Threads for Africa.
Yes, I did it! I packed all those threads into big zip-lock bags and squished them into that suitcase. They will be given to the 6 textile groups we’ll visit on my tour to South Africa in April. The threads … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Travel
New York!
This past week we spent 4 days in New York. We wanted to do something memorable for our 40th anniversary and New York was perfect. As our Uber driver said, as he forked over $15 for the Holland Tunnel to … Continue reading →
Share this:
Africa Nova
I’m just back from South Africa and I have so many fabulous textured images to share!This display was at a wonderful gallery shop called Africa Nova in Cape Town. Telephone wire baskets along with ceramics, beaded dolls and the traditional circular red hats worn by married Zulu women. African icons from Ethiopia and beaded giraffe from Zululand.
Continue reading →Share this:
San Rock Paintings
The San left their mark in these fascinating, vulnerable paintings. Priceless treasures, they are our earliest human art and speak of a cohesive culture connected to nature. Many of the paintings are fading due to lichens, weathering time and sometimes senseless vandalism. I found it profoundly moving.
Continue reading →Share this:
Bead and Basket Textures
African bead aprons and finely woven baskets. Kim Sacks Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
Telephone Wire Basket
We saw this large telephone wire basket at the African Art Centre in Durban, South Africa. Vibrant colour and textur
Continue reading →Share this:
African Beaded Skirt
Detail of a beautifully textured Shangaan beaded fertility apron, Limpopo Province in South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
Indigo and Clay
Deeply textured hand built pots by a Zulu craftsman paired with indigo dyed cotton. Love being in South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
Visiting the Winterveldt
We are in South Africa and visiting the wonderful embroiderers of the Mapula Embroidery Group in the Winterveld . Mapula means Mother of Rain. We love visiting the Mapula ladies with our tour group. I’ve known these ladies for … Continue reading →
Share this:
Off to South Africa again!
One grandmother who received a pair of reading glasses said it changed her life. She’d had to stop sewing because of poor eyesight, and that was the only income for her family of 10 she was supporting. Now, with those magnifier glasses, that cost under $10, she was able to start sewing again. This meant food on the table. The glasses were the thin divide between dire poverty and making ends meet.
Continue reading →Share this:
Scissors
 We met this delight woman in Limpopo Province when we toured there last year. Her husband is a famous carver and she is is second wife. My friend Janine Hunt from Bainbridge Island was in our group and both … Continue reading →
Share this:
Textured Tuesdays
This stack of folded kuba raffia cloth exudes texture, colour and energy. Abstract designs are appliquéd on to a background fabic. The colours suggest the essence of Africa. I spotted these fabrics when we visited Kim Sacks Gallery in Johannesburg on our last tour to South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
Textured Tuesdays
The Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, Japan. We got up at 4:30 am to get to the market and see the fresh fish ready for sale and distribution. it was full of pattern and texture. These are fresh octopus.
Continue reading →Share this:
Textured Tuesday
Whalebone vertebrae, many hundreds of years old. I found this at Red Bay Labrador at the earliest known Basque Settlement in North America. the Basque hunted whale and returned to Spain with the oil. There are 9 holes drilled in the centre of the vertebrae, perhaps made by researchers looking at the DNA of the whale, I don’t know.
Continue reading →Share this:
Stitched into this place.
Today, when some in our world seem hungry to divide people violently along racial and religious lines, I find myself thinking about growing up in Apartheid South Africa. In Durban in the late 60’s, I was not supposed to go alone to the Indian Market, in the heart of the city. Here I found community and my world grew bigger.
Continue reading →Share this:
Visiting the Cradle of Humankind
Homo Naledi is the most ancient human species ever discovered in Africa. The scientific buzz from the discovery is shaking up our knowledge of the origins of humankind.What good fortune that we decided to visit this very area on our tour next year! On-site archaeologists will guide our field trip to a dig close to the Naledi discovery.
Continue reading →Share this:
More fabric shopping in South Africa! Part 2
I’ll write more about the various adventures we had in South Africa including more in depth information about shwe-shwe fabric pictured above, which is the iconic fabric of South Africa. I want to tell you about the herd of elephants that surrounded our safari trucks, the leopard we saw and the Zulu baskets and beadwork!
Continue reading →Share this:
Fabric Shopping in South Africa.
When we visited Limpopo Province this past April, our tour group was thrilled to stop at an African trading store. Three generations of an Indian family had owned the store supplying fabric to the various groups in the area: the Shangaan, Tsonga and Venda.
Continue reading →Share this:
Visiting a Zulu village
In April I led an arts & culture tour to South Africa. Here I am, second from the right, sitting with our tour group while visiting a Zulu village near Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal. Behind us are traditional bee-hive huts.
Continue reading →Share this:
Embroidery Bearing Witness
On September 7th, a fascinating exhibition of South African embroideries will open at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles. It’s called, Bearing Witness: Embroidery as History in Post-Apartheid South Africa It will feature the work of two groups that I’ve been closely connected to over the past 10 years through my fair trade imports, African Threads and my cultural tours to South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
150 pairs of Granny Glasses
Thanks to the Lunenburg Rotary Club and the Tantallon Bay Grans for donating 150 pairs of reading glasses. This wonderful pile of glasses is headed to South Africa with me next week. The glasses will be given to women artisans in South Africa.
Continue reading →Share this:
Venice Floats Softly
Oh, the colors of Siena! So faded and gentle: muted amber, rose, tawny mushroom colors of earth. I want to make a quilt with Siena colors.
Continue reading →