Folk Art Chronicles

We are very pleased that Kongthong Nanthavong-doungsy will be visiting us again this year from Vientiane, Laos and bringing along a “trunk” of exquisite woven textiles that she and her workshop, Phaeng Mai Gallery, have been working on since her visit a year ago.  This year she has concentrated on the symbolic and folkloric aspects of Lao weaving and has also adapted this rich tradition to some contemporary items as well. Kongthong’s textiles are all hand woven from natural fibers and dyed with natural dyes. She will be at the FolkArt Gallery on this coming Saturday, June 19 from 12pm to 5pm. Join us to learn more about the place weaving holds in the culture of Laos and about the rich symbolism of the designs.

“In Laos it is an honor to be a skilled weaver. The majority of Lao women are weavers and are therefore capable of judging at a glance the quality of a textile. The ability to produce intricately woven pieces using the finest quality yarns, a variety of weaves, and the richest dyes reflects well not only on the weaver but also on her family”. ( Mary Connors, Lao Textiles and Traditions.)

The Lao people have been raising silkworms, dying silk, and weaving with many motifs and designs for at least 3000 years.

The folk tales, poems and proverbs of Lao culture are woven into the textiles. The traditions of the community, the motifs and the use of different types of textiles are transmitted orally from grandmothers and mothers as they teach young girls the techniques of weaving.

Many of these stories are woven into the sihn (the simple elegant ankle length skirt worn by Lao women) and each woman’s personal aspirations and dreams materialize as butterflies for beauty, birds for success and snakes for fertility in her textiles.

The most prevalent designs are the nagas which appear in many many forms and has its origins in both Buddhist and animist tradition. The naga is the gigantic mythical serpent that lives in the Mekong river which is inseparably intertwined with the livelihood of the Lao people.

The Lao speak of their mother ngueak, a serpent goddess that had a human face and could turn into a human at will. She had powers over water, a crucial resource for growing rice and the source of life force and well-being of the people. The serpents guarded the treasures of the earth, living in caverns full of gems and crystal water and often ventured into the realms of humans, seducing and procreating with them. They are loved as ancestors of the Lao people in myths and legends.

In Buddhist iconography, there are serpents called nagas, the most famous of which protected the Buddha from floods at the enlightenment. The naga is the link between the realm of the gods and humans, the profound and the mundane. They can become human, protect and bring rain. The naga represents female energy, the power of nature and the earth.  (Elli Findley, Trinity College).

The Lao people show their respect to the Naga in different ways and will not hurt snakes and nagas. The people avoid wearing red clothes, red headscarves and red banded skirts when crossing a river because red is the color of the nagas crest. When a naga sees people wearing red as they cross the river, it will assume they do not respect him and will teach them a lesson.

There is a poem addressing the supernatural powers of the Ngeuk Laeng saying:

Help me to make water run uphill:

Help me to bring the boat through the rapids:

Help me to take the Ngeuk Laeng to crush the mountain.

The “candlehouse naga” is invoked in a festival to give thanks to the river and ask for its blessing. The drought naga (Ngeuk Laeng) is believed to have the power to cause storms, rain and drought.

We will try and post additional patterns and their meanings after speaking with Kongthong during her visit on Saturday.

Batik Maker Hartono

We are so pleased to be able to host Hartono, a talented young batik maker from central Java,  for presentations and demonstrations in the Gallery this weekend! This will be his first visit to the US and his first stop on a brief tour of the SF Bay area.

Along with rice farming, batik making has been a way of life for his family and their small village. The complex batik cloths embody the culture, customs, ceremonies and history of the island of Java, a center of batik making for over 150 years.  It is a process that can only be done by individual artisans using centuries old techniques.

Batik making is an immensely time-consuming and laborious process but the final results are glorious!

Drawing the Pattern

Each step in the process depends on the one before it; if the design is poorly drawn on the cloth, the batik maker cannot usually improve it with the canting, the tool used to apply the wax. If the wax is not properly applied, the color can leak through and cause an unwanted result when the wax is removed. If the coloring is not good, the end result will not be good, regardless of the beauty of the design and the skill of the batik maker.

Designing is a Special Skill

Batik making is by nature a collaborative process. Many different skills are required and usually only one person masters each skill. Women are most skilled in applying the wax.

Rinsing the Wax from the Cloth

Once all the layers of wax are created and dyed one by one,  the next step is to remove the wax.

An integral part of the process and the foundation of a beautiful batik is the creation of the dyes.  Managing the chemistry of coloring  is a skill that is highly guarded and can only be acquired by trial and error. Many things can affect the results from reactive dyes such as the weather, the water, the type of cloth, and the quality of the dyestuff.

The initial step, after the design is created, involves drawing the designs on the cloth. Men skilled only in drafting usually draw the designs on the cloth . Yet another person who could be a man or a woman usually creates the designs. Men almost always do the coloring.  Often the batik maker has mastered a repertoire of hundreds of different designs, which include the central designs as well as the filler patterns.

Many Dye Baths for Many Colors

Making a multi-colored cloth requires many dye bath immersions. Each new area of color is then covered with wax, so it’s easy to forget what colors are underneath by the third or fourth application of wax. One only hopes that the contrast between colors is strong enough to show the detail of the designs applied with the canting tool.

The verb for taking out the wax from a batik is “lorod”. It is the most exciting step of a long process.  The batik cloth is immersed in boiling water and lift out with a smooth stick and held over the cauldron a few seconds to allow the melted wax to run off before it is plunged again into the water. this is repeated many times until the cloth is free of wax.

Inspecting the Batik

A Beautiful Textile Emerges

Hartono who makes most of the batik in our collection will be visiting the US for the first time in October, coming from his village in Central Java and bringing a wonderful collection of new batik, along with the tools of his trade to give a series of presentations and workshops. Hartono is both a master of the chemistry of the dyes as well as an innovative designer who draws on the designs of many cultures to create new patterns which he blends with the more traditional designs of the Javanese patterns to create scarves, shawls and apparel. He has been experimenting with Korean silks as well as handwoven silks and cottons from Laos and Cambodia.

October 9:   Slide Presentation & Demonstration. 6 to 8pm.

October 10:   Demonstrations & Trunk Show. 12 to 5pm.

Location:   The FolkArt Gallery, 1321 4th Street, San Rafael, Ca.

415-925-9096

Thank you to the readers of J Weekly for voting the FolkArt Gallery the best place to buy gifts in the North Bay! We really appreciate it.

According to J Weekly, “If you are looking for an exotic gift from any corner of the planet, Folk Art Gallery in San Rafael is likely to have it. Owner Sharon Christovich hand picks traditional items from various cultures around the world. Unique pieces include Retablos, “picture boxes” from Peru, and beaded figures from Zulu women in South Africa. “My store is not a tourist or airport art store — these pieces are traditional to their culture, hand crafted by artists whose work I personally check for quality,” Christovich says.

If college textbooks had been published in magazine form, there is no doubt I would have been an A+ student.  I do love books of all kind but something about the sight of a magazine just makes my heart beat a little faster. What mysteries and new ideas are waiting inside these delicious little packages that entice me to explore further? Such time and effort are lavished on the magazine form; who made the rule that says scholarly topics must be treated in boring, drab, colorless style lacking in beauty and sense of design. After all, knowledge is beautiful; why put it in an unattractive package? Of course you shouldn’t need to be enticed to learn, but why not absorb beauty, intrigue and good design sense while you are already engaged?

So what wonderful treasures did I find irresistible on the news stand this month? I have barely begun to read them yet but some of the things that caught my eye:

American Style, which deals with art, craft, and design issues, has a terrific discussion about “Who are (art) Collectors?” and “What makes them tick?”  I love this magazine because it always shows the interesting ways that art collectors integrate their collections into their environments.

The front cover of Antiques shows a beautiful eclectic collection of folk art and the editor’s letter begins the issue by discussing the definition of folk art. And again, we see how collectors find innovative ways to live with their treasures.

Even the ads in these two publications are gorgeous!

I bought Time magazine for its tribute to Ted Kennedy, but tucked near the back is a thought provoking article about the cultural symbolism of Michelle Obama’s hairstyles to African American women.

Afar turns out to be the premier issue of a new magazine published in San Francisco and promises “Experimental travel connects you with the authentic essence of a place and its people, deepening your understanding of the world, its cultures, and yourself.” The article that caught my eye is “On the road in Morocco” focusing on the culture of the indigenous Berber people.

How could I not purchase Steppe focusing on Central Asia, an area that has captivated my interest since learning as a child about the Silk Road and Marco Polo. Silk ikats, yurts, Buddhism, Islam, Babur’s Gardens, the magic of towns like Bukhara, Samarkand:  ahhhh!

In our ongoing mission to build bridges between different parts of our local community; between different cultures; and between traditional and contemporary arts, I will collaborate again this year with Artworks Downtown to present our biannual exhibition for Dia de los Muertos, “Rooted in Tradition, Relevant Today”. Because this lively, vibrant traditional celebration from Mexico has parallels in many other cultures, contemporary artists have found fertile territory to explore in their own lives and work.

We are looking for local artists who would like to create an altar installation for the show which will run from October 8 until November 20, 2009. Installations can be very personal or can explore more general themes. The opening reception and party will be on October 9th.

The deadline to apply is coming upon us very quickly, the first week in September. If you are interested, please call me at the FolkArt Gallery (415-925-9096) or Artworks Downtown (415-451-8119).

Altars in family homes in rural Mexico follow traditional constraints and are always for specific people. They use candles, flowers, special foods and drink, incense, photographs and evocative objects referring to a specific person. Urban and community altars are less constrained, usually exuberant, fantastical and refer to more general community themes. They are composed of a wider range of objects including paintings, drawing sculptural objects, poetry and drawings and other mixed media memorializations.

Our traditional annual altar at the FolkArt Gallery will be available for viewing on October 1st and will include some wonderful new one-of-a-kind catrinas that we are just now unpacking from Michoacan, Mexico. Read the rest of this entry »

The much anticipated opening party for the 11^th annual Box Show at Gallery Route One was great fun as usual but there was nothing usual about the selection of boxes in the show. It is amazing to me that when you give 150 artists exactly the same box to begin with, the end results are so completely different. Since the artists work in such a wide range of media in their regular artwork, creating a box is a step outside of the normal milieu for most of us and the challenge pushes our boundaries a bit. This is what makes the process so much fun for me personally. From the time we pick up the boxes to the deadline date, about 8 weeks elapse. Generally, I spend first 4 weeks thinking about the shape & dimension of the box as well as deciding on a theme. The second 4 weeks is spent on executing the actual work. This year, rather than doing a serious narrative piece or something in the line of Joseph Cornell, I decided to take a more playful, design-oriented path. During the planning stage, I had gone to see the Nick Cave exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF and immediately knew that I wanted to do something inspired by the colorful, playful craft of Nick Cave. All the components are recycled or repurposed materials, such as an old sweater, teeshirt and bottle caps. The piece is titled “The Center of the Earth, an homage to Nick Cave”.

Gallery Route One is an exciting community based arts organization based on the belief that art is an intellectual and spiritual necessity that belongs in every community. The mission is provide a professional exhibition space for artwork and a program that addresses the cultural, political, and environmental concerns of the rural community of West Marin and the greater Bay Area. The annual Box Show raises about $20,000 yearly to fund the various programs of the organization.

Some pieces had substantial bids by the close of the opening party and bidding will continue daily right up to the auction at the closing party on September 13.

Gallery Route One, 11101 Hwy 1, Point Reyes Station. Open 11am to 5 pm daily except Tuesday. 415-663-1347.

There has been a fair amount of discussion lately about viewing the world through the lens of our own individual life experiences and whether this is or is not preferable to being “objective”. Or even if there is such a state as “objectivity”. I worry more about the people who claim that they can be totally objective all the time than about those who acknowledge and own their particular “lens” which are built upon our backgrounds, our geography and our personal temperaments. It’s definitely something to be aware of and sometimes, something to celebrate—the uniqueness that each of us can bring to the table. And, as long as we extend the same respect for the experience of others, it’s part of what makes the world such a fascinating place. It’s also what makes the world such a contentious place and the cause of most of the problems between people.

In this light, there are a variety of blogs and news sources that are very helpful

Events are best viewed through the filters of many points of view and today’s technology makes it so much easier to learn about each other outside of the established information and media sources we have always relied upon. The truth is discerned less from the grand events and pronouncements of governments and institutions than from small ordinary experiences of citizens in their daily lives. In this light, there are a variety of blogs that I greatly enjoy for the personal insights they give into other cultures. Of particular interest are several from the traditional cultures of Muslim countries often in the news here in the States.

Saudi Jeans is written by Ahmed Al-Omran, a young university student in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. His blog aims to provide news, commentary, and personal views on political and social issues in Saudi Arabia, with a special focus on freedom of expression, human rights and women’s rights. His commentary provides a window into daily life and the concerns of Saudi youth not found in mainstream media.

Susie’s Big Adventure is another of my favorites. Susie is an American woman, married to a Saudi man who wanted to move back to his country after spending 30 years with her in the states. She comments on the realities of living in a strict Muslim country and an even stricter male-dominated society through the eyes of an American.

Afaque and Tazeen are young people writing about their lives and thoughts from different cities in Pakistan. Afaque calls his blog Muddleheaded and Tazeen has named hers A Reluctant Mind.

These are young people who will influence the futures of their countries and the greater world. You will also find other interesting young people in their countries by checking out whose blogs they personally follow. It’s a great way to develop a network of information and contacts around the world.

I absolutely love the motto of the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles: “Because a shrinking world requires an expanded mind!”

I‘ve followed this Museum, founded in 1973, since before it even existed—it evolved from an amazing shop on Wilshire boulevard called The Egg and I—created by Edith Wyle an intrepid cultural explorer.

We share a similar vision that diverse and myriad cultures can be understood through art which reflects universal themes common to us all.

It is amazing what can be accomplished in a modest space with a well curated exhibition. Such is the case with the two current shows at the Museum.

Celestial Ash: Assemblages from Los Angeles introduced me to four artists from southern California that I didn’t previously know: Matjames, Exene Cervenka, Gail Greenfield and Michael McMillen.

Curated by Kristine McKenna, the show’s common thread is the influence of Joseph Cornell and an emotional, introspective treatment of their materials. According to McKenna, (it’s) what they bring to these materials that transforms them. They revere what these objects represent: the past, and a kind of America that’s rapidly disappearing. They treat the objects as holy relics, so that’s how we read them.”

Matjames was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home, studio and much of his work. His artwork elevates objects that have been disregarded and discarded and gives them new value and meaning.

“People have their grandparents’ tea sets in their cabinets and hold them in high regard. But why can’t other objects be held in that same regard? I find a pencil on the ground and I bring it home. What could have been written by that pencil? It might have been a school kid’s pencil, or it could have been Einstein’s. There’s an energy to each thing. It carries a history, a haunting.”

For Exene Cervenka, “it’s all about the past, re-creating the past, reinterpreting the past.”

During the 30 years that she toured with the band X, she kept journals that evolved into picture books with fragments of poetry and keepsakes and eventually became collages.

Cervenka’s assemblages in the exhibition incorporate newspapers, dictionary pages, jigsaw puzzles, greeting cards, butterfly charts, Christian imagery, empty photo corners, blank labels and assorted small objects.

Gail Greenfield Randall fills the shelves of her shadowboxes with found objects and personal keepsakes: sea urchin spines, a miniature Bible, old medicine bottles, polished stones, small rusty bells. She remembers her grandmother “had a drawer that had dividers and each of the compartments held something delicious: like seashells, a pocket watch, a sewing kit, a cameo, a pair of old passports, a lock of hair. “I just loved it. When she passed away, I started making assemblages, using some of the materials I’ve collected over the years and objects that had belonged to her. I found the form not just therapeutic but incredibly satisfying.”

Randall’s pieces embody a coherent narrative in which the box provides a stage where a drama unfolds.

The final component in the exhibition is an installation “Asylum of Lost Thoughts” by Michael McMillen, entered through two creaky doors that lead you into a “theatre” composed of discarded items like an abandoned hospital ward. From here, you view a film that in itself is like an assemblage in motion. Each frame of the film, composed of all manner of strange images, some from old educational films, is like an assemblage or collage in itself. Your thoughts and feelings are directed by the music and its mood. Is this the inside of his brain?

“I’ve always been a collector of things, trying to recombine them into new things. It started when I was a little kid. I would patrol the alleys of Santa Monica, looking for stuff. A lifelong habit, I’m afraid. I’ve been fascinated by the way things go from A to Z, the history of their existence, how objects change. Maybe, without being too morbid, it’s a meditation on mortality, a contemplation of that.”

After spending an enchanting hour in the exhibition, Phillip Hunt, the sales person in the Museum shop directed me to the internet to view more of Michael McMillen’s work on line.

The exhibition Celestial Ash will be at CAFAM until September 13. For more information see the review by Leah Ollman in the Los Angeles Times. All the above photos are drawn from the LA Times and the CAFAM website.

While doing some research for a new client this week, I was reminded of two favorite books about folk art and how useful and inspiring they have been to me over time.

Both The Spirit of Folk Art by Henry Glassie and The Extraordinary in the Ordinary edited by Mary Hunt Kahlenberg speak of collections at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico (ah, the Folk Art Museum–a little bit of heaven on earth!) and address the much debated definition of folk art.

The books discuss two great lovers and collectors of folk art and how they became seduced by folk art and how they made their personal selections. According to Lloyd Cotsen, the objects…”speak of extraordinary beauty with an inner capacity to bring a sense of joy and fulfillment to my eye and heart.”

Henry Glassie interacting with the Alexander Girard collection at the Museum says “As the incarnation of the excellence of different cultures, art is the ideal resource for the person who would understand human unity and diversity. (Folk art provides) encounters that excite, confuse and nudge us toward knowledge.”

These two statements together eloquently provide the two different paths that led me to a love of folk art.