Thank you Hanna, for this great foray into history. You have informed me so much since I started following you, it has changed my views so much on European colonisation, and all the things around this. I’m sure my friends and acquaintances are sick of me quoting you, but I’m hoping to inform people like you have inspired me! Thank you!
Oh you are welcome. The ridiculous imbalance, consumption, violence and climate disasters we live with right now have their roots in our own pasts and at some point we have to take responsibility for our ancestors and for ourselves. I always hope that if people are able to connect properly with the intellects behind non-European textiles, we will begin to see the rest of the world not just as humans, but as marvellous universes, as all of us are. And to then act accordingly. The longer I look at the West the more I realise we are and have always been the true barbarians.
I'm fairly sure I've seen stenciled silk that predates the introduction of Indian printed cotton, but it's nothing like the amazing detail of the printed cotton. They appeared to be imitating damask, so it never would be as detailed. Silk accepts dye fairly readily, but linen has, until recently, been hard to dye in a strong colour, let alone print on it. I'm not sure how the process has changed, but 30-40 years ago you just didn't get the strong colours in linen that you get now, and anything printed barely penetrated the fabric. It's hard to imagine a world with largely unpatterned fabric!
Australia also has a plant that produces indigo - indigofera australis(?) - but I've never seen anyone get a decent amount of colour from it. I think it's related to wattle, from memory.
Silk itself being a fabric the technology and worms for which was stolen from China nd came to France via Italy, I would be surprised if anything innovative in silk painting would have come out of Europe, as whatever Europe managed to do with silk was old news in non-western countries centuries before. Linen can be dyed easily in woad or indigo - this is one of the many magics of indigo is that unlike mordanted dyes, indigo, which is a vat dye, works by oxidising onto fabric and will do that equally well withe vegetable fibres or with keratin fibres. Indians obtained fabulous deep reds and other colours on vegetable fibres - just see that link i added into the newsletter - those are all cottons and what dyes cotton will dye linen - it's all just a matter of quantity and weight. The reason you won't see modern dyers dyeing vegetable fibres in anything except indigo is because very few of them know how to do anything beyond the most simplistic things - there are very very few truly good natural dyers in the Western world today, and most of what you see advertised or on social media is rubbish.
Indigofera australis is indeed a real indigofera, it's not a wattle, and it can give beautiful soft blues. It's also the only temperate indigofera. My ex was supposed to be experimenting on making sukumo with australis, to see whether that would concentrate the colour in the same way that it does with persicaria - but I don't know what happened to thast project and currently and for the imaginable future I don't much care!
I’ve only ever retrieved enough pigment from (generous armfuls of) my indigofera australis to make a little paint, or (in reduction) to dye tiny samples…but I suspect results might be more satisfying if I were not trying to grow it in the driest state of the driest continent.
Yes I am sure that makes a difference to the pigment levels. I’ve seen some very beautiful soft blues achieved by a dyer in Melbourne who has spent a great deal of time researching and experimenting with it.
There was someone from Tasmania showing some very solid samples at the ISEND conference on natural dyes at La Rochelle in 2011, but I cannot for the life of me recall her name…
I LOVED this newsletter, and life is politics, through and through, so you won’t hear any grumbles from me. Thanks very much for investing so much labour in it.
Fantastic! My foray into color was first self-study/intellectual and now includes physically growing woad and indigo (among other cultivated dye plants) and it's always so wonderful to continue to flesh out what I know about the history of use of these plants. In my education of others on site at our community farm, I love to include connections to the long history of plants we are working with. Thank you for adding to what I know and relating it to current day political syndromes! :)
Thank you for this wonderful piece. It is so good to realise the inherent biases we have and which we have grown up with in the west. The more I read, the less I know.
Thanks for this article Hanna. You have such a depth of knowledge of global textile history that you can see the bigger picture and explain it most succinctly to your readers. I appreciate the effort you put into these writings and hope you get to the place you wish to be with your writing. Sincere thanks and support.
Thank you Hanna, for this great foray into history. You have informed me so much since I started following you, it has changed my views so much on European colonisation, and all the things around this. I’m sure my friends and acquaintances are sick of me quoting you, but I’m hoping to inform people like you have inspired me! Thank you!
Oh you are welcome. The ridiculous imbalance, consumption, violence and climate disasters we live with right now have their roots in our own pasts and at some point we have to take responsibility for our ancestors and for ourselves. I always hope that if people are able to connect properly with the intellects behind non-European textiles, we will begin to see the rest of the world not just as humans, but as marvellous universes, as all of us are. And to then act accordingly. The longer I look at the West the more I realise we are and have always been the true barbarians.
Totally agree with you! Thanks for replying!
Wonderful as always!
Just because:
I'm fairly sure I've seen stenciled silk that predates the introduction of Indian printed cotton, but it's nothing like the amazing detail of the printed cotton. They appeared to be imitating damask, so it never would be as detailed. Silk accepts dye fairly readily, but linen has, until recently, been hard to dye in a strong colour, let alone print on it. I'm not sure how the process has changed, but 30-40 years ago you just didn't get the strong colours in linen that you get now, and anything printed barely penetrated the fabric. It's hard to imagine a world with largely unpatterned fabric!
Australia also has a plant that produces indigo - indigofera australis(?) - but I've never seen anyone get a decent amount of colour from it. I think it's related to wattle, from memory.
And, lastly, please keep being political!
Silk itself being a fabric the technology and worms for which was stolen from China nd came to France via Italy, I would be surprised if anything innovative in silk painting would have come out of Europe, as whatever Europe managed to do with silk was old news in non-western countries centuries before. Linen can be dyed easily in woad or indigo - this is one of the many magics of indigo is that unlike mordanted dyes, indigo, which is a vat dye, works by oxidising onto fabric and will do that equally well withe vegetable fibres or with keratin fibres. Indians obtained fabulous deep reds and other colours on vegetable fibres - just see that link i added into the newsletter - those are all cottons and what dyes cotton will dye linen - it's all just a matter of quantity and weight. The reason you won't see modern dyers dyeing vegetable fibres in anything except indigo is because very few of them know how to do anything beyond the most simplistic things - there are very very few truly good natural dyers in the Western world today, and most of what you see advertised or on social media is rubbish.
Indigofera australis is indeed a real indigofera, it's not a wattle, and it can give beautiful soft blues. It's also the only temperate indigofera. My ex was supposed to be experimenting on making sukumo with australis, to see whether that would concentrate the colour in the same way that it does with persicaria - but I don't know what happened to thast project and currently and for the imaginable future I don't much care!
I’ve only ever retrieved enough pigment from (generous armfuls of) my indigofera australis to make a little paint, or (in reduction) to dye tiny samples…but I suspect results might be more satisfying if I were not trying to grow it in the driest state of the driest continent.
Yes I am sure that makes a difference to the pigment levels. I’ve seen some very beautiful soft blues achieved by a dyer in Melbourne who has spent a great deal of time researching and experimenting with it.
There was someone from Tasmania showing some very solid samples at the ISEND conference on natural dyes at La Rochelle in 2011, but I cannot for the life of me recall her name…
I LOVED this newsletter, and life is politics, through and through, so you won’t hear any grumbles from me. Thanks very much for investing so much labour in it.
Fantastic! My foray into color was first self-study/intellectual and now includes physically growing woad and indigo (among other cultivated dye plants) and it's always so wonderful to continue to flesh out what I know about the history of use of these plants. In my education of others on site at our community farm, I love to include connections to the long history of plants we are working with. Thank you for adding to what I know and relating it to current day political syndromes! :)
This was an excellent read thank you.
Thank you for this wonderful piece. It is so good to realise the inherent biases we have and which we have grown up with in the west. The more I read, the less I know.
Thanks for this article Hanna. You have such a depth of knowledge of global textile history that you can see the bigger picture and explain it most succinctly to your readers. I appreciate the effort you put into these writings and hope you get to the place you wish to be with your writing. Sincere thanks and support.