The Inspired Turks…
This collection resulted from my travels through Istanbul in 2011. They are shown there alongside the architectural elements that I was inspired by, which includes the Harem Apartments at the Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar, and my favorite mosques.
Of this collection, the Suleyman and Suleyman Garden remain among my most popular styles, made by hand from mostly reclaimed textiles.
The journals for the trip that inspired this collection are now available at Daveno Travels, where I am reissuing them as Director’s Cuts with full text and previously unpublished photos. I hope you will continue reading the back stories behind my creations.
A Gothic Hat…
Travel inspires my work.
This is my singular inspiration from my trip to Spain a few years back. You might have spotted it in in my ads supporting KNKX Radio during their Fall Fund Drive in October 2019.
This hat is patterned after the Cloister of St. John the King in Toledo. It took about 6 years to bring this hat from drawing board to finished piece, and hours of experimentation to translate the arches not only into textile, but into a commercially viable piece of wearable art.
The base of this hat is reclaimed black wool. The arches are ultra-suede that I gleaned from a thrift store skirt, which I then applied to the hat as padded applique in order to give some additional dimension. The architectural detailing is hand embroidered, and the hat is finished in mink rescued from a vintage coat.
You can read more about the trip that inspired this hat at Daveno Travels.
Block Printing and its Impact on Textile and Book Arts…
This article was written by a friend who passed away in July 2017. It was originally self-published in “A Boke of Dayes: A Journal of the Festival of St. Hildegard” (1994) I have augmented this article with photos from a catalog of his works that was part of his estate.
Gordon not only carved blocks, but taught carving and printing as well, and volunteered much of his time to the furtherance of this art form. I hope this article will inspire others to continue on that path.
History
Block printing can be traced back to Egypt. From there come the best examples of printing and tools because items were buried intentionally for use in the next life. The environment was dry, free from bugs and rodents. Many pieces are available for study, because grave robbers were only interested in gold, and left the more common items behind.
Block printing appears to have come to Europe from India and Rome. In early Europe, dyes were used rather than ink, on surfaces that weren’t as well prepared as they were in their country of origin.
Block printing was part of textile production, rather than a separate industry. By the 10th century, gold and silver were mixed with linseed oil and printed onto dyed fabrics. Multi-colored prints were done by block printing a dark outline and painting in the details by hand. This process led eventually to the manufacture of printed needlework patterns
The process of block printing textiles led to a number of other forms of reproduction. In China, paper was printed using clay blocks. By the 10th century, clay letters were set into an iron frame for the purpose of printing pages. This technique was developed by the country people, but later abandoned when the government started using the process for their own purposes. With the advent of printing in Europe, manuscripts could be mass produced, although illumination [illustration] was still done by hand. These hand illuminated printed books were the forerunners of the modern day coloring book.
Notes on technique
Linoleum is made by grinding linseed and flax into a paste, and spreading it out into a sheet. Its’ properties and lack of grain make it an ideal substance for the novice block carver to use. Linoleum can also be purchased and adhered onto wood blocks. Wood is more difficult to carve because of its grain, which makes mistakes harder to remedy. [One of Gordon’s preferred woods was Pear, I assume because of its tight grain.]
The design is drawn directly onto the wood, either freehand or as a tracing from another source. The design is then carved in such a way as to slope away from the design, rather than carve straight down into the surface. This gives better structural support to the edges of the design. Wood carving chisels are used rather than razor blades, which can break and become imbedded in your work.
A selection of Gordon’s original blocks and prints are available in an album entitled “Gordon’s Arts” on Flickr
“Dietmar von Aist – a minnesanger – Uf der linden obenedâ sanc ein kleinez vogellîn.vor dem walde wart ez lût:dô huop sich aber daz herze mînan eine stat dâ ez ê dâ was.ich sach dâ rôsebluomen stân:die manent mich der gedanke vildie ich hin zeiner vrouwen hân.”
See his Flickr page for the English translation …
Chicago fashions and bronze peacocks…
One of my chief reasons for visiting Chicago in 2018 was to see the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. My visit to The Rookery is detailed at Daveno Travels, with additional photos on Pinterest. A short walk from that building brought me to the Chicago Exchange Building, where I had hoped to go to the 5th floor gallery to view the trading floor. It’s one of the cases where the guide books are incorrect…
Later that day, I missed a “Gangsta Walking Tour” for my inability to find the start point, but happily stumbled into the Chicago History Museum. On display there was this ensemble – a coat and shoes worn by a trader on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (the building that I could not access this morning). Traders and others on the floor of the Board of Trade could be recognized by their coats. I believe it dates from the 1950’s.
Also on display was this example of women’s swimwear from the 1940’s.
I found a collection of Bes-Ben hats here. Benjamin B. Green-Field and his sister Bes founded the firm together and sold hats from the 1920’s-60’s. Their more famous customers included Hellen Keller, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor. In the summer of 1936 they held a clearance sale that became legendary – Ben stood on his balcony and threw hats into the crowd that had gathered below. Hats valued at $425 could be purchased for $5 if you could catch one…
Linen with shisha mirrors, 1958 
Navy straw with butterflies, 1956
Chicago was also the home of the mail order catalog. You have Aaron Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears to thank for our current “buy off the internet”. Then as now, the practice forced smaller stores, many of them rural, out of business because they could not compete.
Near the History Museum, in the Old Town Triangle District, I was seeking Crilly Court, a residential area built in the late 1800’s and redeveloped after WWII. I was particularly interested in this area because many of the buildings were renovated by Edgar Miller.
Edgar Miller was a modern day Renaissance Man, working in sculpting, painting, batik, lithography, architecture, interior design and stained glass. He was an illustrator for Marshal Fields’ magazine and pioneered the use of modern art in advertising during the early 1920’s. He disliked repetition, considering it “the mark of an uncreative artist.” He used recycled materials to turn old homes into works of art, a practice he called “social adventure”, a practice that I found endearing and texturally interesting.
A sidewalk 
A door 
- There are additional photos at Daveno Travels. To read more about this little known artist, I highly recommend “Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home” which is lavishly illustrated.
After dinner, I head back downtown for a drink / photo opportunity at the Palmer House. Rebuilt three times between 1871 and 1926, it boasts 24 floors, 2250 rooms, and a ceiling painted by an unnamed Italian artist.
C.D. Peacock Jeweler was the first business to incorporate in Chicago in 1834, and opened a shop here in 1927. It’s Peacock Doors were designed by Louis Tiffany and cast in bronze, and featured on the Palmer House Christmas card that year. I’m thinking of how to feature this on a hat.
And now, with visions of peacocks a’dance in my head, I’m back to the Pittsfield to retire to bed…
A Berber-inspired Hat…
Travel inspires my work. If you’ve been following me here, you will know that every country I visit, inspires a hat. This one is inspired by a door in a kasbah in Morocco.
The Kasbah Mohayut, on the edge of the Sahara, had doors covered in an ornate configuration of what looked like talismans. My suspicion was confirmed in Marrakech, where I found a copy of a Berber Museum Journal that described the inverted triangular shape as an tizerzaii fibulae. In practical terms, they are worn in pairs, at the chest, usually with a chain connecting the pair together at the lower tip, to secure a woman’s clothing (Viking women wore a similar style of jewelry, for that same purpose). In symbolic terms, they are a protective symbol, something like a Turkish evil eye.
“The mirror-fibuae motif found on the doors in the Atlas operates like a single eye that tattoos each entrance, each important passage into an inhabited place… The eye, and its different representations… may help protect against the black look.” (from “An Aesthetics of Protection” by Salima Naji, Les Cahiers du Musee Berbere, Issue #1, Fondation Jardin Marjorelle Publishers, 2012)
Here’s the hat, and the door that inspired it.
The Making of Raven Steals The Sun…
My trip to Alaska in 2008 was my first solo adventure. I went to see glaciers, totem poles and to get over my fear of flying so I could get to Europe the following year.
While I was there, one of the recurring images I saw on totem poles and jewelry was a bird with a disc in its mouth, a depiction of a First People’s tale called “Raven Steals The Sun.”
The story has several variants, but they all tell of a world of darkness, and of a chieftain who had three cedar treasure boxes containing the Sun, Moon and Stars. The trickster Raven, learning of the treasures and wanting to bring and end to the eternal darkness, shape-shifted into a child who begged to play with the boxes. Once they were in his hands, he turned himself back into a Raven, and taking the treasure boxes, flew up through the smoke hole of the chieftain’s longhouse and high up into the sky. The contents of the boxes spilled out, dividing the darkness into night and day, and bringing light into the human world.
My first full-bird hat – the Raven King – gave me enough confidence to try other dimensional pieces. The Firebird followed, and then the Crow King – my entry in The Met 500 Design Contest, sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in August 2019.
This new Raven came together pretty quickly, but the Sun proved problematic. Every time I tried to alter a Haida design (shown here) I ended up with a Sun that looked more like flower.
A friend handed me a rubber stamp that leaned towards Gothic, and after several hours of searching the internet for designs to meld with the rubber stamp, my hat took a turn in an entirely unexpected direction.
I liked the ‘tribal gothic’ sun so much that I decided to do all the applique in black leather (which I had stripped off a couch that was destined for the dump). Once I had the Sun in place, Raven decided it would emerge from the cuff, with its wings wrapping around the Sun, catching one of the Sun’s flares in its beak. I stylized the feather detail, to keep the focus on the Raven’s face. The cuff is a herringbone-patterned wool which mimics the chevrons of my embroidery on the wings.
And now I have a hat inspired by my first trip to Alaska, based on a First People’s legend, but with a distinctively Gothic twist. (I would go on to make these in several colors, but the red one remained my favorite.)
A Citadel and a Berber Carpet Shop…
We leave Tinghir and the Todra Gorge, and drive through landscapes of shifting contrasts. We arrive in Skoura and check in to the Ait Ben Moro, an 18th century kasbah that has been restored and converted into a guest house. I find a room that is simple but elegant, and take some time to admire its thick walls, reed and beam ceiling and stone floor.
I head downstairs to visit the carpet shop next door. Aziz, the guest house concierge, accompanies me and once inside the shop, proceeds to show me carpets. I select a small blue one, and Aziz introduces me to his wife, Manar, who is the weaver. But instead of finishing the transaction, she motions to me to join her at her loom.
What are the odds that I would have a second chance to weave on a carpet loom in Morocco?
I take off my shoes and sit down next to her on a cushion. Manar only speaks Berber but that did not pose a barrier to our communication. I would later learn that her name means “lighthouse” which is pretty fitting.
I watch as she throws a weft thread through the upright warp, taps it with her finger, and then handed me the beater – a heavy iron comb with a handle that must weight two pounds – and motions to me to beat the weft down. Manar then shows me how to let the weight of the beater do the work, instead of my wrist. Every time she threw the weft through, she’d turn to me and say “chick chick chick” which is the sound the beater makes against the warp threads. It was also my cue to beat the weft down.
After 3-4 rows of weaving, she demonstrated how she cuts her yarn for the knots by winding it around a crank in the top of her toolbox and then slicing through the yarn by running the tip of a knife down the slot in the crank, and ends up with uniform pieces of yarn which we used to knot her carpet with.
She then shows me how to tie a knot around the pair of warp threads, and then pull it down to the row we had just woven, to start the pile. We only used the beater on the woven rows, never on the knotted rows. Unlike the weaver in Fez, who trimmed her rows as she went, Manar didn’t shear her carpet, so I was careful to make sure the ends of the yarns were even when I placed my knots. She shows me how the heddles work on her loom.
Manar happily pauses while I take a pictoral of this process. Through the language of the loom we communicated pretty well. I continued to add knots to the warp threads, almost as fast as my teacher. Aziz popped in and said I was a quick study and I could come back any time to help his wife in her shop : )
After about an hour of weaving and knotting, I hear Mark’s voice. “It figures we would find you here. If we’re missing Heather, we just start looking for a carpet loom.” He tells me it’s time to visit a nearby historical site. I whine about leaving the loom, but put down my beater and put on my shoes, and signal to Manar that I need to leave. “But I will be back to buy that carpet.”
We through fields of beans and alfalfa dotted with olive and pomegranate trees. A little further on, we come to a wide dry riverbed, Beyond that peeking out from a palm grove, is the most remarkable building I have yet seen – the Kasbah Amridil.
This 17th century citadel is primarily a museum, and one of the most famous buildings in Morocco, even being featured on the old 50 dirham note. We tour in a courtyard filled with artifacts which include an olive press, several clay cook pots and lanterns, and a form used for making the rammed earth walls.
We return to the Ait Ben Moro through the bean and alfalfa fields, and Doug and I go back to the carpet shop. Aziz assists in finalizing my purchase, and then extends an invitation from Manar to join her for tea in their home. She shows me her home and then leads me to a low round table covered with two tablecloths, set with tea and dried fruit, and which is soon covered with bread, jam, honey and butter. Manar and her mother Fatna join us, along with a young woman who is a recent university graduate. We learn that everything we are being served was produced on their land. We also learn that in spite of having a modern kitchen, Fatna continues to bake bread every morning in the wood-fired oven in their back yard. “Tastes better,” she says.
It was such an honor to be invited into this home. The rug Manar wove and which I would carry home on the plane (not trusting it to checked baggage), now has special significance and I will treasure it always.
And now I want to buy a carpet loom…
See the rest of the photos and details at Daveno Travels and Pinterest.
Of Tents and Turbans…
Most of my travel journals are now at Daveno Travels where I am reissuing them as Director’s Cuts, with full text and previously unpublished photos. This is an excerpt from my travels in Morocco in 2017.
It’s a leisurely morning in the camel camp, and I would have been happy to stay for a few more days in this part of the Western Sahara. After breakfast, we mount our camels and say goodbye to the Erg Chebbe dunes, and head back to Merzouga.
We stop at a store that sells fresh camel milk, and are invited to the pens out back. Catherine tries her hand at milking a camel, while I watch a jealous baby camel trying to get his share. There’s a blue-eyed camel here, which Doug says is fairly rare.
While Doug and Catherine are talking shop with the owner, I step back inside and find an open door, and step through to a ‘dinner and a show’ place that has Berber tents set around the center courtyard. I snap a few shots of both the camels and the tents before we head out, which you will find on Pinterest.
We stop for lunch at a Berber tent set up along side the road. Doug introduces us to his friend Youssef, who has already ordered pizza for our lunch. It arrives and resembles a 12″ calzone but with very thin crusts, stuffed with kefte, egg and almonds.
His tent is divided in half at the ridgepole, with half of it serving as a restaurant, and the other half as a gift shop. I shoot more photos and then stop to admire the wares. In spite of Youssef’s attempts to sell me a pastel colored length of cotton, I buy a Tuarag-indigo one, and, demonstrate to my travel-mates how to fashion it into a turban, after watching Moha wind his yesterday.
I sit down and make a comment about the fun things for sale on the other side of the tent, including a silver pipe and a daggar I’d like to bring home but thought I would not be able to get it through the airport. “You can’t get anything through the airport,” Catherine responds, and everyone laughs at the reference to my still lost luggage.
Tomorrow we drive to the Todra Gorge, and then on to Kasbah Ait Ben Moro, and a carpet shop that I will be hard-pressed to leave …
Read about the rest of the day at Daveno Travels.
A Loom and a Tannery in Fez…
Most of my travel journals are now at Daveno Travels where I am reissuing them as Director’s Cuts, with full text and previously unpublished photos. This is an excerpt from my time in Fez, Morocco in 2017.
Fez is the second oldest city in the world after Jerusalem, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1989. It lays claim to the first psychiatric hospital in the world, as well as the first surgical hospital, the oldest university and library, and the world’s 3rd largest mosque behind Mecca and Medina. A US flag marks the veterinary hospital, which was also founded by a woman.
We’re off to see the Souk! Mohamed drops us off outside the medina wall, and we enter the snake-like labyrinth of alleyways, some dark with filtered light, others open to the sky, twisting through open courtyards and then back into covered alleys. Wafi says its really easy to get lost here…
The souk, in addition to being the ‘shopping mall’ of the medina, also houses several historic sites. The first one we see is also the one I’ve been most excited about – the Qarawiyyin Library, the oldest working library in the world. Established originally as a mosque by Fatima Al-Fihre in 859, it houses 4,000 rare books and manuscripts, and was at one time attached to a university which has since moved to another part of Fez.
We enter via a staircase, a beautifully restored building that was either originally a caravansary (traveler’s rest) our or a fondouk (another form of lodging for traders and their mules). It now houses a women’s weaving cooperative. At the top of the building I find a woman at her carpet loom. The back of the loom faces the room, so I peer around to get a glimpse of the rug, and the weaver invites me to sit with her on her workbench. (Photos courtesy of Mark Charteris)
She shows me how she ties the knots, and then hands pieces of wool to me so I can try. I expect to get a couple of pieces, but she continues to hand them to me until the row is finished. She hands me a pair of barbers shears to trim the pile, but I decline as I am terrified of ruining her work. She hacks off the yarns with some abandon, and starts her next row. What an experience that was!
The next flight of stairs takes us up to the top of another shop, this one filled with leather goods. The top floor is open to the air, and overlooks the Choura Tannery, one of the three largest in this souk. There are dozens of vats, with men scraping hides from goats, sheep and cows. Although we were warned of the stench, and handed sprigs of mint to hold under our noses, I don’t find the aroma that overpowering, and ultimately I just eat the mint.
The vats include mordants made from lime, salt and pigeon droppings, and there are cages of pigeons nearby to supply the droppings. Colors are only derived from natural organic sources, and there are several steps in the process of tanning, ending with skins in every imaginable color, grade, suppleness and sheen. This shop sells handbags, coats and leather ottomans made from the leathers dyed in these vats.
After lunch at Restaurant Asmire, we find another leather shop where I buy a pair of turquoise shoes. A nearby textile shop draws us in, and after a few minutes, we are seated and served tea. The shopkeeper teaches us about fibers, and shows us an agave leaf which is stripped for its fiber and blended with cotton to make scarves, shawls and other garments. He then starts unrolling lengths of woven goods in a process similar to buying a carpet in Istanbul. I excuse myself from that process but I find a traditional fez here for my brother, and try on one of the conical hats that our waiter was wearing at lunch. I buy the fez, and leave the conical hat behind. But it gets presented to me in the car, a gift from Mark and Catherine, whose generosity seems to be endless. I wear it to breakfast the following day.
You can read more about my trip to Fez at Daveno Travels.
The making of Crow King…
Twitter has its uses. On June 5, I ran across a tweet from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, announcing a design contest: “The Met’s 150 Years of Creating”. Voting opened today to the public and runs through August 12. Winners of the popular vote will be judge by a jury, and the winning entrant will have their design developed into products for The Met Museum Gift Shop in April 2020.
I am one of 190 entries. It’s the biggest contest I’ve ever entered and although I don’t expect to make it to the top ten, it’s a real feather in my cap just to be on The Met website. I hope you will VOTE for the Crow King!
The deadline for submission was in 6 days, so I spent an hour combing the manuscript collections and found three pieces, which I narrowed down to this one after learning its back story.
The Kalila wa-Dimna is a series of allegorical tales written in Sanskrit during the 4th century as a teaching tool for three young princes. It was translated it into Arabic 300 years later, in a style so lucid it is still considered a model of Arabic prose. Called Kalila and Dimna, after the two jackals who are the main characters, the book was written mainly for the instruction of civil servants. But it was so entertaining that it became popular with all classes. Arabs carried it to Spain, where it was translated into Old Spanish in the 13th century. In Italy it was one of the first books to appear after the invention of printing.
I was a storyteller once, with a fondness for 13th century history, and a traveler to both Spain and Italy, so this piece made an emotional connection with me. It reminded me of another allegory – the Monkey King from Journey to the West (a Chinese work). I find allegory to be not only amusing, but a powerful teaching tool as well.
Anyway … I cropped the folio and made a color copy for reference, and several black and white copies for templates. And, with time rapidly ticking down, I began.
At first, I was going to apply the birds in one piece, but I decided to apply them individually to get better spacing and more dimensional detail. The foliage lent itself well to individual ‘stalks’ as well, which wrap around the rest of the cuff.
As usual, I changed the materials several times, trying several wools before settling on a rust suede leather to mirror the background of the folio. At that point, I also decided to mount the Crow King to the crown of the hat rather than the cuff. And of course, all the materials are rescued from previously used clothing, and remnants from other costumers’ cutting room floors.
The birds are appliqued in leather which is padded to make them more dimensional, held in place with whip stitch which I covered over with couching. The leaves are ultrasuede and will become dimensional, as they will naturally curl at the edges with wearing. I added brass beads to the tips of the foliage and a gold wire crown to the King Crow, as points of difference from the original – to leave my mark on the piece rather than making a carbon copy of someone else’s work.
I finished the hat 4 days after starting it. Oddly, the very next day, as I was walking to work, I was buzzed by a crow in a part of town where I’d never seen crows. He buzzed me so close that his feathers brushed my hair, and then circled around and did it again! He landed on the closest lamp post and cawed at me until I was a block away. I’ll leave it up to those who read this, to offer their own interpretation of that event …