Let’s take a detour and leave behind this colorful dimension
of mordants and dyes.
Welcome to the quest that I have followed over the past few years in search of purity....a
search that mixed with arrogance can turn into an obsession for perfection....
It all began in Mysore a while back.... with
cashmere, stumbled over sandalwood, angora, lapis, wild silks
of India, and other such fine things, propelled me to criss-cross the
subcontinent on numerous occasions, and led me to Chidhiari a tiny village on
the verge of the Rhotang Pass, where I found myself nose deep in a pool of
natural colors........
The beginning is as good a place to start as any. Cashmere, my
all-time favorite fiber, was also one of our first products. We worked hard for
a few years on creating completely handspun (and handwoven of course), weft and
warp fabrics, made of pure cashmere without the addition of any other
fiber....The cashmere fiber is one of a kind. Short, full of twists and turns, it is soft, capricious and very active and all it wants to do is to free itself from the prison of the yarn, curl up and
fall asleep on the surface of the fabric....The process is called pilling and
to an untrained eye, and 'market driven expectation' (thanks again davi) is undesirable. Manufacturers go
to great length to eliminate it, but in the process the original is so diluted
that it is lost....I myself, in my own dark obsession for perfection, went to
great pains to strongly encourage the spinners whom I work with to handspin a yarn that would not pill....It is impossible....If it don’t pill, it ain’t cashmere.
Second example, runs along similar lines, and to make a long
story short.......If it don’t shed, it ain’t angora...
The world of natural materials offers many other examples of this phenomena, but let's take a short cut and arrive at the end of my quest, my daily world,
the world of color....It is a beautiful place, filled with magical processes, a place where
I finally feel at home, and am privileged to be a part of...But here too I see
the darkness creeping in. Instead of humbly appreciating the brief moment of
beauty expressed by natural dyes on my fibers, I want to fix them, and hold on to
them forever.....
We have managed to produce carbon copies of true colors, just like
the mills in Ludhiana and Srinagar have produced copies of true cashmere, we
call them fixed dyes....But they are merely copies, life devoid imitations of true color, with no capacity of evolution and transformation, they are dead.
Hopefully the lessons from the past have sunk in
and I can step back with wonder and appreciate the true nature of color and let that nature unfold before my eyes, instead of turning a copy, a cheap forgery, into an ideal....
.....if it don't fade, ah...you know the rest......
.....if it don't fade, ah...you know the rest......
I wanted to do this before, never really found the chance, but this might be the perfect
place to introduce an incomplete list of teachers who have helped me in
this quest. First of all there is Rudolf Steiner, whose outlook on life, after
years of waiting and long periods of separation has suddenly and unexpectedly
woven itself into my work, next comes Sung Hyun Baek, from wherever he is now and whatever and under whatever name he teaches these days, showed me 30 years ago that alchemy and magic are possible even in today's world, then there is Sanjay who alerted me to the problem and set me off on the quest, Sri Kanth in Mysore who showed me my first
sandalwood tree, Ric Peigler, in Texas whose love for wild silks is second to none, the
numerous dealers of Jaipur who put up with hours of questioning and introduced
me to coral, turquoise, lapis and other fine natural fixed colors, Rupindrath in Patan
who opened all the doors to the Sacred Art of Nepali gilded bronzes and the magical studios of the craftsmen of Patan, Davi in Mexico whose nose
for natural dyeing, and especially for handcrafts in general is so refined that it contributed
to my 9 months of hibernation, during which time I tried to come to terms with this
calling, and finally babydodo whose love and support have fueled this quest
even at the points where it turned into an obsession.
Now we can leave this self-reflection for awhile and make our
way back to a happier road paved with light, colors, crystals, metals and flowers. I vaguely hear the bells of a ceremony in the distance, but am still not certain.....
Speaking of angora and cashmere and other soft things, I just could not resist....Here is Eloise, our granddaughter again, she is our star...
