Appliqué Assignment

When I was twelve, a youth leader took me to see the musical Quilters at the local opera house and I was immediately sold on the idea of quilting: the aesthetics, the history, the symbolism--I loved it all! My mom taught me how to use the zig zag feature on my sewing machine to appliqué dark blue fabric hearts onto light blue squares, which I later pieced together to make my first quilt.

I introduced my art class to appliqué technique and history as our final part of the textile unit, by introducing them to Harriet Powers, a freed slave who was born in 1837 and grew up near Athens, Georgia. She and her husband eventually bought land and started a family cotton farm near Atlanta. Powers never learned to read or write, but she knew the Bible stories and illustrated those stories in quilt squares (see above). During hard times, she reluctantly sold the quilt for $5. She asked for $10, but the patron was an art teacher and didn't have ten. The Bible quilt was later exhibited and Powers was commissioned for a second quilt. These two quilts now hang in the Smithsonian and the Boston Museum of Art. The thing that is so wonderful about this quilt is the stories it tells: Adam and Eve, Cain slaying Able, Jacobs Ladder. But the fabrics themselves tell stories too. Blue figures may have been part of a dress worn by a family member. The cut shapes of animals that Powers probably never saw (this was before the days of internet), so she ends up with a lion that looks more like a goat. There's also story telling in the technique. Appliqué is a technique that is used in West African textiles. My sister brought me a fabric picture of a bird from Benin where she was studying as an African art historian. So the fact that this Georgia woman was stitching cut fabric shapes to tell stories on quilt squares says something about her African lineage as a slave, and how mothers passed these skills down from generation to generation.

For my project assignment, I began by asking students to illustrate a story with a drawing in marker. This is just a warm up and an introduction them to the idea of illustration. Then I had them pick a story, either from their own life, a famous story, or from the article I read them about the real "Lord of the Flies" boys from Tonga who were ship wrecked for 15 months. (I always try to go back and review topics from previous weeks). Second they drew the key elements from the story they chose with simplified shapes that fill the page. These shapes can be cut from paper to be used as fabric patterns. Ultimately, they were required to use at least five shapes of fabric to illustrate their story. My students used glue to "collage" their fabric pieces rather than stitch them. This image os of the Tortoise and the Hare.

One student (work shown above) created an image of the day when he had to leave school early. Another, (work shown below) illustrated her story of Christmas morning, when she opened her gifts and got a purse from her aunt. 

Thinking skills improve when students make connections, when they compare and contrast aesthetics  qualities and techniques of various textiles we studied. Having them help organize the information into a Venn Diagram is a way to assess that they're actually learning something. 

Textiles such as clothes, towels, blankets, are often taken for granted. It's important to stop and think about the people who designed and made the things we use and step back to see things in a global and cultural perspective.

Tie Dye project

Art classrooms are like a store for other teachers who are looking for markers, glitter, or paint. They are also like room-shaped garbage cans for teachers who are looking to get rid of old boxes, newspaper, and plastic bottles. Teachers in general, hate waste and so we'll figure out something to do with whatever we get gifted. In this case, I hit the jackpot because my daughter's chemistry teacher sent her home with a bunch of fabric dye that only lasts a few days before it has to be thrown away. Since my students were in the middle of a unit on textile arts, the timing couldn't have been better.

First, my own children practiced at home, on t-shirts, bandanas, socks, and masks. The results were great! Then I took the box to school and let students play around with white fabric. Folding, tying, twisting, and then squirting colors.

The technique that seemed to work the best, was the old-twist from the center, and use stripes of dye for a spiral effect. When we didn't have enough rubber bands, we used string to tie it in place overnight in a plastic bag. The project doesn't take very long and the pay offs can be pretty great, especially when are gifted a bunch of free dye.

Batik Project

 From Tapa cloth in the South Pacific Islands, to West African Kente cloth, to Indonesian Batik. Our textile unit was taking us all around the world and teaching us about different techniques and cultures. Most batik in Indonesia is made in Java, and the process is very long and fascinating. There are lots of videos on Youtube to walk you through the process. Images are drawn on fabric with hot wax to use as a stop out. Or metal stamps are dipped in wax to print repeated patterns onto fabric. Then the fabric is dyed and the wax stop out remains white (or the pre-wax dyed fabric color). In some cases, the fabric is bleached and the wax protects the colors that it covers. There are a lot of options for a lot of outcomes, but the premise is one of wax resist.

Our class used Elmer's glue with varying results. So much of the liquid watercolor came out when the glue was being washed away, even though it dried. So we went back with fabric dye. Probably the best results were drawing with glue, painting the outlined shapes with diluted acrylic and then rinsing the glue out once all the colors were dry and set. (This is what was done with the turtle image above). Occasionally, the student would choose to not rinse the glue at all, so that it could remain tactile. In any case, it was fun to explore how fabric can be used to make art, and to think about how so much of what we wear is being dyed by real artisans on the other side of the globe.

Weaving Project

 

The Kente Cloth paper weaving assignment from the previous week was good preparation for weaving an actual textile. Students still had to understand warp and weft, and still had to recognize that color choices had symbolic as well as aesthetic consequences. The only differences is that instead of up, down, up, down, students were going under, over, under, over using long plastic needles to snake their yarn across the warp threads on the loom.

Some students were able to fee their way, while other, low vision students preferred to see the process with a magnifier. And others figured out how to weave hot pads with stretchy loops, like they were born doing it. It is a great fine motor assignment and almost therapeutic for students who catch on. I read a book out-loud for those who could work independently and it became an hour of sanity during midterms for other classes.

Tapa Cloth Lesson Project

I first heard about Tapa cloth on a visit to Tonga, where my parents lived for two years. The women in South Pacific countries (like Tonga and Samoa) cut down mulberry trees (3 inch in diameter), strip the bark, soak the bark, strip the inner bark and then pound out the fibers with wooden mallets against a flattened log. This widens the strips, but thins them enough that a second layer of bark fibers need to be pounded together for strength. 

These strips are later combined, with a tapioca flour paste, with other strips to make a larger cloth. Long tables with a village's traditional pattern carved into the top allow the women to do rubbings with brownish pigment. 

They work in outdoor pavilions or in the grass, to enhance the rust brown pattern with by painting black ink onto the cloth.

Geometric patterns, or organic symbols such as flowers or turtles are common. I used this assignment to bring some south pacific culture to a lesson on ART PRINCIPLE: repetition/pattern. It also kicked off our unit on TEXTILE ARTS.

My students made crayon rubbings on fabric with their own design. Thin plastic braille book covers were easy to cut into circular or petal shapes, but mat board ended up working better for the rubbings. Students could tape the shapes they arranged to the table and put a piece of paper on top, before rubbing it with the side of a brown crayon to see if they liked it. Woven fabric (unlike authentic tapa) was a little more challenging since it stretched as it was rubbed.

Then students added black marks with everything from puffy paint (for the students would couldn't see their pattern), acrylic, and sharpie markers, before going back to add some more brown watercolor to accent the color).

Tapa cloth is the most important object to Tongans. The process is handed down through generations of women. The product is one that is fit for royalty and is a gift for very special occasions such as births or weddings. It was fun to share Tongan culture, music, and art with my students, as they explore a new medium and process.

Batik

Batik is usually a process that combines wax drawing and tie dye. The Indonesians in Java have the art down to a science, and there are some fun Youtube videos that can walk you through the process. In our class, we used Elmer's glue, rather than hot wax, and watered down acrylics, rather than dye.

First the glue is applied to a piece of fabric, in a pattern. When it driers, diluted acrylics are painted on top. It takes more than you'd think, since you want it to soak into the fabric. The back side of the fabric will probably still show the white lines pretty well. After the paint dries, you can wash it in warm soapy water to remove the glue, and it will create white lines on both sides of the fabric.

Bottles of watercolor worked well too until it was time to wash out the glue, at which time the color disappeared. But there's nothing wrong with leaving the glue in, if you are just going to use the fabric as a wall piece. It is easier to feel the texture of design for my students who are visually impaired anyway.