Living Blue

Profile of Nick Logan Living Blue

My name is Nick Logan, my hometown would be Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand. My family immigrated from South Africa to NZ when I was about 10 years old, the year was 1989, 5 years before the end of apartheid.
I am living in Melbourne, I have been living in Australia for 10 years.
My background / occupation has been in the design industry. I have practiced as an industrial designer and graphic designer over the years.
Some of my book covers can be seen at:
http://www.coroflot.com/nick_logan_coroflot/book-covers
I am no longer designing book covers, it was fun but I ran out of time.
My day to day is designing stands for a point of sale company called concept forum. Most of my work involves doing industrial design work. Heres a metal sculpture I designed for the state library of victoria:
http://www.coroflot.com/nick_logan_coroflot/State-Library-of-Victoria-sheet-metal-sculptural-digital-tower1
My most recent concept pack that I completed for work can be downloaded from:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13406618/OSP-P-35-CONCEPT_PACK-01.pdf

Heres a summary of the Transcultural Aesthetic Technology Sheet:
I prefer 2D as I feel 3D is often used the wrong way. Monumental doesn’t appeal to me, I like working within A4 drawings as it requires the use of appropriate detail. I also like working to human scale. I love all materials as they each offer amazing opportunities. I find myself torn between realistic and mimetic as I love the beauty of reality but also the idea of altering it.

My favorite colour is green

What I think of the colour blue…
Well after reading Redeeming Indigo by Taussig I have a new appreciation for the colour blue. The most surprising thing I found when trying to find photos of myself was that while I say my favourite colour is green, I seem to wear blue a lot. Maybe its a cultural thing, maybe its because blue is my wifes favorited colour… I personally don’t have a lot invested in the colour blue, to me it seems that I would have the same personal connection to blue as I do any other colour.

What three cultural values are important to me:
Culture of migration: respecting differences in culture
Culture of mixed faith marriage: respecting others religious beliefs
Unsure of the origin but I value truth over my public perception of self. In other words I prefer to tell the truth rather than to save face.

The above picture is of my son Zekes blue eyes. When I think of blue eyes I almost always think of my sisters blue eyes, which are really bright and sparkly. However my new world is my direct family, my sons eyes arn't quite as blue - but what do you do!

 

This is the lake (almost) in which I grew up, its name is Lake Okareka, 15min outside of Rotorua. I spent plenty of time swimming and relaxing in and around it. I love the blue/green of the water. I love the connotation of blue with water and water with floating - some sort of super relaxed space. The blue of the sky also makes me aware of the scientific reason why the sky is blue, which still seems complicated in its answer.

I know this image isn't particularly warm and friendly. In fact is more cold and isolating. For me culturally blue, or having the 'blues' is about feeling isolated and linked with depression.

 

This logo by luck was blue. When you talk to identify people, corporate blue brings in trust etc, for me this blue logo signifies my strong connection with technology as a child.

 

I like these little blue guys, the TV episodes captured my attention as a youth. Later on in life I love how they are drawn, the thinness and thickness of the lines, and how the lines form helps articulate the objects form.

 

 

 

Beijing Institute of Fashion Tech and CAFA Picking Blue Exhibition

【北服民族服饰博物馆】“采蓝”——中印蓝染考察文献展

2014-10-13 北京服装学院“艺苑”期刊

采编：陈滔

 

“终朝采蓝，不盈一襜。五日为期，六日不詹。”

——《诗经·小雅·采绿》

 

 

植物蓝染作为一门传统而古老的印染工艺，遍布于亚洲、欧洲、美洲及非洲，蓝染所呈现的文化与技艺的多样性，是全球区域文化最重要的物质载体与集体记忆。然而，由于现代蓝染工业的发展，使得手工植物蓝染工艺在全球范围失去其原有市场，特别是由于手工蓝染的实用价值及其在现代生活中的意义的降低,使得蓝染植物的种植已经大面积消失，土布织造大量减产，这一原材料的大规模减产，致使蓝染手工技艺在全世界范围面临中断与失传的窘境。

 

上世纪二、三十年代，以梁漱溟、晏阳初、彭禹廷、费孝通等为代表的中国知识分子从现实关怀出发，以学术求真为尚，曾发起乡村建设运动，其乡村实践的经验与教训至今仍然是研究中国乡村经济的重要历史文献。受前辈学人的感召，北京服装学院与中央美术学院团队，借助当代设计人类学的研究方法，于2014年5月至8月间分别在印度海德巴拉、艾哈迈德巴德与中国贵州、南通等地区进行了蓝染工艺的田野调研。此次 “采蓝——中印蓝染考察文献展”就是这一调研的成果汇报。本展览以中国、印度的传统植物蓝染技艺为研究范本，将博物馆藏品研究教学与实践考察相结合，传承与创新相结合，让师生们在此过程中体验传统印染工艺，了解蓝染技艺的历史文脉，研讨蓝染的文化涵义与设计价值，探寻传统工艺转化为当代设计生产力的途径。

 

 

展览由两部分组成：一部分以实物与图文相结合的方式展现靛蓝印染工艺记录及相关文献研究资料；另一部分为北京服装学院民族服饰博物馆馆藏的各民族蓝染作品，以及基于传统蓝染工艺创新实践的师生作品。

 

馆藏蓝染作品

 

学生实践作品

 

 

借此展览，我们希望让更多人认识传统植物蓝染的材料与制作方法，了解传统蓝染所承载的文化涵义与人文价值；重拾对手工艺特别是手工艺人的尊重；让我们的研究为可持续的当代设计思考带来新的思维要素，拓展新的领域与工作方法。

 

更为重要的是，希望我们的研究有助于正处于城市化进程中的政府部门及相关研究机构重视传统工艺及其生产方式在乡村经济中的价值。对农村现有经济模式及劳动力人口结构进行有针对性的设计评估，从而制定更加有利于农民及乡村经济的国家层面的设计政策，让乡村的劳动者在政府、公益组织、设计机构等多维度的援助下，利用当地物产及世代传承的传统工艺技术，以社群组织等方式，得到就业的机会，参与到设计创造价值的现代化进程之中，最终得以在城乡一体化的设计生产模式中共享改革成果。

最后，我们想说，蓝就是美。

 

展览时间：2014年10月17-10月31日 （ 10:00-18:00）

展览地点：北服创新园一层展厅

主办单位：北京服装学院 中央美术学院

承办单位：北京服装学院民族服饰博物馆

中央美术学院奥运艺术研究中心

团队导师：贺阳、杭海、Elizabeth Tunstall（澳洲）、V Sakthivel（印度）

团队成员：胡小妹、刘育红、邓祥鹏、王帅、刘洋、卢玉琪、谢菲、李欣慰、杨荟涵、张业超、刘典、李芸、张睿、林帆、张煜、孔维康、陈翊君、孙小娇、田兰兰、韩楚彤、李 昕、王 星、曹锦凤、谢 涛、王 博、周成飞、王思齐、庄 凯、马海腾、李冬雪

Final Presentations: NID Indigo Workshop with Swinburne and CAFA

On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 12:30pm, the students of China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Swinburne University of Technology presented their final designs from the Living Blue Indigo Workshop hosted by National Institute of Design--Ahmedabad.

The brief was for students to share the cultural values most important to them through a design mofit that could be appropriately expressed by using the various indigo techniques to which they were exposed over the two weeks of the workshop.

Here are the final photos of the students with their designs. Video will be added at a later date.

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Student: Sarah

Home Country: Australia

Values: ahimsa (respect, non-violence), uniqueness/individuality, space (mental, physical)

Indigo technique(s): shibori double fold and tie dye to show gum trees and stars and the space and peace they bring, while expressing uniqueness

 

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Student: Yi Jun

Home Country: China

Values: love, passion, and change

Indigo technique(s): tie-dye with rocks to show change through construction sites and stones

 

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Student: Kong

Home Country: China

Values: less is more, the universe

Indigo technique(s): shibori radiating lines in an asymmetrical structure to represent everything

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Student: Fan

Home Country: China

Values: connections to the earth and continuity

Indigo technique(s): shibori to represent the stirring of the indigo vat, eddies move and continue the indigo

 

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Student: Dian

Home Country: China

Values: peace of mind, calmness

Indigo technique(s): shibori to represent the calmess felt in the Buddhist caves outside Mumbai and arashi pole to represent the anxiety of crossing busy streets

 

*                 *                  *                    *

Student: Xiao Mei

Home Country: China

Values: happiness of living in the now life, enjoy different cultures, internal/external things

Indigo technique(s): shibori radial lines to represent the centrality of the family relationships in China but ability for each member to find their own directions/paths in balance

 

*                 *                  *                    *

Student: Anna

Home Country: Australia of Italian Heritage

Values: emphasis of family unit, quality of appearence through detail, respect not based on heirarchy

Indigo technique(s): shibori with the motifs of the drying racks of indigo & the alkalization pots from the trip to Uravakonda, and tye dye representing individual respect not based on heirarchies

 

*                 *                  *                    *

Student: Yun

Home Country: China

Values: family, natural and human harmonious relations, and hunger for knowledge

Indigo technique(s): shibori of the Islamic typoface on Juma Mosque

 

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Student: H. Rui

Home Country: China

Values: seeing the sky, urbanisation

Indigo technique(s): shibori to represent the roof tops of Mumbai and Ahmedabad

 

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Student: Z. Rui

Home Country: China

Values: to travel all over the world, changing and adapting to everything

Indigo technique(s): clamp prints of triangles to make paper game East, West, North, South

 

*                 *                  *                    *

Student: Yu

Home Country: China

Values:

Indigo technique(s): shibori to make "the soul of the sea shirt"

CAFA Students Ajrakh Block Prints

The experimental ajrakh block prints of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts students.

NID Indigo Workshop: Ajrakh block printing demonstration

Ajrakh Block Printing of Abduljabbar Kathri

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, national craft awardee Abduljabbar Mohammed Khatri and his son Ahmed Khatri came to NID to present a demonstration of traditional ajrakh block printing with natural dyes. It is the most amazing 14 step process, which he first described to the group using a specially made teaching tool of each step in the process, then he demonstrated, and then the students tried for themselves.

Abduljabbar Khatri comes from 10 generations of ajrakh block printers and dyers from the Kachchh region of Gujarat, India. His father and his older brother are block printers and dyers. The Ajrakh technique is noted for its intricate designs all printed by wooden blocks with natural colors on both sides of the fabric. His workshop consists of 10 to 15 workers along with the Master.

The market for the Khatri Ajrakh block prints is the highest end of society, including collaborations with fashion designers, commissions of wealthy private clients, and museums.

We felt very honored that he would come to spend time with us, especially during Ramadan, which attests Sakthi's great relationship with the great craftsman and his family.

We will cover some but not all of the ajrakh process as it normally takes 25 days and we only had a two day workshop. A 2012 The Hindu newspaper article on the technique describes well each stage in the process.

Preparation of the materials: There are lots of natural plants and minerals that must be prepared for the dyestuffs and mordants--gums, indigo for the blues, madder traditionally but alizari for the reds, rubab for browns, and other colors made of natural roots and flowers. Once all the raw ingredients are prepared, the first step in the process can begin.

01 Saaj--Washing of the Cloth

The raw cotton fabric (occassionally silk) is washed in a mixture of camel dung, natural caustic soda, castor oil, and water. This cleans the cloth and removes any waxes or coatings from the mill that would keep the dyes from binding. This process is repeated over several days of drying and washing.

02 Kasanu--Treating of the Cloth

The fabric is then treated in a solution of harida also called myrobalan and water.

03 and 04 Rekh--Block Printing of the Outline

The first block print is the outline of the design. It is made of a paste of gum Arabica and lime powder. The Master always does the first print of the cloth and outlines the design on two sides.

05 Black Block Print 

The second block print is for all of the black areas of the design. The black dye is made up of rusted iron, ground powder of chickpea, and jaggery (raw cane sugar), which is placed in a pot and kept for 7-8 days, then extracted into water. This iron water is then mixed with powder of tamarind seed to make a paste. The black paste is applied by block to both sides of the fabric.

06 Kan--Printing of Alum Paste

The third block print is for all the red areas of the design. A paste consisting of tamarind seed powder mixed with alum (aluminium sulphate) is applied to both sides of the cloth.

07 Gach--Printing of Resist for Indigo

The fourth block print is to protect all the areas in which one does not want indigo dyed. The gach print paste consists of alum, mud (red clay), and millet flour. It is the sprinkled with sawdust to keep the mud from cracking.

08 Dyeing in Indigo

The fabric is then dyed in indigo.

09 Vichharnu--Rinsing and Drying the Fabric

The fabric is then rinsed and dried flat in the sun.

10 Rang--Revealing of the Colors

The cloth is boiled in a solution of tamarix (from the dhawri tree) + madder root powder, if you want an orange-red color, or alizarin (synthetic madder) for a red color, or rubab, if you want a brown color. The cloth is then washed in water and hung in the sun to dry.

11 Minakari-- repeating the resist phase, 07 gach, to allow for a second dyeing

12 Repeat of Dyeing in Indigo

13 Repeat of Vichharnu--Rinsing and Drying the Fabric

14 Repeat of Rang--Revealing of the Colors

In Ajrakh block printing, there are five motifs with three variations each, so a total of 15 motifs within the entire vocabulary.

There was a designer from 40 years ago from NID who worked with them to develop a contemporary language that is used for another market.

What is most important to remember is that the process, the motifs, and the culture are all one.

Swinburne and CAFA students make the cover of Ahmedabad Paper

The natural indigo vats of Shri Yellappa of Uravakonda

Getting up at 4:00am, the group took a hired coach on a six hour ride to the village of Uravakonda, which is situated halfway between the urban centres of Hyderabad and Bangalore. In the village of Uravakonda lives Shri (Mr.) Yellappa, the 90-year old master dyer of natural indigo. Joining us on the trip was Latha Timuri, who is the coordinator of the Dastkar Andhra design studio.

We drove through beautiful countryside, with smooth new tollways. The road only turned bumpy when we made the turn off to the village.

 

Once we arrived at Shri Yellappa's home, they gave us a tour of the set up for washing the cotton yarn to be dyed.

 

The process is summarised as following. NOTE: There are lots a details missing.

His wife shakes out the yarn (about three or four shakes) and loops it through her arm until she had three bundles. She then twists those together for use or to be stored.  The other group members got lots of photos of this. I don't like taking photos of people who I do not know well, so there are few photos of people.

The yarn is washed in an alkaline mixture made from indigo run off water. The water is made alkaline by filtering it through a local clay in a large terracotta pot.

 

The water is poured into a tub where the yarn is added and stepped upon--in our case by Shri Yellappa's son. The water and the stepping removes the wax within the cotton yarn and releases its natural fiber, which allows the dye to be absorbed.

 

The yarn is then beaten against a stone slab to soften it and remove excess water. The end result is a soft, wavy yarn, slightly tinted a light bluish-green.

 

Only men in this area of India do indigo dyeing. There is a lot of preparation of the indigo vats, which must be fed and stirred and cared for with great diligence and reverence.

Indigo cakes have to be grinded with other ingredients and water, which is fed to the vat.

 

Shri Yellappa has 16 vats kept in his home. You walk through the sleeping/sitting space and past a kitchen before coming to the vat room. The floor is raised and covered with a dung, dirt, and straw flooring.

The yarn is gently submerged into the indigo vat and then caressed from hand to hand in a rolling motion through the dye. It is then wrung out and hung out to dry.

The shift from the greenish color when the yarn comes out to the indigo blue is magical. Often, the yarn is dyed twice.

 

 

 

Indigo shopping in Hyderabad

On Saturday 5 July, the group travelled to Hyderabad to visit three types of shops that sell natural indigo dyed cloth. Sakthi, our NID host, selected the three to provide us with the widest exposure to the selling of indigo dyed fabric. This would prepare us for the following day's  trip to the village of Uravakonda, where master natural indigo dyer, Shri Kattubadi Yellappa has his vats.

The first shop that we went to was Malkha, which sells natural indigo and other natural dyed sustainable cotton fabric by the yard. The fabrics were stunning and the colors beautiful. The shop is kept dark, so we could not get good images, but the fabrics were beautiful.

 

The second shop that we went to was Creative Bee, founded by textile designer Bina Rao. She combines traditional and contemporary Indian fashion. We found beautiful ready made shirts, dresses, coats, duputtas, kurtas, sarees, and scarves made from hand woven cotton or silk. The majority of the textiles use 100% natural dyes and provides work to over 400 handloom weavers. 

 

The final shop was Darum Clothing, which provides only handloom garments. It is an initiative of Dastkar Andhra (DA), the Dastkar Andhra Marketing Association (DAMA) and partner co-operatives, which seeks to provide sustainable livelihoods for handloom weavers and dyers in Andra Pradesh in particular. They carry a range of clothing such as kurtas, sarees, duputtas, men's shirts, but also sell home wares, jewelry, and organic food and beauty products.

Kurtas weaved from Shri Kattubadi Yellappa of Uravakonda's indigo yarn was one of the items many of us bought in the store.

  

First attempts at shibori indigo dyeing at NID

Today, the students received a demonstration of various shibori stitching indigo dyeing techniques from Mr Prabhatbhai Desai of NID. We will find out when we return whether their stitching and gathering will work.

NID Indigo Demo 01: How to wash the cloth in cow dung

To naturally wash the cotton cloth before dyeing, it is washed in cow dung. The cow dung is a natural caustic agent that removes the natural fine coating of wax in the cotton and thus allows the dye to bind with the cloth. It also leaves the cloth and your hands very soft afterwards.