Uzbek Ikat: The Personal Saga of an Exceptional Cloth

Marilyn’s textile journey started with pack animals, llamas to be precise, and rapidly moved from there to spinning, then knitting, then weaving, and then to exploring textiles around the world. In the process, she became passionate about learning a wide variety of textile folk arts. She shares her knowledge through demonstrations at museums, projects with children, and through her book “Creative Crafts of the World.”

Our program this month will be a blend of travelogue and technique. We will explore the traditional Ikat techniques of the Uzbek people in Central Asia. In Marilyn’s own words:

Experience the exotic in your own home town; travel to Central Asia in this multi-media presentation. We have all seen Uzbek Ikat on the runway in New York and London, now travel back to Uzbekistan with Marilyn to watch the process of its production. Each thread manipulated, dyed, and woven into exquisite cloth – truly hand-crafted. Plus, a show-and-tell after the presentation.

Marilyn’s presentation will be followed by a question and answer session, and then by our own guild Show and Tell.

Our March speaker will be Miriam Omura. Miriam is a textile and visual artist who works with many types of media, including weaving, fabric and photography. She will be speaking to us about her unique warp painting technique. Miriam will first describe the technique she uses and then take us on a journey through some of her pieces and their stories.

Memories result is a translation that acts as an interpretation of an event. As an immigrant, I have found my place through trying to understanding culture and place. This began with my past work, which dealt with personal identity through memory and family history connected to England and Sri Lanka. In recent years, that focus has shifted to exploring broader overlapping concerns that intersect with identity and social issues. Building on ideas of perspective and perception developed in my past work, my current imagery attempts to understand and ask questions about who and what makes up society around us. In looking for a way to comment on issues that will invite conversation and further investigation on the part of tthe viewer.

The memories we recall can be intentionally or accidentally distorted, changing without our realization. When memories are retrieved, they fuse with other memories to produce an unclear view that sits between truth and fiction. As a memory is recalled, it becomes layered and reshaped by the chemical process of retrieval in the brain. It is my hope to visually capture these ideas within my work, showing the intangible aspects of memory.

Also of interest is her story about moving from being working in museums to becoming an entrepreneur. 

Artist Website

Textile Traditions of the Peruvian Highlands

During this hour long hosted video presentation, weavers, dyers, knitters, and spinners of the Peruvian highlands who are cooperative members of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) are featured. The focus is on the preservation and revitalization of their traditional textile arts—including some techniques dating back to the Incas. These include the Andean way of spinning, dyeing, and knitting, as well as the tools to create belts, bands, textiles, woven edges, and skirt borders. Through the video clips and images, the weaving of doubleweave, ikat, tapestry, and discontinuous and supplementary warps are also highlighted.

This video program is narrated by ATA board member and well-known doubleweave author and teacher, Jennifer Moore. In addition to the video presentation, one or two ATA board members will be present on the scheduled Zoom call to field questions in real time at the end of the video. The total program, with the Q&A, is about one hour.

“Textile Traditions of the Peruvian Highlands” is an inspiring virtual visit to the weavers, spinners, knitters, and dyers of the Peruvian Highlands. It is an opportunity to “travel” to this part of the world and be exposed to the area’s unique traditional textiles and cultures.

Mayumi Fujio has always enjoyed working with her hands to blend imagination into her creations. She loves learning traditional craft techniques – Ikebana, silver jewelry, ceramic art, sewing, dying with mushroom, and knitting. Fiber art is a natural progression and botanical printing is bringing together all of the handicraft skills she developed in the past. Her inspiration comes from art, nature, and simply looking at flowers and plants wherever she goes. After learning the technique of botanical printing, Mayumi has been experimenting with the combination of traditional and newly discovered natural dye techniques. As a modern craft, botanical printing is a constant cycle of learning and experimentation, yet it can never be fully controlled. Just like nature.

Her latest series is a combination of mushroom dye and botanical prints.All the plants she uses are ethically harvested from the Bay Area and her art pieces are sold at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Seattle Asian Art Museum, and other prestigious art fairs around the Bay Area.

Her website is: https://www.mayumix.com

The Intersection of Weaving and Dyeing

Although weaving and dyeing are two distinct textile skills, the combination and integration of these processes one can vastly expand a design vocabulary. The result is a more complex and personalized finished textile. Applications for these weave/dye combinations include ikat, woven shibori, and cross dyeing. The primary focus of this talk will be the use of natural dyes, but synthetic dye use is also applicable. Catharine will share her thought process, her dye choices, and talk about the evolution of her woven and dyed work over more than 40 years.

Catharine Ellis has been a weaver and a dyer for over 40 years. After three decades of teaching the Fiber Program at Haywood Community College in NC she is now dedicated to studio work, focusing on natural dye processes. She also does specialized, selected teaching, in the U.S. and internationally. Recent projects include teaching natural dyeing in Guatemalan through Mayan Hands.

Catharine is the originator of the woven shibori process and author of the instructional book, Woven Shibori (Interweave Press, 2005) and The Weaver’s Studio – Woven Shibori: Revised and Updated (Interweave Press, 2016). Her most recent publication is The Art and Science of Natural Dyes: Principles, Experiments, and Results (2019). All three books are available to borrow from the guild library.

Catharine’s Website
Catharine’s Blog

The Programs Committee is happy to announce our 2021-2022 programs. At this time, all guild meetings will be conducted via Zoom until it is safe to meet in person again. Meetings are on 3rd Thursdays of each month, beginning at 7PM. Zoom links are available in the Member’s Calendar.

• September 16, 2021 – Ginger Summit: Felting
• October 21, 2021 – Deborah Corsini: Wedge Weave
• November 18, 2021 – Catharine Ellis: The Intersection of Weaving and Dyeing
• December 16, 2021 – Holiday Party (in person if safe, Zoom social if not)
• January 20, 2022 – Mayumi Fujio: Mushroom Dye
• February 17, 2022 – Andean Textile Council Board Member: Textile Traditions of the Andes
• March 17, 2022 – Miriam Omura: Warp Painting
• April 21, 2022 – Marilyn Romatka: Uzbek Ikat
• May 26, 2022 – CNCH 2022 Shared Experiences (note changed date due to CNCH 2022; in person if safe, Zoom social if not)
• June 16, 2022 – Elections, Guild Sale / Social (in person if safe, Zoom social if not)