Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum
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far as Guangdong, Cuangxi, and Cuizhou.5 During those flourishing<br />
periods jiaohua fau-dyeing was conducted in two manners. An average<br />
shop would set up a shop front with a variety of pattern samples<br />
on display for customers to make their<br />
choices. Orders would be processed<br />
in the back of the shop. Dyers with<br />
fewer assets would carry their equipment<br />
and samples on shoulder poles,<br />
making the round of remote villages<br />
looking for promising clients. Their<br />
arrival was always welcomed <strong>by</strong> the<br />
peasants.<br />
Paste-resist dyeing is still done<br />
today, although in considerably fewer<br />
places. The products are mostly for<br />
tourist consumption. The method used<br />
<strong>by</strong> dyers now has hardly changed from<br />
the tradition established several hundred<br />
years ago. In order to have a better understanding of this dyeing<br />
process, the major steps are briefly described here. Paper stencil and<br />
soya bean paste are the two essential requirements in paste-resist<br />
dyeing. While milti-layered mulberry-bark paper glued together with<br />
diluted wild persimmon juice is favoured <strong>by</strong> some stencil-makers,<br />
thickened Korean paper also serves the purpose. After the desired<br />
pattern has been drawn on or transferred (from an old stencil) to<br />
the paper, engraving knives with differently<br />
shaped blades, gouges, and punches are<br />
used to cut out undesired areas. All<br />
outlines must be meticulous and crisp.<br />
When this is done, the stencil is burnished,<br />
waxed, and coated with tung oil<br />
to make it impermeable and durable.6<br />
Paste is prepared <strong>by</strong> adding water to bind<br />
together three parts of soya bean<br />
flour with seven parts of slaked lime.<br />
The flour must be as fine as possible,<br />
since lumpy flour would affect the<br />
quality of the dyed patterns.<br />
When transferring the pattern,<br />
the stencil is placed on the fabric<br />
and paste is applied through the<br />
perforations onto the fabric with a wooden or ox-bone spatula.<br />
Preliminary marks are made on the fabric to ensure alignment if the<br />
pattern is to be repeated. After drying the paste-covered fabric in the<br />
sun, it is soaked in warm water mixed with a suitable amount of pig's<br />
blood, a necessary ingredient to help congeal the paste. Once the<br />
fabric has softened, it can be dipped in the indigo bath. After dyeing,<br />
cleaning, and sun-drying, the hardened paste is scraped off. In the<br />
final step the patterned fabric is thoroughly<br />
cleaned and sun-dried.<br />
Some of the fundamental characteristics<br />
of patterns produced <strong>by</strong> paste-resist<br />
dyeing are worthy of note. Because stencils<br />
are made of paper and are intended for<br />
repeated use, extremely fine or long lines<br />
that can break easily are avoided. Instead,<br />
long lines are usually made up of a series of<br />
short lines. Also, for practical reasons, large<br />
empty areas in a composition are never<br />
allowed, since a stencil having large empty<br />
areas will not hold up well while being<br />
handled. As a result, images can only be<br />
constructed with carefully planned broken<br />
lines, short curves, and dots of all shapes.<br />
The success of any pattern depends largely on how well the compositional<br />
elements in a stencil are arranged and executed.<br />
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