Deconstructing and re-composing

In order to combine the different materials, I sometimes deconstruct them first. When I do this to the beautiful long tapa panels I commissioned in Samoa, it always feels like breaking the material’s spirit in order to better manipulate and subject it to my will. Tapa making is hard work and best done in a group of people, mostly women. I made tapa myself, so I know what it is all about, and I have a lot of respect for the makers of this bark cloth. Here I am, all on my own, ripping apart what took my tapa maker perhaps an entire day to create.

One length of Samoan tapa torn into strips

I tear the bark into strips; I don’t cut them. I want to feel the resistance of the fibres which won’t break straight. Their beautiful flow will be my inspiration. When I lay the strips on my work table, they don’t lie flat. I play with their shapes and they form waves and spirals.

When it is finished, will I hang this panel so it can spiral around a centre string? Perhaps...

Torn interfacing

Yesterday I wanted to work also with bonded interfacing. It is a good man-made equivalent to bark cloth, fibres bonded together and non woven. When wet, it becomes as vulnerable as tapa, and it also tears best lengthwise. When I deconstruct interfacing, it doesn’t feel the same. I can tell that it is machine-made. It doesn’t have a soul. There is no resistance and its fibres don’t flow. The strips are all straight-edged. If I want flow, I have to make it flow.

I wanted squares yesterday. I saw a lovely photo from Leslie Avon Miller’s collection on Facebook which inspired me to use bark fibre for my lace held by interfacing squares and stitching.

Tapa, kiriau (bark fibre) and interfacing

This panel is only narrow, 20 cm wide at its widest part, but 6 m long. I like the contrast of straight fibres and square interfacing with the meandering flow of the bark cloth strips. I can see many similarities to my being a straight-edged “bloody German perfectionist” and my liminal position in between the relaxed, flowing Polynesian culture...