This blog posting is one that I’ve been procrastinating about since I returned from Bhutan. Mainly because I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to.The loss of so many lives in the bushfires in Victoria this week gives me impetus to write. We are all vulnerable to so many things in this life and the forces of nature regularly impact on our world. So many of us try to understand this with our particular beliefs and injecting meaning and purpose into our lives as we connect with other lives. All to ensure that our thinking and reactions to loss and change will give us strength when we need it – for ourselves and others.
This sense of connection to nature and others is revealing and close to you in Bhutan. It’s like a blanket touching your skin. Buddhism is the state religion there and their government/monarchy is entwined with Buddhism. Jamsho, pictured here, is a Bhutanese tour guide who showed us about the spiritual beliefs of his country. Although it’s completely unreasonable to judge an entire country on the few people you meet on a tour it is difficult not to take away something of what those few people give you as you glimpse another world. Jamsho gave me a new appreciation of the virtue of gentleness, inspired by Budddhism. This is a virtue that I’ve rarely come across in men and then only if you are very close to them. Jamsho readily shared his gentleness with everyone.
The unexpected aspects of Bhutanese culture and their unique natural environment are also reflected in their textiles. Pictured here is a textile worn over the left shoulder by women called a rachu. It is plain weave with discontinuous weft patterns interspersed over a strongly striped fabric. The stripes are basically ignored at each end and the rich weft patterning is executed regardless of their placement. This is a design technique that is rarely seen in the west. As we would probably feel the need to match the spacing between each of the stripes with the design so it didn’t look ‘feathered’. But the feathering has made it a delightful, playful textile which shouts out at life rather than retiring under symmetrical aesethics. This is why it is so refreshing to really look at textiles from other cultures as they have an interesting story to tell about themselves and their beliefs in life.
Active Travel are running two tours to Bhutan this year.
Getting up close with the textiles from Bhutan is extraordinary. I can hardly see the weave with a gigantic magnifier so I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to actually weave it! The weavers are often in dimly lit rooms too.
This type of weave is used in making the Kira – the womens’ national dress. The longer horizontal arms are made with a type of soumak stitch manipulated by hand through an open shed. The weavers use a beautiful pointed pick up stick to assist them. This type of stitch allows a long horizonal line without floats. You can see the other diamond shaped patterns are woven by a straight pick up and have small floats.
Here is a diagram of how I think the horizontal work is done using one thread doubled by anchoring it around a warp thread. To go up the vertical the threads are basically twisted around each other and anchored under a warp ready to do the soumak line again. This works because the warp is fine, sett at 115 epi. The diagram only shows the soumak work but rows of plain weave are woven as well.
I also tried this on a much coarser sett and it was a great way to introduce texture and line patterning to a plain weave. The soumak creates a raised texture which sits higher than the surrounding ground weave. As the pattern is worked on the open shed it only shows on the face of the textile.
There’s a poetry about the weave. Over 5 and back 2, working on the diagonal for the pick up pattern and working many different coloured threads. This rhythm is evident not only in the design but the way it is worked. I was a bit surprised by this, but then I shouldn’t have been. This type of skill is taught. It isn’t a free flowing, unorderly work of self expression. It is a highly technical skill which takes 6 years of study to learn (if you attend the college in Thimpu) and order in working is important.
If you look at the illustration of the pattern, you can see the the arrows showing the direction of the soumak weave. It has a mathematical and sublime quality.
I know our textiles tell stories but in getting very close to this special Bhutanese weave I really discovered more about the people and country of Bhutan. These expressions are woven with the style, patterning, colour and structure of the cloth itself. Woven textiles are created to inspire the heart and the Bhutanese have a special word for it – Hingtham which means ‘heart weaving’. A language that has a word for this indicates the value of textiles in the culture. As a weaving community we need to make new special words to succinctly express our passion for our art and its connection to our lives.
I have a short video on YouTube where you can see a weaver in Bhutan doing the weave with the pick up stick.
I know you won’t find my travel pictures boring because they are all about weave. Perhaps the little things I’ve noticed on my trip can be noticed here in Australia too, if I only look about for it. But when you go to a country where textiles count it just seems to mean so much.
Meet Tshering from Experience Bhutan the travel partner of Active Travel. This photo really captures a young commanding man with great integrity and leadership qualities, perhaps inspired by Bhutan’s quest for ‘gross national happiness’.
Here he is standing at the Trongsa Dzong wearing the white kabne. A white cloth wrapped in such a way that it stays on! Something that is a challenge with scarves. The cloth was very long which I think helped the situation.
Most men still wear he national dress – the Gho – and they really look fantastic as you can see. Tshering’s Ghos where mainly handwoven with a supplementary warp patterning or striping rather than the weave of the women’s kiras. Many have a striped weave which held little weave secrets up close.
Every day each of the Bhutanese guides/organisers wore different woven ghos. On this day, I originally thought that Tshering’s striped gho was a plain weave. Ho hum. But this wasn’t the case. Of course not. Similar to the tartans of Scotland it is woven in a very fine twill, making the drape and comfort of the garment far better than the drapeless nature of plainweave. The twill is the ‘birds eye’ and Tshering said the pattern had the same name there.
My husband also got into Bhutan’s national dress and you can see the Australian version here too. The short socks and Blundstones look a little wrong – but, who knows, it may take off.
A Tingma is a Bhutanese weft pattern design which uses discontinuous supplementary wefts in addition to a ground weft. This photo illustrates a lovely example this type of weave. Usually woven for the women’s dress (Kira), this is a smaller table runner size. A silk on silk textile, it looks alot like embroidery and the technique for creating it is rather like embroidering around the warp threads as the cloth is woven – row by row.You can also see the back of the cloth with the supplementary weft ends pushed to the back of the cloth and left in their expansive and disarrayed state. The back of the cloth tells me just as much about the weaving and its technique as the front. The back tells me that the supplementary wefts (ie the wefts that weave the fancy coloured patterning) were inserted in an open shed. Only the top threads of the open shed were manipulated to place the supplementary weft across. The front of the cloth tells me how those threads wove in and out to create the pattern.
I’m currently counting, making stories and analyzing these threads. The first most interesting discovery was the ‘locked down’ nature of the lines that sit horizontally on the fabric. Normally horizontal lines of pattern go over a number of ends and are caught by one or two ends at regulated patterned intervals
The ingenuity and tenacity of this textile lies in the use of soumak on a very fine scale to produce the horizontal veins. This locks down the weft and creates more options for design that we may avoid due to the possiblity of floats that may be too long.
It’s always a plus to meet a weaver who has woven a textile that I can now have on my table at home so I can feel a link to her.Meet Tshewang from the village of Khoma in Bhutan. This village was quite remote, at least in Australian terms which is really saying something. A three hour drive on quite a treacherous road plagued by ’shooting stones’ and land slips followed by a walk of 1 1/2 hours. So it was nice that I was able to have such a valuable textile memory of Khoma. Many royal weavers come from this village and the kiras being woven there were extraordinary. When I see textiles like this it’s easy to exhaust my supply of adjectives to describe them – they are simply a product of extreme tenacity, superiour skill, ‘heavenly’ colour perception and ‘heart’ weaving as the Bhutanese call their finest weaves.Amongst a flurry of eager weaver vendors we were ushered into an impromptu fresh air display market. Many priceless textiles flung over ropes to reveal their beauty and entice our walk and sun weary senses. I was immediately drawn to Tshewang piece. It is probably woven as a rhachu – or ceremonial sash which is folded lengthwise and worn over the left shoulder. I suspect she is a young weaver working to become an expert. The cloth is double sided using a pick up technique on a closed shed in comparison to many other textiles picked up on an open shed (more on this later).
I’m working on a future post to explore the intricate pick up weaving techniques used in Bhutan.
Bhutan is an extraordinary place. I’ve just returned from a trip with Active Travel and have a head filled with weaving adventures and sights that I never thought I’d see.
Handweaving is the main ‘art’ form in Bhutan, it is where you see the most innovation and experimentation of colour and design. Most women know how to weave which allows a wide pool of skill and knowledge to flow in textile design.The women’s traditional dress is the Kira and this is seen on nearly every woman. The traditional men’s dress, the Gho is also worn by most men.
Although I’ve said that weaving is an ‘art’ form, this word diminishes the full meaning and impact of textiles in Bhutan.The creation of textiles is a religious act and colour selection is a spiritual exercise. Textiles contribute to social cohesion in the form of gift giving, wealth accumulation and even as a form of currency. This concept differs so completely from Australian sociey where even though painting and sculpture are considered our highest art form they are not immersed in our social structure and interaction.
The Punakha Dzong getting ready for the Coronation of the new King.
An old Stupa near Bumthang.
I think these are people of Merak Sakteng in traditional handwoven clothing. The felted hats are made in such a way to prevent the rain from falling directly on their faces. The felted tags divert the rain. How do people think of such useful and yet elegant ideas?
A yak herder and her children spinning yak hair as she walks.
A prize winning handwoven kira (womens dress) displayed by the weaver.
Detail of the previous kira. Exquisitely fine work. Silk warp, silk ground weft and silk supplementary weft patterning.
A 17 year old weaver – already a master weaver.
Buying yarn at the yarn shop in Trashigang – one of my favourite towns on the trip. They had rows of silks and cottons in lots of colours from India.
Getting up close with the textiles from Bhutan is extraordinary. I can hardly see the weave with a gigantic magnifier so I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to actually weave it! The weavers are often in dimly lit rooms too.
Here is a diagram of how I think the horizontal work is done using one thread doubled by anchoring it around a warp thread. To go up the vertical the threads are basically twisted around each other and anchored under a warp ready to do the soumak line again. This works because the warp is fine, sett at 115 epi. The diagram only shows the soumak work but rows of plain weave are woven as well.
There’s a poetry about the weave. Over 5 and back 2, working on the diagonal for the pick up pattern and working many different coloured threads. This rhythm is evident not only in the design but the way it is worked. I was a bit surprised by this, but then I shouldn’t have been. This type of skill is taught. It isn’t a free flowing, unorderly work of self expression. It is a highly technical skill which takes 6 years of study to learn (if you attend the college in Thimpu) and order in working is important.
I know you won’t find my travel pictures boring because they are all about weave. Perhaps the little things I’ve noticed on my trip can be noticed here in Australia too, if I only look about for it. But when you go to a country where textiles count it just seems to mean so much.
A Tingma is a Bhutanese weft pattern design which uses discontinuous supplementary wefts in addition to a ground weft. This photo illustrates a lovely example this type of weave. Usually woven for the women’s dress (Kira), this is a smaller table runner size. A silk on silk textile, it looks alot like embroidery and the technique for creating it is rather like embroidering around the warp threads as the cloth is woven – row by row.You can also see the back of the cloth with the supplementary weft ends pushed to the back of the cloth and left in their expansive and disarrayed state. The back of the cloth tells me just as much about the weaving and its technique as the front. The back tells me that the supplementary wefts (ie the wefts that weave the fancy coloured patterning) were inserted in an open shed. Only the top threads of the open shed were manipulated to place the supplementary weft across. The front of the cloth tells me how those threads wove in and out to create the pattern.
