ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
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CRAFT | HERITAGE | ENVIRONMENT
LIFE CYCLE: THE FOUND OBJECTS
STORY FROM A MILLINER’S WORKSHOP
MAKING THE HORSEHAIR TRADITION CONTEMPORARY 3
BOOKS THAT GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
Dear readers, Welcome to the fifth paper issue of No Serial Number Magazine!
Michela Pasini. The photoshoot also includes Malaterra’s handbags, which are made using the artisan’s grandmother’s original Singer sewing machine. During our travels, we also went to meet Silvia Ronconi, an artisan who talked to us about the traditional work of a milliner and her passion for theatre. As part of this article, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in a visual step-by-step guide to making a hat! In this section we also have another step-by-step guide, fashion designer Bea Lorimer of Heke Design shares with us how to make an upcycled skirt. Finally we also meet mixed media artist Heather Freitas who talks about environmentalism through her colourful and impressive art.
We have come a long way since our first ever issue of the magazine and it’s all thank to you. To celebrate the first year of paper copies we have introduced a brand new section in the magazine, the Zero-Waste Lifestyle section. In this section, we look at various ways one can shop more sustainably on a day-to-day basis and tell you stories behind everyday objects. Moreover in the traditional trades and crafts section we talked to textile artist Roxanne Lasky, whose textile art is where slow stitching, natural dyes and upcycling converge. We also interviewed Marianne Kemp, a wonderful textile artist from the Netherlands who uses horse hair for her weaving projects, reviving an old tradition by giving it a modern twist. In the same section we visited the traditional workshop Legatoria Viali, from Italy, and documented the process of binding a book. We also interviewed the lovely ladies behind Drap Art, from Spain, a non-profit organisation which helps raise awareness of sustainable consumption and waste through art.
The stories don’t end here! The travel section, and social projects, biodiversity and multi-functional garden are all packed with more informative and inspirational articles. Remember to visit our social media pages to wish us a happy first anniversary! Fill out our seasonal survey (the link is at the end of the magazine) for a chance to win a lovely craft book! Happy reading,
No Serial Number team
In the sustainable fashion section, you will browse through our Summer Photoshoot, featuring the wonderful dresses created by eco print artist and our long time collaborator
Credits Editor Alessandra Palange Art Editor Francesca Palange NSN Italy Editor Rosa Rossi
An Interview with Roxanne Lasky Interviewer Francesca Palange Photography by Roxanne Lasky
Collaborators Jaqueline Rosenbach Lucy Sobrero
The Cycle: The Found Objects by Roxanne Lasky Words and photography by Roxanne Lasky
Eco Print Consultant Michela Pasini
Making the Horsehair Weaving Tradition Contemporary Words by Jacqueline Rosenbach See photographers inside article
Marketing Alessandra Palange Francesca Palange Translations Fuschia Hutton Lucy Sobrero Subscriptions & Advertising info@noserialnumber.org Cover Photos Cover page: Detail of MIGRATION - HEARTH Found, repurposed rust and eco dyed fabrics, lace, metal embellishments, wire, hand stitched by Roxanne Lasky Back cover: Rusted Length of cotton, contact printed with rusty washers by Roxanne Lasky Copyright All images are copyright protected and are the property of their respective makers/owners as detailed below.
Books That Go Against the Grain Words by Rosa Rossi Photography by Elia Palange Craft with a Higher Purpose Words by Roberta Milia and Rossella Barbarossa Photography by Roberta Milia Drap-Art: Not to Waste, Not to Miss Words by Jacqueline Rosenbach Photography by Drap-Art Summer Outfit: Dress with Flowers Outfit by Michela Pasini Photography by Luana Calabro’ Model Naina Bajaria Venue Cody Dock, London Malaterra (= wicked earth), the Story of a Bag Words by Rosa Rossi Photos by Antonella Carchidi
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Stories from a Milliner’s Workshop Words by NSN team Photography by Elia Palange Make Your Own Upcycled Skirt by Heke Design Words and photography by Bea Lorimer The Eco Art of Heather Freitas Words by Jacqueline Rosenbach Su Mruzu Words and photography by Annalisa Atzeni On the Trail of Pomona Words by Rosa Rossi Photography by Elia Palange Maine, Ocean, Camping Words by Jacqueline Rosenbach Photography by Searsport Shores Ocean Camping Following a Precious Thread Words & photography by Coordinamento Donne di Montagna Lotus Bag with Little Hands Design Words and photography by Little Hands Design CIC Stories Behind Everyday Objects Words and interviews by NSN team Photography by each individual business Craft Project: Eco Printing on Paper by Wolleboom Words and photography by Hilde Wolleboom
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This is a quarterly magazine released on the following dates: Spring 23 March Summer 23 June Autumn 23 September Winter 23 December
Contents TRADITIONAL ARTS, TRADES AND CRAFTS 4 . An Interview with Roxanne Lasky 10. The Cycle: The Found Objects by Roxanne Lasky 15. Making the Horsehair Weaving Tradition Contemporary 20. Books That Go Against the Grain 24. Craft with a Higher Purpose: Hand Weaving and Social Engagement 28. Drap-Art: Not to Waste, Not to Miss
SUSTAINABLE FASHION 32. Summer Outfit: Dress with Flowers 38. Malaterra (= wicked earth), the Story of a Bag 40. Stories from a Milliner’s Workshop 46. Make Your Own Upcycled Skirt by Heke Design
HOME CHRONICLES 50. The Eco Art of Heather Freitas
KITCHEN CHRONICLES 54. Su Mruzu, an Old Traditional Sardinian Harvester’s Breakfast
THE MULTIFUNCTIONAL GARDEN 56. On the Trail of Pomona, to Defend Biodiversity
TRAVEL CHRONICLES 58. Maine, Ocean, Camping: An Eco-friendly Experience
DIARY 64. Following a precious thread... (Processing Alpaca fibre in Bolivia) 68. Lotus Bag with Little Hands Design
ZERO WASTE LIFESTYLE 70. Stories Behind Everyday Objects
FROM THE BLOG 82. Craft Project: Eco Printing on Paper by Wolleboom
QUARTERLY COMPETITIONS
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TRADITIONAL ARTS TRADES & CRAFTS
ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
Q&A
An Interview with...
Roxanne Lasky
In this fascinating narrative of her life as an artist, we discover Roxanne Lasky’s complex and adventurous journey through many art forms, techniques, materials, and skills, which make her artwork what it is today.
Hi Roxanne, thanks for agreeing to speak to us, first of all tell us a little bit about yourself. I grew up the oldest of three daughters in a very traditional household that emphasised education and spirituality as the foundation for a wholesome existence. I developed an early love of music and reading as portals to the imagination. I also loved to collect and make things. One of my favourite childhood crafts was assembling model cars. I think it gave me an understanding of how things fit together and made me aware of my knack for deciphering instructions and manipulating intricate pieces. I started to study art seriously in college, but ended up leaving school to work in finance for ten years. I got married and when my two daughters came along I stayed home to care for them. In my spare time, I began painting again and returned to college for my Visual Art degree. I took courses in painting, writing, sculpture and photography, museum studies and the full teaching curriculum until I acquired my Master’s Degree in Teaching. I taught art in the public schools until 2006, when I started a fabric and long arm quilting business with my husband. During that time, I taught workshops on design and colour theory, developed a line of quilt patterns, published a book and designed fabric. In 2014, we closed the business to move to South Carolina where the weather is warmer. It was time to devote my attention exclusively to my art practice and teaching.
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Roxanne, you work with watercolours, oils, metals, photographs, cloth and words. Many kinds of materials and many practices. How did you learn to manage all these materials, and how did you get involved with all these practices? Since childhood, I have been fascinated by colour and graphic design. I was surrounded by people who were adept at handcrafts. These included a maternal grandmother who crocheted prolifically and my mother, who sewed our clothes. My father had a woodshop in our garage and a photography darkroom in our basement. His father was an accomplished ornamental bricklayer in New York City and my father’s brother painted as a hobby. I was so moved by a large scale work of this uncle, that at age six I vowed to become a painter. I was influenced by their make and can-do philosophies which encouraged me to find solutions even if I had to make something from scratch. I became more comfortable with my curiosity for tools and techniques when I looked more closely at the practices of other artists. Multi-media offers countless options for achieving the result I might envision. As an art specialist for middle and high school, my varied toolbox of skills was an asset. I taught studio art, darkroom photography, sculpture and contemporary crafts. I’ve always challenged myself to use materials that deviate from their expected purpose and to awaken that problem solving in my students. Looking at things from
NO SERIAL NUMBER alternative perspectives is what gives an individual’s work its authentic style. Over time, I discovered that this spectrum of materials is not random at all, but a creative thread throughout my work. So it is no surprise that I made my way through painting, printmaking and photography on my journey to the tactile qualities of textiles, book and paper making, the symbolism of writing, the engineering of stitch and the chemistry of ecodyeing. Nothing is beyond the scope of research, study and practice. You eco-dye and hand-stitch all your works. How did you first learn about natural colours and slow stitching? And what is it that you find particularly interesting about these processes? I was always drawn to ethnic fabrics and brought Japanese Indigos, African Kuba and Mud Cloth and Aboriginal and Vintage prints to my shop. I like the simplicity of indigenous design and the resourceful nature of primitive methods. Human ingenuity is a by-product of imagination and necessity. About ten years ago, when I heard about an ecobundle project, I collected metal, leaves, earth and tied them into a piece of cloth to see how they would “weather” over time in the environment. Shortly thereafter, I moved to a neighbourhood that was still under construction. My walks yielded a wealth of metals scattered on building sites. I added nails and odd rusty shards to a growing collection of found objects that could make interesting marks on cloth. I had used paint and photography to create prints, now leaves and metal. At some point I bought India Flint’s ‘Eco Colour’ but my interest in surface design on fabric had started in the late 90’s with Jane Dunnewold’s ‘Complex Cloth.’ I had simply moved into a phase where natural, found and repurposed supplanted my use of acid and MX dyes. I was returning in some respects to the mindset of my purist watercolour studies, where limitations are opportunities to learn something deeper. My move to South Carolina serendipitously planted me in the land of Indigo, where the climate and soil support its growth. In an effort to plant roots in my new place, I signed up for a garden plot in our neighbourhood. I grew a crop from two varieties of indigo seeds, and dyed cloth with the fresh harvest. Roland Ricketts, Michel Garcia and John Marshall came to light as resources for recipes. I love the surprises that natural materials and dyes reveal, but keep notes on my experiments, mostly so I don’t make the same mistake twice. In my digging, I discovered that South Carolina soil is a bounty of natural clays in a variety of colours. I began to make paints from them and also returned to painting on paper and cloth using these muds, rust water, black walnut ink, indigo and other natural dyes. Having warmer temperatures most of the year has allowed me to spend more time at the local river and beaches, exploring and gathering. In May 2016, I undertook my largest and riskiest ‘Eco-Dye Project’ when I climbed a rusty 15-foot-tall shrimp winch while my husband held the ladder. I wrapped its I-beam and A-frame supports with 225 feet of cottons to rust them in the elements. It remained there for several months until I had the nerve to climb up again. Hand-stitching was evolving over this period. I have always liked handwork and incorporated it often in my machined quilts. My long arm quilting work was exclusively freehand, nurturing my love of drawing and longhand journal
Both pages: MIGRATION - PRECIOUS CARGO Recycled artist’s paint box with objects found in Boston area, arranged in compartments. Patchwork map of Charles River in Cambridge, MA with surrounding area upholstered into cover.
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ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
Books That Go Against the Grain The earliest records of the Antica Legatoria Viali date back to 1891 and today they do bookbinding and conservation of books using the same methods artisans have used for hundreds of years – with local differences, improvements and innovations, but substantially in exactly the same way as ever since the book itself was first born and substituted scrolls. Viali’s Antica Legatoria is in the centre of the medieval town of Viterbo, in the Lazio region, north of Rome. This area used to be known as Tuscia, the land of the Etruscans, and was famous for its Papal Palace, the Pope’s palace from 1257 to 1281 and held the longest conclave in the history of the Church (1268-1271).
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n modern times, crafts have changed considerably with the introduction of new methods of working and industrial type production. These changes are inevitable and indispensable from many points of view, not least because they have made the final product accessible to a larger number of people, while artisanal production was local and limited. The making of books has been no exception; over the last century the manufacturing of books has moved on a grand scale to industrial “bookbinding” (the name has remained but the type of work involved and the product are substantially different). We are also now in a phase where even the book industry has to adapt to the reality of electronic books and reading online! The traditional craft of bookbinding, where all the phases of making a book are completely carried out by hand, has naturally become limited to rebinding and restoring antique books as well as working on commission for enthusiasts, bibliophiles, libraries, study centres, institutions, and historical archives needing to renovate their texts. The craft is furthermore destined to being an artistic pursuit, creating books that are themselves works of art. For all these reasons, there are fewer and fewer bookbinders now, even in areas where they were a centuries old tradition
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Malaterra (= wicked earth), the story of a bag
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he story of Gina Malaterra’s bags began one day among the stalls of a second-hand market. Gina, who had not yet become Gina Malaterra, was bewitched by a particularly well made bag and wanted to try her hand at making one for herself. From that moment began a spell of trial and error as she tried to craft an item that was above all possible criticism. Behind this adventure lay her passion for vintage patterns, her desire for a challenge, not only for herself but also one involving her native territory, and a fifties Singer sewing machine, in perfect condition, gifted to her by her seamstress grandmother. Her grandmother now checks her work with the critical eye of one who has spent her life in front of the sewing machine, a true ‘quality control’. The most important phases of her journey were of course related to studying patterns (casting a ‘vintage’ eye over the last decades of the twentieth century), her approach to materials and the development of her cutting and sewing skills. Once an item is created, Gina opts for selling directly, either in person or online, because this is something she wanted to experience first-hand, and because she wanted her product lines to be only those that she could produce herself, sat at her precious Singer. Her workshop is a stark white room in a wooden house situated among the hills of Cosenza in Calabria. The alias that she chose, Gina Malaterra, now the only name she is known by, reflects the difficult situation in the south of Italy, in Calabria, and her grit in continuing to pursue this adventure in spite of possible adversity. Gina tells us: “The future tense does not exist in my dialect; it was difficult enough thinking about the present and so speaking about the future would have seemed abstract. I find it extraordinary. I am here now, and this is my opportunity! I threw myself into this wonderful adventure, with the clear feeling that I was riding a wave, and this is how I understood that I am doing the right thing. My project began in the south, and it is in the south that I will bring it to fruition. If I succeed here, then indeed, I can make it anywhere. This is what I would like to give back to myself from my land, a different perspective, a kick-start to life!”
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In this page: Bag by Malaterra Top from Oxfam charity shop Trousers by Monkee Genes Necklace by Zero Più Marta Read our interviews with Oxfam, Monkee Genes and Zero Più Marta in the Spring Issue 2017
FIND IT ONLINE Facebook: www.facebook.com/malaterra.borse/ Instagram: malaterra_bags Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/it/shop/Malaterra
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ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
WEBSITE REVAMP
We decided to celebrate our first year anniversary and new website by featuring here one of our most popular blog posts.
Eco Printing on Paper by Hilde Wolleboom Since a very long time I’ve been addicted to dyeing animal fibres (wool, silk) with plants. This knowledge combined with felting, creating cloths and eco printing (or botanical-contactnatural printing) opens a world of possibilities, including the use of cellulose fibres (hemp, cotton, viscose…) and recycled fabric.
part of the fun.Learning to make art with useless objects is priceless and creates a Zen moment. Giving workshops means sharing techniques and methods with others in a clear way, so participants can carry the knowledge and make it their own. It’s heart-warming and satisfying to see the astonished look on the face of the participants the moment we open the stack of papers after cooking or steaming. Never can the results compete with chemical colours.
When I’m creating I totally forget the world around me. Knowing the techniques, I let them go while working. It’s all coming from my gut like a meditative flowing passion. It is as if the colours speak. Working with leaves connects us with nature. Every time I go for a walk I can’t help but search for different weeds, flowers, forms and I love taking care of them by drying and cherishing them for later experiments. Eco print on paper has to do with binding leaves in a stack between tiles combined with rusted iron objects. Looking for those objects, found on the street or between rubbish is a big
Printing on paper is a very enjoyable application of what I do, being much easier than printing on textiles. There are many more leaves that give good pigmented results. Especially in Spring I use all kinds of outcoming plants, leaves and weeds from the garden and I look for different patterns and coloured flowers.
The process All botanicals can be used fresh or dried. You need watercolour paper of different qualities, on which you can experiment. When you fold it by half it’ll be much easier to make a booklet or postcard later. The paper must be wet using a solution with water and alum/ iron/soy/vinegar… Take a flat wetted tile and lay down the leaves in a nice composition on the back and front side using rusted iron objects between them. Make a stack of paper and bind it very strongly together with a second tile. Many more techniques of printing on textiles are applicable, like using an iron or colour blanket. Take the leaves out, using running water when they stick together. Dry and press them in a pile of newspapers. With the results, we make a postcard or a booklet. The leaves inside can remind you of a fine moment or conversation on a walk with friends. So the leaves can make a statement or memory.
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ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2017
Each issue is created with love: love for our world heritage and love for the environment. We are really passionate about meeting creative people that put all their effort in combining these two elements - that’s why this magazine exists! In this day and age we desperately need to change the way we live, consume and produce. We hope that with this magazine we are contributing towards this goal. If you love what you see subscribe today and help us grow and reach more people! www.noserialnumber.com/subscriptions
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