I’ve called my textile dyeing & printing business Dora Fabrics since I graduated from Chelsea – somehow it felt safer to be someone else but now I’m finally coming out as me – Sarah Burns Patterns and it feels good!

Here is more about me, what inspires me and how I work (thanks to www.handprinted.com for originally publishing this blog)

About me – Sarah Burns Patterns

When I’m designing, I start with an initial idea and cut my block vey soon as print making is an integral part of designing for me. I’ll keep printing and cutting and changing the block, editing the idea as it develops and being attentive to detail, colour, marks & scale… My goal is to create something that creates both harmony & movement – at the same time.

Although I went to Cambridge and studied politics, I had a lovely friend who was at art school and we used to block print together – after that I never really stopped even though I was working in a very different field (community economics where I met my husband the writer David Boyle). When I was 40 and my youngest son went to school full time I decided to take the plunge and applied to Chelsea to study textiles – I could cycle there and back to Crystal Palace in time to pick up the kids up. Studying with lots of super talented 20 year olds was terrifying (I was the only mature student) and exhilarating at the same time. I got a first class degree and learned how to work very hard & really shifted in my approach to colour and design.

When I was in my second year at Chelsea I started interning with Michal at Christopher Farr Cloth; she took me to the wonderful Ivo’s screen printing factory in Southall and when I graduated I got a job there as a handprinter. I worked at Ivo’s for 3 years, commuting between Sussex and Southall and probably learned more there than I did at college – about colour, technique and the craft of printing. I wasn’t very good at it but it gave me a unique insight into commercial production and English manufacturing. The waste and toxicity of the process also made me want to do things differently so when I set up my studio in Steyning I decided to work in a way that was kinder to the environment – I do believe that beautiful things should be made beautifully otherwise they aren’t really honest.

I’ve just spent two years researching and writing a book on the 1930’s block printers Phyllis Barron & Dorothy Larcher –who combined block printing and natural dyes. Their work has really inspired to work even more with natural processes.

One of the reasons I love print because it intervenes between my intention and the final outcome – it always surprises me and acts like an unknown collaborator. I also love that I am working in reverse – removing the line that I don’t want to print. I’m drawn to resist printing for the same reason. Colour and pattern is also very important to me – it’s a very emotional and playful thing in my life.

 I now feel very spoilt and have a workshop cum garage in Steyning where I live. I do most of my dyeing outside using whatever plants, fruits or roots are available seasonally and I always have an indigo vat on the go. I also grown lots of dye plants on my allotment and try to get up there most days with my dog Gwennie. Being outside and part of the seasons is very important to me – I try to plant something everyday, even if it’s just a handful of seeds thrown into cracks in the pavement.

I’m at my most creative first thing in the morning so I try and get all my blocks, fabric & colour prepped the night before so that I can get up early start printing first thing. The process of dyeing and printing has a definite rhythm to it and it’s one that definitely shapes my days and weeks. I normally print or dye all morning and then get on with other tasks in the afternoon – like preparing orders, organising workshops, talking to clients etc After supper, I often like to cut blocks as they are lovely and soft if you sit on the lino as you eat. In the evenings I’m not good for much excepting getting ready for the next day and maybe doing a bit of website admin. I often find that as I fall asleep problems that have been bugging me all day untangle themselves and new images float into my mind just as I doze off …

I’ve been print making for nearly 30 years – it sounds astonishing, especially to me. I’ve had some great teachers – Vivien Lodge at the Working Men’s College in Camden, Kathy Round & Mel Bowles at Chelsea, Podge at Ivo’s in Southall and my children – have all helped me develop in new and better ways. I remember reading somewhere that you don’t master any craft until you’ve put in at least 30,000 – I’m probably reaching the quota now.

I’m originally from South Africa I’m really inspired by the traditional shwe shwe cloth or German print that is worn traditionally by domestic servants – I’ve named one of my recent designs Margaret after the lovely woman who looked after me and my brother when we were little. I love vernacular arts and crafts – like the beautiful Romanesque carvings and medieval wall paintings you find in ancient churches around Steyning. Their bold colours and rthymic patterns are really wonderful. They are very honest and direct, made by incredibly talented and unknown craftsmen. I also like the immediacy and vitality of Peggy Angus for the same reasons. I especially like that she thought about and understood some of the reasons behind pattern making; for me making patterns is full of meaning and emotion and she devoted her life to teaching more people about that.

The actual process of pattern making and printing is what inspires me most – the fabric I begin with, the process of mordanting, preparing the dyes from roots and berries and the act of printmaking itself – at each stage materials change and marks alter, the smells, tastes and feelings – it’s a very sensual process and one I’ve become completely captivated by.

I also love drawing and I mark the beginnings of a holiday by starting to draw as much as I can all the time, everyday – I have lots of sketchbooks. When I’m most relaxed I dream about drawing.

The textile I am most proud is my map of world patterns – it took me several years to make. I collected stories from people all around the world and sewed their patterns onto a massive patchwork quilt of the world. The project taught me so much about our relationship to pattern and how patterns travel and change through culture, tradition and people http://unsewn.blogspot.com/2010/

There are a few pIaces where I sell my naturally dyed and hand printed fabrics: firstly through my website www.sarahburnspatterns.com

The lovely people at Guy Goodfellow Collection http://www.guygoodfellow.com also keep my work at their showroom in Chelsea. Virginia White has several of my designs in production as part of her fabric and wall paper collection http://virginiawhitecollection.com/fabrics/

and my friend Alice Garner and I run the Steyning Imprint together – making tea towels and other lovely things for sale through our etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/steyningimprint

Up coming projects include lots of events around my Barron and Larcher book which I co-authored with Michal at Christopher Farr Cloth. I’ve also been involved in helping with the Women’s Work show at Ditchling which celebrates craftswomen who turned their practice’s into successful businesses between the two World Wars – including Ethel Mairet, Alice Hindson, Phyllis Barron & Dorothy Larcher, Enid Marx, Catherine ‘Casty’ Cobb, Katharine Pleydell- Bouverie, Denise Wren and Elizabeth Peacock. It’s on until October so catch it if you can

My partner Alice and I will be doing a Barron & Larcher inspired workshop at Handprinted in West Sussex in November. I’m really exited to be following in their footsteps – pioneering low-tech, non-toxic textile making.

My advice for other printmakers and creatives is:

*Follow your passion and be brave

*Work hard and keep going – stamina is just as important as talent

*Try and learn something from everyone you meet – everyone has something to teach you

*Find good people to work with – the ideas you have together will nearly always be better than thoughts you have alone and they will be there to keep you going when you run out of steam

*Don’t be afraid to ask for advice and enjoy yourself!

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By lovely chance (I was just dropping off some more tea towels and pouches at the shop), Alice and I got to go along to the private view of the new show at Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft –  Elizabeth Friedlander: Typographer, Calligrapher, Designer.

Elizabeth was a design prodigy, commissioned to design her own typeface (‘Elizabeth) straight out of college in 1930’s Germany. The typeface was to be called ‘Friedlander’ but due to the prevailing anti-semitism of the time, it was changed to the less Jewish sounding Elizabeth.

On the brink of commercial success as a typographer and illustrator in Germany, Elizabeth instead had to flee for her life, first to Italy and then to England, where she found work as a domestic servant.

Her skills and talent proceeded her, however and she found work designing advertising logos for The Times, Shell and beer mats! She also designed the lovely twirly Penguin logo. All her work is instantly familiar and recognisable and I found that I had several covers she designed for Penguin in the 1960’s, which I was already rather fond of. Now of course, they are firm favourites and have been rescued from our dusty poetry book shelves. You’ve probably got a copy of ‘Contemporary Verse’ or even the ‘Penguin Book of Italian Verse’ tucked away somewhere… I have to admit that rather superficially, mine was bought for the cover not the contents.

Friedlander’s work is resolutely un-English, it’s not trying to be naive, folky or simple in that Bawden-esque way. Rather, it is modern, decorative and much more European; in it’s execution Friedlander is painstaking, making lovely delicate marks that are often minute in scale (The Museum offers magnifying glasses) and always perfectly harmonius.

With this kind of talent and attention to detail, Friedlander always found work especially through the patronage of her mentor Francis Meynall, but most incredibly she worked throughout the war for the Government’s black propaganda unit, producing items such as forged Wehrmacht & Nazi rubber stamps and ration books.

Apart from one blurry photo of Friedlander, we were unable to find any other images of her – what she wore, the letters she wrote or diaries she kept (there were a few Christmas cards)… all the things that make a subject come to life. This got us fantisizing that maybe she was an invented person or maybe a cover for someone, a bit like how William Boyd and David Bowie invented art legend Nat Tate back in the 80’s.

Real or not, thanks to Friedlander, I am inspired me to be more careful, neater, diligent and professional all round in my work – in fact I’m just off to tidy my studio now…

Do go and see the exhibition if you get the chance (it’s on until the end of April). Friedlander deserves to be much more widely known for the beautiful discipline, rhythm and rigour of her work as well as for her incredible tenacity as a designer in the face of terrible odds.

Thanks to Jen at Ditchling for the invite, to David for looking after the boys & Alice for telling me about Nat Tate.

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I have so many happy memories of cycling through this sleepy Sussex village on hot summers day (it never rains on the London to Brighton Bike Ride) – the immense wall of the Downs and Ditchling Beacon looming up before us on our bikes but every year always managing somehow to get to the top with all the bystanders cheering us on and the exhilaration when we got to the top, sunburnt and sweaty.

Then I started coming back to the small museum when I became interested in printing and natural dyeing as the museum had a wonderful letterpress as well as the archive of the pioneering 1930’s weaver Ethel Mairet, who championed natural dying through her seminal work – ‘A Book on Vegetable Dyes’. I even blogged about her on my old unsewn blogspot site back in 2010 http://unsewn.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/map-of-patterns-gunta-stozl-and-ethel.html

In those days – the museum was a very different place: set up by two elderly sisters Joanna and Hilary Bourne, who had grown up with the children of many of the artists now in the Museums collection – they collected a varied and inspiring collection of artists work, most especially the work of sculptor, wood engraver, type-designer and letter cutter Eric Gill and the calligrapher Edward Johnstone.

It all felt a bit ramshackle – the kind of place that was run by passionate amateurs: clever gentlefolk with fascinating stories to tell while they served you tea and homemade cake, there were always garden flowers in jam jars on the tables… It’s now quite a smart place with lots of dark wood but the wonderful paintings, carvings and weavings are still there and so are the lovely volunteers. The Museum also boasts a fantastic shop full of beautiful things, including my Dora Fabrics washbags, tea-towels and aprons. It’s great to see them there – my attempt to follow Ethel Mairet’s  exhortation to make great colour – naturally.

Here are some wise words from her ‘A Book on Vegetable Dyeing’:

‘Dyeing has almost ceased to exist as a traditional art in this 20th century and the importance of colour on our lives seems to be realised less and less. It has been forgotten that strong and beautiful colour, such as used to abound in everyday things, is an essential to the full joy of life…We fear bright colour because most of our traditional colours are bad and they are bad because the tradition of dyeing has been broken. If any craft worker wants sound colour he must make it for himself….It may be objected that life is not long enough but the handicrafts are out to create more life, not out to produce quality nor to save time…’

I am only too aware of this as I write this blog I have 3 dye pots boiling away on the stove but no meal to feed the children as supper time looms closer…

Joanna and Hilary’s had a great dictum which also chimes with me – “the most important things to learn in order to survive are how to grow things, how to make things and how to cook.”

The exhibition at Two Temple Place in London –  Modernism in Retreat shows how artists like Gill, Johnson and Mairet were looking for solitude and sanctuary in rural Sussex but I felt that it doesn’t tell the other half of the story nearly so well: how they used their seclusion to shape a powerful and radical influence on modern day England – branding the tube network with his distinctive lettering for Frank Pick in the case of Johnson and Gill carving Prospero for the new BBC building on Portland Place (a scandal because he wore no underwear under his smock as he stood on the scaffolding chiselling away.) Mairet herself encouraged other important women designers like the block printers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher and the weaver Elizabeth Peacock as well as establishing a successful workshop and business herself which attracted international designers like the Bauhaus weaver like Gunta Stotzl (they wove South Downs wool and cellophane together).

The Museum of Arts and Crafts at Ditchling have also got a show on at the moment celebrating Ethel Mairet’s wonderful recipes for natural colour. Me along with many other dyers have had a go some of her recipes with some very different results… I experimented with the bark of the alder tree and discovered a lovely grey. Do go and have a look at the exhibition if you get a chance.

I’m running some more of my own Wild Textile workshops this May, where we will be foraging for seasonal plants and flowers near my home in the South Downs, not far from Ditchling and making our own wild colour.

If you’re interested in nature, colour and fabric and most of all like playing and experimenting – this is the workshop for you. You’ll get to learn how to create your own wild colour sourcebook as well as a final piece combing your favourite colours and techniques to take away. The workshop costs £80 for 2 days with all materials included and you will learn how to make your own natural dyes using foraged plants, make mud resist patterns with indigo and experiment with a larger piece to take home with you.

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