! Rowland Ricketts: Functional Textiles and Artwork

Rowland Rickets - Indigo Dyed Noren

Textile artist Rowland Ricketts has created a series of installations from hand-dyed indigo blue forms. Ricketts plants, harvests, dries, and composts the leaves that are fermented into the indigo dye himself. The documentation of the process, as well as indigo's historical and cultural meanings, is explored in his installations. Rickets transforms the traditional dyeing technique into contemporary art, with his installations turning the process and product into a sensual, tactile experience for the viewer.

A Personal Interview + Exhibition at Douglas Dawson Gallery
From November 5 – December 4, 2010 Rowland is exhibiting at the Douglas Dawson Gallery in Chicago. Thanks to Wally Bowling from Douglas Dawson and Michelle Geoga, who came out last minute with me to photograph this special collection of indigo dyed textiles by Rowland Ricketts.

Nikko I am so happy that you are showing your work in Chicago. When viewing your work, I felt as if I was transported to Japan as the color of you textiles are so saturated with that distinct purplish-blue hue. Can you tell me about why you chose to create noren and about the designs you place on them?

Rowland If you don’t mind, I’ll quote a bit from some writing I’ve done about noren that covers my interest in them as an object, a textile, and an artistic ‘canvas’. -Oddly enough I don’t really see the noren I make (or any of my work for that matter) as Japanese per se in that I’m not interested in copying something from a culture that is not my own. To me the noren I make is an exploration of the idea of a suspended cloth partition. I use the noren format because of its overall simplicity which is a narrow width cloth joined at the selvedges and hemmed at the top and bottom. It’s a very matter-of-fact, straightforward presentation of the cloth itself. Nothing else is added, and nothing is concealed. There is a front and a back, but in essence they are the same, an idea that compresses the three dimensionality of the cloth into two dimensions. I’m especially fascinated with this last idea and how it emphasized the thinness of the material and the ephemerality of the division it creates. These ideas have been influencing my recent work – I can see it in there, but I’m still working out just how to express it in words, so I apologize if this isn’t very clear.

Nikko I love this quote about your work:

Through simple forms and a straightforward presentation I strive to present the viewer with a color so rich that they see beyond the dyed material to examine all that lies within a color’s substance.

There must be something really satisfying to work with a material from beginning to final form. It’s like knowing the truth about something. What is your favorite thing about working with indigo from seed to using it as a dye?

Rowland I used to think that it was the idea that I could, on my own, comprehend and do all stages of the process – that I could understand a seed and a plant and do the composting and fermentation in a way that I could never understand – let alone actually make – synthetic dyes and the auxiliary chemicals they require. But now that I’ve worked with indigo for 14 years, I’d have to say that my favorite thing is the fact that it has nothing to do with me, or that It’s all much bigger than me. I plant the seeds, but the plants make the indigo. I dry the leaves and moisten them with water, but the bacteria on the leaves do the composting. I make the wood-ash lye and mix it with the composted indigo leaves for vatting, but again bacteria in the composted leaves reduce the indigo and make dyeing possible. I facilitate the process, but I don’t make it happen, so in a sense it’s a collaboration from which there’s always something to learn.

Nikko In regards to the 400 felted stone piece and 1200 wool locks installation, I feel like they are have a much more modern approach than the noren. What inspired you to create each piece?

Rowland For me I wouldn’t say that one is more or less modern than the other, but I would agree that the wool and stones are unburdened by the recognizable form of the noren and the associations that form carries for people familiar with Japan. The stones have had many iterations over the past few years. The impetus for making them was precisely the desire to move away from the prescribed form of noren that I had been working with for a number of years and a growing interest in felt and it’s potential to capture the dye and the dyeing process. I’ve recently settled on the gridded format because, again, it’s a very straight-forward way of organizing information. As I started working with them this way I realized that they’re not unlike te-ita 手板 – a way of measuring the indigo content of the composted leaves by kneading it into a ball and pressing it onto very fine paper. The color of the mark it left reflected the concentration of the dye and was used historically to determine the dyestuff’s market in Japan. As an apprentice in Japan I saw a number of books of te-ita kept by by teacher’s family over several generations. Each page consisted of many blueish circular pressings arranged in a grid for easy comparison. I use the format similarly, again with the hope of drawing attention to the color.

Nikko I think it’s really neat that you are Rowland Ricketts the third. I can’t help but to think that being named Rowland Ricketts III plays a part with your interest in an art form that is passed from generation to generation. Do you think you’ll pass your practice of indigo onto your children?

Rowland It wasn’t until I was 30 that I actually made peace with my name – it seems a bit pretentious, when in reality my family comes mostly from coal mining immigrant backgrounds. I am very interested in the idea of knowledge being passed from one generation to the next – my work with indigo has made me really aware of this. Still, I’d never force this on my kids – it takes an exceptionally crazy sort of person to want to work this hard just for their love of it.

Nikko I noticed that you have many roles beside being an arist. You are also a farmer, college professor, husband and father. Can you tell me how these roles affect you as a whole?

Rowland That’s a really difficult question…  They’re all equally demanding and rewarding, and I guess that I’m in the space where they all overlap. Working with indigo the way I do, it both connects and permeates all aspects my life, often making life and art and teaching indistinguishable. Mostly, though it means that as long as I’m awake there’s always something that needs tending.

Nikko Thanks so much again for sharing yourself with me and my readers, Roland!