masonite board which is about 30 x 36 in.). Some of my students have used foam core boards, and I even had one student use cardboard. I do not like the ridges the corrugated cardboard creates in the painting. Anything with a smooth, flat surface works.

FREEZER PAPER Freezer paper, plastic side up, is used as a barrier between my painting and the board. Most boards are porous to some degree and if no barrier is placed between the painting and the board, some of the watercolor and wax will penetrate the board. This is not a problem the first time around but if another painting is painted directly on the same board, I am concerned some of the watercolor from the first painting might make its way onto the new painting. Also, if one uses cardboard, the wax will penetrate the first few layers of the paper board and this makes removal of the painting from the cardboard challenging.

If I am using most of the board for my painting, I will wrap the paper around the edge of the board. If I am using a smaller portion of the board, I do not wrap the freezer paper around the outer edges of the board but cut the freezer paper so it is 2 in. wider in height and width than the rice paper painting and directly tape the freezer paper to the front of the board.

The rice paper is then taped to the freezer paper.

Belle Heppard’s work station.

TAPE Tape the freezer paper onto the board with anything which can be easily removed. I use either blue Painters or masking tape.

You could also use white painter’s tape for this. Choose a tape that is easy to remove from the very fine paper once the painting is completed. The only time I use masking tape is when I am creating a painting wider than the width of the freezer paper and the second layer of freezer paper overlaps the first piece (beneath where my painting will be). I prefer the muted, pale-yellow ochre color of the masking tape to tape of another color transparent behind my new creation.

Any tape with a prominent color or pattern of colors interferes with my visual color mixing during the times I need to look directly over this area when I am painting the rice paper over this area. It interferes with my ability to visualize the correct hue and value of the paint I am placing in that area.

TARP & PAPER BAG I always cover the table I am using with a tarp and the area where I am waxing with paper grocery bags. I do not have enough room for the crockpot at my painting table, but if you wish to have the crock pot where you are painting with your watercolors, simply set a paper bag near the crock pot.

I leave the pot of wax covered except when I am actively waxing. When I take the lid off, there is a little steam and hot wax condensation on the lid. I place the lid on one of the paper bag’s handle down on the bag, and by the time my painting is finished, the bag is very saturated with wax running off of the

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lower rim of the upside-down lid. Then I simply throw the paper bag away.

Remember, the hot wax will melt a plastic tarp or become imbedded in a cloth one! Thus, consider protecting your countertop with a paper product such as newsprint, or my go-to recycling standard — paper grocery bags. These bags offer a double thickness of a high-quality strong paper product, which guarantees protection of my counter. Occasionally, as in the video, I use a sheet of craft paper (when viewing the video created solely to premiere in this issue of ArtDiction, Watercolor Batik® 101, Lesson 3 “The Technique,” I mention using paper in this situation because of its importance).

I like the thickness and disposability of the paper bags, especially in the direct vicinity of the crockpot and waxing brushes.

Instead of paper bags, you could use another tarp and place a paper bag or two over it, near the crockpot, for the lid and brushes to be placed on. After using the brushes to wax an area of my painting, I set them on a bag because occasionally a little wax drips off of them. Once again, I throw this bag out when my painting is complete. The remaining bags I use over again.

WAX Many types of wax are available. Paraffin, a clear wax, can easily be purchased at your local grocery store (you can find it in the canning section) and it works well for all batiking methods. It cracks nicely when the fabric or paper is crinkled.

The Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA) has declared it non-toxic. I notice after multiple heatings in the crockpot, the paraffin develops a slight yellow hue. This mild color change does not show when the paraffin is placed on the rice paper nor is any color from it left on the batik after the wax is ironed off.

Beeswax has a yellow hue to it and is a soft wax. It is softer than paraffin and does not crack easily when crinkled. If you have a painting where you want a minimal amount of cracks in the wax (in a little bit I will discuss why we want cracks in the wax), consider using beeswax. Despite great efforts at removing all the wax from my paintings once they are completed, there is a microscopic amount remaining. Thus, when beeswax is used, a pale-yellow hue may be noticed over the entire painting. One can purchase clear refined beeswax which has its natural yellow hue removed and has the same qualities of natural beeswax.

Sticky wax (micro-crystaline) cracks very little. “Batik wax” is a pre-made, 85/15% mixture of paraffin and sticky wax. By mixing waxes, you can control the amount of cracking.

Soy wax is water-soluble and fume-free. I prefer paraffin at this time. I like the amount of cracking it gives me in the final stages of batiking, and it is inexpensive. Because it is clear, sometimes I have a hard time seeing where I place it, but I can feel its smooth texture to tell where it is.

CROCK POT I use an 8-in. diameter crock pot (smaller ones are available too) to heat my wax. You can also use an electric frying pan, electric wok, or Bunsen burner. Whichever device you use, make sure it has a lid, can maintain a constant wax temperature of about 290°F, and may remain on for as many hours as you anticipate batiking in a day.

My crock pot has three settings: Low, High, and Off. The low heat will melt the wax, but by the time I move my brush from the pot to my painting, the wax has dried. I use the “High” setting where the wax reaches a temperature of 290°F (or 143° Celsius). If, having already dipped my brush into the wax, I pause too long before applying it, it too will harden before application. In that situation, I simply dip the tip of my brush back into the pot and roll the brush up against the inside of the pot above the liquid wax line. This causes the wax to melt off the bristles. I then dip the tip back into the hot wax and promptly carry the wax to where I want it.

If you use a crock pot as I do, consider placing it on a chopping block, which sits on top of your table or countertop covered with a tarp or paper bags. This way the bags/tarp/tabletop will not overheat. I am cognizant of this because I have my crock pot on up to 12 hours a day. I unplug it for a period of time at least every four hours and then plug it back in 15 to 30 minutes later to prevent overheating of the pot.

Make sure your room is well ventilated and the wax is not over-heated if you are using paraffin, as it is flammable.

HAIR DRYER I use a hair dryer often (although I rarely use it, if ever, for my traditional watercolor paintings) to help dry.

SUPPORT BOARD Almost any board larger than your paper will work. I happen to use either a masonite art board that is 24 x 24 in. or a plastic art board for my smaller paintings. For my largest paintings, I use a piece of masonite board that is about 30 x 36 in. Some of my students have used foam core boards, and I even had one student use cardboard. Personally, I do not like the ridges the corrugated cardboard creates in the painting. Anything with a smooth, flat surface works.

FREEZER PAPER Freezer paper, plastic side up, is used as a barrier between my painting and the board. Most boards are porous to some degree and if no barrier is placed between the painting and the board, some of the watercolor and wax will penetrate the board. This is not a problem the first time around, but if another painting is painted directly on the same board, I am concerned some of the watercolor from the first painting might make its way onto the new painting. Also, if one uses

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cardboard, the wax will penetrate the first few layers of the paper board, and this makes removal of the painting from the cardboard challenging.

If I am using most of the board for my painting, I will wrap the freezer paper around the edge of the board. If I am using a smaller portion of the board, I do not wrap the freezer paper around the outer edges of the board b t cut the freezer paper so it is two in. wider in height and width than the rice paper painting and directly tape the freezer paper to the front of the board. The rice paper is then taped to the freezer paper.

Most major online and retail art suppliers carry these papers.

They come from the Awagami Factory in Japan. Ginwashi gets its name from the hemp fibers which resemble “Gin” or “silver.” The papers from the Awagami Factory are detailed in the table below.

OLD TOWEL AND IRONING BOARD I place an old towel over my ironing surface in case any wax leaches beyond the papers (detailed below) so it does not contaminate my board or hard surface. I either use my household ironing board or my kitchen island countertop.

NEWSPRINT Unprinted newsprint, such as from a pad bought at an art supply store, or craft paper, is needed to assist in removing the wax from your painting once your painting is completed.

Newspapers may also be used but not in place of the craft paper or plain newsprint.

I use about three days’ worth of old newspaper and about 8 to 16 feet of craft paper the width of my rice paper painting (if you are using 1/4 sheet of rice paper, which is 12 x 18 in. in size, plan on using eight feet of 24-inch width paper). Alterna-

tively, I sometimes use plain newsprint purchased from an art supply store. In Chapter 7, I discuss how to lay your painting between the various papers for optimal wax removal and to maintain a perfect painting.

IRON An iron is needed upon completion of the painting to iron off the wax from the rice paper. I use a household iron on the “cotton” setting. When I apply heat from the iron to the sandwich of papers (described above) with my painting in the middle, I sweep the iron over the papers, constantly moving the iron and covering the entire surface area where the painting is located.

Initially, I used a lower “acetate-nylon” setting. However, one day I mistakenly used the hotter “cotton” setting and discovered the wax pulled off more readily. I now use this hotter setting but make sure I use a constant, sweeping motion so I do not overheat or burn any of the materials.

FRUGAL ART TOOLS Plastic Lids — Use these as paint/water catch trays. If you have a brush rack to support your art brushes while being used, place this beneath the head of each brush to keep your workspace clean.

Toe Separators — Place two glue dots on the bottom edge of a clean sponge toe separator. Apply the sponge to the plastic rimmed lid, and voila! You have a brush support with a drip tray attached!

The Artist Angle — This tool teaches perspective and captures perspective/relationships of items. It was just awarded a U.S. Patent in November 2020 for being the first ever Perspective teaching instrument and capturing tool. Go to ArtistAngle.com to learn more and order for yourself and your art class!

Belle (Martha) Heppard, MD Martha.Gallery ArtistAngle.com belle@heppard.com info@ArtistAngle.com

Types of Awagami Factory Paper Paper

Weight

Full Sheet Size (in.)

Description

Unryu

11 grams

24 x 37

Very fine, difficult to work with, same details as listed below for 24 grams

Unryu

24 grams

24 x 37

Fine paper, with a mild amount of finely textured kozo fibers running through the paper. Availa-ble in many colors and op-tions for silver or gold threads running through the paper. This is a great paper for batik beginners.

Ginwashi

24 to 39 grams

24 x 27

Heavier density of hemp fibers running through the paper, and the fibers are thicker and shorter than those in Unryu.

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OUR FAIR CITY: BUILDING A MORE EQUITABLE NEW YORK www. https://www.mcny.org/

artist & ad index

Page C3 Artsy https://www.artsy.net/ Page 40 Belle Heppard https://artistangle.com/ Page C2 Jackson Art https://www.jacksonsart.com/ Page C2 Jackson’s Art Supply https://www.jacksonsart.com/ Page 16 Niytanga Oliver http://www.tangadesigns.rw/index.html Page 15 PACE Gallery https://www.pacegallery.com/galleries/new-york/ Page C4 Philadelphia Museum of Art https://www.philamuseum.org/ Page 10 Resilience Auction www.resilienceauction.org Page 8 Swan Auction Galleries https://www.swanngalleries.com/

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ARTSY.NET

Altar Artist/maker unknown Late 19th - early 20th century