Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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