Garments and Goodbyes

After much deliberation, I decided to go with the spotted design. Whilst the hand painted design had a distinct and unique handwriting to it – the spotted design was equally as innovative.

The stenciled border is created in a way that mimics the distinctive arches seen in Indian architecture – in facades, doorways, windows and more. The woodblocks chosen pair well with my original woodblock as they are botanical in their design and the spotted element is utilized. The spots behind my own woodblock are much more striking and solid in colour than the transparency of the hand painted fabric. They also compliment my own woodblock design, as the spots are recurrent in small dotted bottlebrush flowers. The play on positive and negative space on my fabric evokes interest and quite suitable towards my garment design.

Instead of just an orange spotted background, I decided to incorporate the orange/reds of the pomegranate-like paintings I had been doing a lot of. Instead of watering down the dyes, I would paint using the mixed print pastes directly onto the woodblock - randomising the placement of orange and red. 

I originally thought I would print my fabric here in India, then later cut and sew my garment myself upon returning to Sydney. This is because the original garment I was to have copied, I had made myself. However, I decided differently, as the process of having a garment reproduced by a maker – particularly one in a foreign country – would be an experience worth undergoing. Despite the language barrier as well as differences in patternmaking and construction techniques, the garment was produced in the end.

Soon enough it was our last day in the printing studio. As most of us had finished out print work, and some had a few finishing touches - we spent most of it just relaxing, laughing and joking around with the ladies that worked in Fiona's studio. Nandu, our print assistant joked to marry some of us off to her son, and gave us some feedback to our printing technique. It's obvious she has been watching us carefully over the past week. She's even picked up a bit of English from us with choice phrases of 'oh my god' and 'I love you'. 

We finished off with a dance party in the print rooms and managed to coax all the ladies to join us. We laughed and danced and joked all day - I'm definitely going to miss their colourfulness, our chai times, their sass and our awkward but sweet communication difficulties.