Simon Marks Textiles | CREATING WORK IN INDIA

I first started coming to India in 2003, & like many others before me, was simply overwhelmed by the teeming diversity of every aspect of being that was possible here. You don't have to look far to find this diversity in textiles, infact fabric leaps out at you & grabs your attention at every turn. From the fabric bazaars, copra wallahs & endless array of cloth to be purchased in every town & city, to the specific clothing worn by different faiths, genders, communities & social groupings that delineate & underly all walks of life. Colour, texture, tone & sparkle combine to bedazzle & delight in what seems like an infinite variety of complex textile traditions.

After seeking out many of these traditions, I was more & more drawn to the Block-printing of Rajasthan & Gujarat, so much so that I studied the way these fabrics were made in detail with the artisans that created them so I could understand every aspect of how they were produced. Their generosity in sharing knowledge gave me a deep understanding that has been fundamental in being able to design & produce my own work with their expertise.

BLOCK-PRINTED FABRICS
All my fabrics are individually printed by hand using hand- carved wooden blocks that are approximately 16cm by 16cm. Unlike screen-printing which uses all synthetic dyes and materials for printing , the process I work with uses only natural preparations for the cloth, seed and nut kernels to make pastes, mineral salts & gums to bind the colour, and a variety of natural dyes made from leaves, roots, barks & peel. Most of my dyeing is done using natural dyes. All the work is done by hand, with artisans that have been involved in this highly skilled craft for the last 10 generations.

THE BLOCKS
Each block is carved from a piece of wood. I prefer to use recycled teak, taken from the recycled beams of old houses. It takes between 3 to 7 days to prepare & carve each block, depending on its size and intricacy. Each print can use up to 4 or 5 blocks to build up different layers of colour. It takes approximately 6 years to train a block-maker, and a lifetime to become a master.

THE FINISHED PRINTED CLOTH
Just to be clear. My prints are hand-block-printed not screen-printed. Hand block-prints are very different to the regimentality & uniformity imposed by large screen-printed cloth. As all processes involved are done by hand using natural materials and processes. There will always be a slight varience from the sample cloth because natural dyes and minerals involved are never exactly the same. The processing involved relies heavily on elements such as sun drying and vigorous washing in ground water. These are not chemical dyes or screen-printed, so there will always be an organic hand-made feel to the print. As it is printed by hand there will ALWAYS be slight variety. This is part of the beauty of a hand-blocked print.