Maiwa Podcasts

Razzaque and Ismail are Khatris – a hereditary community of dyers and printers who live and work in the desert district of Kutch in Gujarat, India. They are joined by researcher Eiluned Edwards, who has lived, worked, and collaborated with them for many years.

Karen Selk In part three Karen explores India and visits both the giant tusser moth and the Salvi community, makers of a famous double silk ikat known as Patan Patola. Karen Selk has been a textile designer and artist since 1972. Her primary focus has been weaving and fusing felt with silk. In addition to writing, photography, research and textile arts, Karen runs Treenway Silks from her Salt Spring Island Home. Recorded at the 2007 Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 23, 2007 Posted October 2008

Razzaque and Ismail are Khatris – a hereditary community of dyers and printers who live and work in the desert district of Kutch in Gujarat, India. They are joined by researcher Eiluned Edwards, who has lived, worked, and collaborated with them for many years.

Karen Selk In part two Karen describes her experience in Laos and explains how weaving traditions are an essential part of Laotian culture. Karen Selk has been a textile designer and artist since 1972. Her primary focus has been weaving and fusing felt with silk. In addition to writing, photography, research and textile arts, Karen runs Treenway Silks from her Salt Spring Island Home. Recorded at the 2007 Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 23, 2007 Posted October 2008

In March of 2008 CBC radio's Sheryl MacKay came to the Maiwa Loft and interviewed Charllotte Kwon, Owner of Maiwa Handprints and director of the Maiwa Foundation. The interview aired on March 22 on Sheryl's program North by Northwest. We asked Sheryl if we could post the interview on our website and she agreed. So in this episode we present the original interview as it aired in March of 2008.

Working to commission involves forming a special working relationship with a client. Large works for public spaces require working with architects, planners, and engineers. It involves navigating through time frames, budgets, and fire regulations. The challenge is not to compromise the creative process due to the added constraints. In fact the reverse can often be true: exciting creative ideas come out of problem solving within a working brief.

Karen Selk Karen Selk describes her journeys to China and explains how silk is raised and harvested. Karen Selk has been a textile designer and artist since 1972. Her primary focus has been weaving and fusing felt with silk. In addition to writing, photography, research and textile arts, Karen runs Treenway Silks from her Salt Spring Island Home. Recorded at the 2007 Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 23, 2007 Posted September 2008

In part three Karen explores India and visits both the giant tusser moth and the Salvi community, makers of a famous double silk ikat known as Patan Patola.

In part two Karen describes her experience in Laos and explains how weaving traditions are an essential part of Laotian culture.

Karen Selk has been a textile designer and artist since 1972. Her primary focus has been weaving and fusing felt with silk. In addition to writing, photography, research and textile arts, Karen runs Treenway Silks from her Salt Spring Island Home.

Bhakti Ziek has the ability to talk to a group about her life as a weaver while making it seem as if she is sitting talking directly to each person about their own lives and intimate experiences. In this talk, she updates her journey, sharing how a tenuous, fine thread grew into her life line and the sometimes unpredictable path it has taken. Sharing both the triumphs and knots, periods of intense curiosity and spells of disillusionment, she will talk about ways of staying connected that she has found helpful in her struggle to remain involved, creative, and hopeful as an aging weaver, artist, and human being.

Bhakti Ziek has the ability to talk to a group about her life as a weaver while making it seem as if she is sitting talking directly to each person about their own lives and intimate experiences.

In his episode Edwards tells the story of the events leading up to her first trip to India, how it felt to arrive, and how her life was changed by a meeting with the blockprinters of Dhamadka. The trip was profound and its effects were long lasting, Edwards shifted her focus from textile design to cultural anthropology. She spent the next 16 years researching the textiles of the Kutch Desert, collaborating with artisans, aranging exhibitions and studying traditional Ajrakh blockprints. Recorded at the 2007 Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 17, 2007 Posted March 2008

Bhakti Ziek The conclusion of Bhakti Ziek's ride ranging and intimate talk on the art and life of weaving. Recorded at the 2007 Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 16, 2007 Posted May 2008

Shibori is a test of faith - one invests hours of stitching, blind as it were, before the ‘thought’ is revealed at the end of the process. I enjoy cloth, for with shibori one is so utterly and completely involved in the activity of managing and organizing it. I also enjoy sewing, for there is a challenge in that seemingly endless and prohibitive sea of fabric to conquer. I find completeness in symmetry – no matter how intricate, how complex – it conveys an order, a calm, which greatly appeals.