Textile Tools Part I: wood block for printing

Through time the practice of making textiles by hand has become rare and many techniques are threatened or lost. These pencil line rubbings are explorations of the fragmentation that occurs to the textile tool that is beneath the paper; and intern explores the fragmentation that has occurred to the object throughout history.  The objects participation in the re-invention of itself is representative of the change in perception that may occur within the viewer as they, in discovering what the drawing is, have a deeper and more critical experience when thinking about the object and its history.

Block printing is an ancient printing practice where wooden blocks, which are meticulously hand-carved, are used like stamps to print fabric (usually cotton) with pigments.  Very skilled people in India print cloth using this method and achieve seamless repeat networks by hand; a skill that is passed on through generations and requires an immense amount of experience to master.

The first photo below is taken from the Maiwa website.  It is of an indian-made cloth called an Ajrakh.  Maiwa says, "Producing an ajrakh involves entire communities: block cutters, dye farmers (for the many natural dyeplants), cloth merchants, and of course, the ajrakh craftspeople themselves (those who mordant, print, dye and design the cloth)."  -source