Burda Style For people who sew

Description

It’s my first real post in forever and I have no real good excuse. It’s not like I haven’t been making anything. Contrary to it, I even started a group that meets regularly to work on different projects. In the Fall and Winter we knitted. For Spring we had grand plans for printmaking and here I share one of those results.

I love these prints we’ve made from potato stamps. It started out with simple geometric shapes and when it was all over, it looked very decidedly African-inspired. Then things sort of take a life on its own and pretty soon we discover Kente Cloths and bogolanfinis African Mudcloths made by Bamana women in Mali who encode them with secrets in the way that they choose the symbols and where they place them. These mudcloths serve as “documents” that are passed on to generations. Often they are used as ceremonial garbs that hunters wear to signify their place in the community and the legendary hunters even earn their mark by having a symbol named after their particular esoteric quality such as that of the hero Kumi Jose Kahn and his long-neck. I like this a lot and I wish I knew more about the different symbols and what they mean so I can encode a story in the same way. My big fear is that now, having known (therefore releasing all claim to ignorant bliss) these symbolisms, I may have encoded the a faux pas sentiment such as “This dude hunted the wrong herd; Chief Seydou is pissed.” If no one is the wiser and the design is aesthetically pretty, no one is hurt or disappointed unless you happen to read Bamana symbols and then I’m embarrassed and for that I apologize.

This incidentally is one of many reasons not to get a tattoo in a script of a foreign language. Really, are you really sure those marks on your arm say “peace” and not, let’s say “cauliflower” for example. Think about that.

Still don’t judge me if I do attempt a story making my own bogolanfini. I think it would be a fun project but I’m also sure you have stories of your own to tell in which case I invite you to go ahead and tell it in any way you can and if it involves heavy cotton soaked in water infused with cengua tree leaves and covered with mud then all the better. This scarf is named Nakunte after the name of the Bamana artist who makes these mudcloths for a living everyday in Mali. You can learn more about her and about telling your own stories through African mudcloths called bogolanfini here .

As for us here at the studio, we don’t quite have the right environment for mudcloth printing (not sure I can recognize a Cengua tree if I saw one) so we emulate using the very simple process of potato printing. For progress on our printmaking journey visit us at kaimito studio.

We used Lena Corwin and Lotta Jansdotter’s books on printmaking but the How-To here from Burdastyle is plenty of instruction to get started. If you feel inspired I hope you give it a try.

happy printing,
amarie

Material Notes

linen knit, potato, carving tools, water-based screenprinting ink

Categories

Credits

BurdaStyle

Lena Corwin

Printing By Hand

A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps

Lotta Jansdotter

Lotta Prints

How to Print With Anything, from Potatoes to Linoleum

Smithsonian Institute

Nakunte Diarra