The journey continues

As we continue with our journey of good work around the Eastern Cape I'll be taking you through our second and third week in Hamburg.

 Loverstwist

We visit Loverstwist a village that has a group of young ladies who work with recycled materials. This group works under Intlantsi Creative Development an NPO that focuses on art therapy in schools. 

We showed the ladies and the one gentleman that works with wire and beads different products they could produce using the same materials. They made wallets using milk cartons,

There after they made coasters from plastic bottles by cutting strips and layering them on top of each other.

More images of other products made from recycled materials, really amazing stuff!!! 

wall clock and bathroom mat made from bottle caps

lampshade made from wire, bottle caps and beads

crochet plastic bags to be made into a carpet.

Back to Wesley

We went back to Wesley to work with a group of individual women that sew and continued making products with the weavers and needle felters. The sewing ladies were taught a few pattern making basics and they had to apply these when challenged to make clothing items. They were asked to bring their sewing machines so we could help with any problems they might have with them i.e. certain button functions, different stitches, threading and so on.

Separated into three groups they had to make a top and head wrap, dress and a handbag or a skirt and poncho.



We had to continue with the other groups  i.e. the weavers and needle felters. The needle felters were challenged to produce larger felted animals and were shown other products to make using their felt. They were also taught how to add colour by dying their wool using food colouring. 

The weavers had the same challenge of producing different products to what they were used to and this is what they made... 

A beautiful clutch bag

Busy with a backpack

Braided clutch bag

Cushions

Round cushion

We said our goodbyes to the talented ladies in Wesley and Loverstwist and made our way to the next stop which was Queenstown. 




Queenstown

We spent five weeks in this cosy but cold town. Working from the Chris Hani Craft Hub we got to work on beading, beading and wiring, wool and grass weaving and leather works. So everyone concentrated on their respective descipline and twice a week they were allowed to exchange skills. This meant one bead worker would spend a full day learning basket weaving and the leather workers would be shown how to weave on looms.

So... with six beaders in total, two worked on a beaded dress, one had to do a beaded sneaker, one a wall clock, another a skirt and the other a series of beaded lampshades. With assistance from Bantu,Zipho and myself they had to come up with ways of using their beading talent to make these unconventional beaded items...and a beautiful job they did.

Colourful beaded dress worn by Zipho

Beautiful wall clock

Beaded lampshade

With three weaving ladies who were all used to weaving on vertical looms using a coarse grass like material this was something different. They had to first spin the wool to mix the colours together then weave it through the horizontal looms that required them to use both hands and feet unlike the vertical loom that needed only the use of hands.

Spinning

Spun wool on bobbins

Weaving loom

Woven round draw string

 backpack

Our basket weaver had to do lampshades as well, a back pack, an ottoman which would have a wire structure to keep it together. She needs to keep Imizi (grass) wet for flexibility, she make patterns out of the grass which create a new dynamic to the grass weaving we know.

Lampshades in different sizes

Imizi patterns

We had two young ladies who decided to take over from their mother who made leather accessories. With them we had to help them with aesthetics on products they already made and assist in coming up with new ones. We helped them correct their belt sizing by having size templates for each size they had and we made new products such as braided bracelets, wired bracelets, fringed neck pieces and bags.

After an emotional goodbye we had to love and leave Queenstown to join a new group in Port Elizabeth...the journey continues...

Hello change

Hello hi 

The best way to learn is to experience...in the time that i've been practising as a textiles design artist i've had a lot of people even friends ask why I don't dedicate some of my time to sharing the skills that I have. They suggested going to schools and teaching a few kids what I know in terms of art and design and being the person that I am i've always said "no i'm too shy", "no public speaking is not for me" or "no I wouldn't have time" and a lot of other excuses. That changed   when I got a call from The Swallows Foundation SA, offering an opportunity to work with crafters from different Eastern Cape villages.

At the time of the call I was working as a retail assistant in the fourth month of the six months I had given myself to quit. I had just gotten that first big order I wrote about in the previous post and struggling to make time to start with the order. So...to cut the long story

short... I accepted the offer, gave in my weeks notice a few days later, and with only three weeks left to start this new chapter I had to finish the bag order, deliver and prepare to be away for the next three months.

The offer

So...The Swallows Foundation SA which is also known as Isiseko Senkonjane is an organisation based in the Nelson Mandela Bay, it helps with developing arts and culture in the Eastern Cape. 

For this particular project with the help of two textile design artists ,myself and Ziphozihle Rapiya, the organisation is visiting three regions namely Hamburg, Queenstown and Gcobo, to work with crafters in villages in around these regions to assist with product development. So...using the materials they already have we would think of ways to enhance their end product by modernising them using different design methods and techniques.

Our first stop-Hamburg

Beautiful, beautiful "Hambhog" (as the locals call it).

The first place we went to was Hamburg this is where we would rest our heads after a long day of work Emagqubeni  (what the locals call the area we stay in within Hamburg),we would spend a month between two villages that are around Hamburg, namely Wesley and Loverstwist. 

Week 1- Wesley Villagers

We spent the weekend preparing for our first day with the Wesley group of ladies that work under an NGO Nceduluntu run by Colette, they are divided into two groups one does cute little needle felted sheep and the other group makes beautifully hand woven carpets. 

Like I mentioned before as one of my excuses...I'm no public speaker...the nerves were killing me, our sessions started with a prayer and that made things a lot better. Both groups of ladies ,weavers and felters, were in one room working together. We began with inspiration/mood boards, for this the ladies had to each look through magazines and collect images of items they liked and of ones they saw themselves creating. This exercise was for them to see and learn different ways of getting inspiration, that they could use everything anything as inspiration.

                   

  

Divided into 5 groups they had to stick down the images collected.

Beautiful work!!! Everyone enjoyed themselves and a lot of them grasped the concept of putting their ideas on paper for later reference. 

Our next exercise involved developing patterns and this was done by choosing a shape and repeating it and playing around with it until it formed some kind of a pattern, one could use more than one shape, in different sizes. 

                        

So...some understood and some not so much, there were a few that kept complaining about their eyes and not being able to see properly, what I forgot to mention was that we were working with elderly people so that was to be expected. With all of that all of them were willing to give this a try. Using these drawings the next step we went to was fabric painting, here each person was given a chance to simplify their drawing and this was done by using view finders (a square or rectangular piece of paper that has its middle cut open into a smaller square). 

This little piece of paper helps with focusing on a small section of a bigger picture. The ladies were asked to choose a section they like from their drawings using their view finders, they would then repeat what they see within the view finder on another bigger piece of paper before painting it on fabric.

And so the painting began... given A3 size pieces of fabric they had to paint their patterns.

Next was something I had done before but had unfortunately forgotten how to do..oopsie. Knitting and crocheting. Some already knew how to and that made things a little easier and I found myself being taught a thing or two aswell.

On the following exercise the ladies had to develop weaving patterns. We showed them a few examples from simple ones which included a pattern they were using already to much complicated ones which they would attempt themselves on graph paper. The graphed pattern would then be attempted on a weaving loom later.

                              

The ladies were ladies were divided- the weavers went to set up their looms to weave the new patterns they had come up with. From what they had woven they were expected to make other products besides carpets, maybe cushions, bags, throws etc.

The needle felters were challenged to produce bigger sheep and other animals that complimented each other. 

That's the end of week1, I'll post week2 and week3 soon. Bye for now.