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Rosie H. Cook

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Asialink+AsiaSoc.23March(1)

2017 Asialink Arts Residency

Crazed Puppets 04  Crazed Puppets

bundengan-01 This is not a Kowangan

aptccarn5 #APTCCARN5

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A delicious #textileconservation #beforeandafter glamour shot. Enci and I agree this treatment is so satisfying it’s worth spending the day wearing respirators!
This morning was spent solvent cleaning really greasy soot-stained tassels. It’s very satisfying but requires a lot of PPE and even with the portable extractor our textiles lab still smells too strong for me to take my lunchtime nap... luckily now I have Enci’s help, and with two of us working together we will be finished by the end of today. #textileconservation #PPE #conservator #cleaning
I took a different route to my office to avoid the insane rain that just started and stumbled across this poster featuring my hands 🖐 #textileconservation #handmodel #famous
Rainy season has officially started. Today I rode into work with my rain poncho back to front, the official style of all Taiwanese scooter commuters. It worked really well! I’m enjoying the temperature drop (only 26C!) but now begins the constant worrying about typhoons affecting treatments. Also RH through the roof 😅 #kaohsiunglife #scootercommuter
Answer regarding the video I shared yesterday! I just now thought of reposting it to the incredible Facebook group “Ethnic Textiles Community” and in under 10 minutes had an answer from @ansietextilewriter, who also shared a video of the same process she took last year in Fez. I definitely recommend the Facebook group to anyone interested in world cultures and textiles — the wealth of knowledge from the group is mind-blowing. There is a constant flow of posts with people asking for identification of textiles from around the globe, and almost immediate replies from people with the expertise to recognise very precise locations (not just broader regions eg. “Indonesia” or “Andes”!) as well as dates, whether the textile is handwoven or machine-made (or a mix of both), the embroidery techniques, modern vs traditional dyes — you name it, someone knows it. And of course there is a broad array of people sharing their beautiful private collections, photos and videos from their travels, and links to interesting articles. I’ve learned so much from there! #textiles #worldcultures
Tonight the stories in @everydayafrica (a takeover by @yoriyas) were superb! A walk through a Moroccan town during lockdown, and a surprise encounter with one of the last traditional hand-sewers. I took a little screen recording — I haven’t seen anything like this before and it’s fascinating. #sewing #textiles
Most conservators are familiar with The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques by Ralph Mayer — a fantastic reference book, albeit primarily useful for paintings conservation. My colleague Jiahe has lent my (amazing!) new assistant Enci a few reference books, including his Chinese edition of the Artist’s Handbook. It’s so cool to peek inside and see the English to Chinese and Chinese to English translations! I have spoken previously of the bilingual Dictionary for Textile and Paper Conservation I use on a daily basis, but this is much more detailed and complete! #conservator #paintingsconservation #artistshandbook #books #chinese #learnchinese
Came in early to work so I could sew a button back onto today’s top, with the benefit of my range of green threads. And scored a perfect match! #textiles #textileconservation #rosielovesteal
Absolutely disgusted to see Chinese textiles politicised and used as ammunition in fueling anti-Asian and specifically anti-Chinese sentiment around Covid-19. To quote from the hyperallergic.com article by Michelle C. Wang: Byron Breedlove and Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, authors of the cover feature “Auspicious Symbols of Rank and Status,” try to give an art historical analysis of this textile their best shot. However, their attempt at intertwining art and science takes a disastrous, even comical turn in the sixth paragraph, in which they state that “The birds and animals featured on the various rank badges [...] may also serve as zoonotic reservoirs capable of transmitting viral pathogens that can cause respiratory infections in humans.” The cover art of journals is typically relevant to the content published on its pages. However, the rank badge does not have, in any concrete way, direct bearing on COVID-19 research, its health outcomes, or its disastrous march across the globe. Instead, the editor’s notes linger on a fanciful vision of late imperial China that fails to reflect the highly dense urban environments in contemporary China in which the disease first emerged. The editors draw attention to the status of bats as carriers of the SARS coronavirus. Yet it is completely disingenuous to associate the animals in this late imperial Chinese badge with the zoonotic transmission of disease in the modern era. The bubonic plague that spread throughout China at the turn of the last century, for example, was transmitted by rats and fleas, not by bats. Finally, the predominant motif of this particular rank badge is a leopard. While a major study last year of snow leopards in the South Gobi desert of Mongolia revealed their potential as carriers of the zoonotic pathogens Coxiella burnetii, Leptospira species, and Toxoplasma gondii, none of the articles in this May 2020 issue make mention of this, making the singular focus on bats seem all the more perplexing. The role of art during a global pandemic should be to educate and uplift, not to obfuscate and denigrate. (Continued in comments below)
People talk a lot about influencers on Instagram who set unrealistic standards of lifestyle and beauty. I don’t really dip into that realm, and the artists and conservators that I follow are inspirational and aspirational in a really constructive (and often educational!) way. But there are some exceptions: when I see @philip_brutz’s posts, I can’t help but feel pure envy for the customised workspaces he builds for himself, his family and his workplace! His is a level of skill and ingenuity I can’t ever imagine replicating... #Repost @philip_brutz ・・・ I have installed IKEA LED gooseneck lights on my wife’s Bernina 217 industrial sewing machine. I also have LED track lights on the ceiling and LED strip light under the neck of the machine. Proper lighting is very important to us. The IKEA gooseneck lights come with a cast iron base that makes an excellent pattern weight.
Every defeat brings a victory! I posted last week about my RYB dyeing, where mini rainbows are mixed together to make a nice murky colour. However nearly all my samples came out much too yellow for my needs... And aren’t even replicable, because I know why they went wrong: trying to accurately measure the minute quantities of dye necessary for each 1.5g sample (the biggest size of crepeline that would fit in the beakers and be submerged by the dye liquor). My equipment just doesn’t allow the level of precision to measure 0.63ml... or at least it didn’t until now! After that disappointing result, I bit the bullet and ordered a “MicroPette” — it’s not a knockoff tamagotchi, it’s an ultra-precise automatic pipette, which measures 100-1000 microlitres / 0.1-10ml. Still not quite precise enough for a 0.28ml measurement, but at least I can round up my quantities to 0.1ml and make sure they can be accurately replicated! I will be dyeing again before the end of the month, so hopefully will report back with some better results. #textileconservation #conservator #conservationdyeing #dyeing #lanaset #pipette
In my hallway at 7:25am today... 30 degrees Celsius and nearly 70% humidity. This week saw the end of the delightful Kaohsiung “winter summer” and the start of the “summer summer”. The moment I step outside my air conditioned lab I am drenched in sweat and long to hide inside again! The plum rains should come soon to cool things down a little, although then the complaining about the erratic heavy rains starts! #kaohsiunglife #conservationinthetropics
Before and after of one set of tassels! This was very fun — I made the missing blue tassel as previously mentioned, and added threads to plump up the cream one as they were almost all detached. The green was the healthiest of the four, although it resisted straightening despite gentle humidification, and threatened to fall apart if I pushed it too hard. The purple one was very fragile, hence its purple net overlay, which I wove in any loose threads into (thanks @mmseasick for the tip!). I am inspired to go back and make a replacement tassel for a very broken-down dressing-gown cord I reassembled last year (the dressing-gown itself is still a work in progress!), if I can source suitable wool here in Taiwan. #textileconservation #tassel #chinesetextiles #conservator
Dyeing today. I spent the morning preparing 6 sets of dyes, additives and samples for some crepeline that I want to get a nice muddy invisible colour on. Today I used recipes from the very kind @jessiepetals, using Lanaset acid dyes in red, yellow and blue to make a variety of pinky-browns. So pretty before mixing (swipe to see underwhelming but very useful result)! Lunch break and then an afternoon of stirring ahead of me 😅 #rosielovesrainbows #textileconservation #dyes #lanaset #conservator
I'm really pleased to share my two most recent publications with The Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, of the University of Sydney School of Languages and Cultures. First is a paper co-written with my wonderful conservation mentor, Kim Siebert from the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Theatre Museum, and puppeteer Kuo Chien-fu (@uniquepuppettheater), with the invaluable assistance of Alex Ma @alex.msy. Second is a review of a really fantastic book, "Divine Threads: The Visual and Material Culture of Cantonese Opera" by Dr April Liu, from the Musem of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (@moa_ubc, and check out their conservation department @moa_conservation) -- I heartily recommend! I will try to do a separate post celebrating this book which it was an honour to review. Many thanks to Special Guest Editor Josh Stenberg for your support in preparing and submitting these two publications. #textilesconservation #conservator #taiyuanpuppets #budaixi #potehi #puppets #taiwanpuppets #cantoneseopera Photo of the Cambodian and Thai puppet storage at TAPTM by Kim Siebert.
Today we stopped by a mall that was like a first year architecture student’s utopian rendering come to life. It is full of reading nooks and had shelves full of books anyone can pick up and read as they fancy. Going up and down the escalators was a bit like being Alice falling down the rabbit hole, as we would pick up books and put them down as we went. Unfortunately there are no safety nets and someone (not me, just saying) may have dropped a book down three floors onto a (miraculously empty) escalator below 😬. BUT James also picked out this book, which I ended up buying from the mall bookshop, and will write a separate post about because it’s really interesting! #books
Tassels in progress, from left to right: Green = untouched as seems to be holding up ok. Purple = covered with fortuitously colour-matched pre-dyed purple net to prevent further shedding, secured with a pewter-coloured silk thread to emulate the wire wrapping. Cream: very fragile and has lost many threads, which have been collated into an adhesive-coated piece of stabiltex and then secured in the centre of the pendent (not sure if that description makes sense!). Blue (left): new tassel made with embroidery floss and secured to the centre of the pendent. Blue (right): complete replica tassel including pendent and bead, for the second purse. I’m *really* pleased with this bead which I found in a stationery shop near work, it’s a tiny bit bigger but it’s otherwise a very good match in terms of colour and aged appearance! #textileconservation #textiles #tassels #chinesetextiles #conservator
Very grateful to Petrina Ng (@petrina_ng) for kindly sending me the beautifully designed companion book to her project “Distant Water Will Not Quench a Nearby Fire”, which was to be on display at the @textilemuseumofcanada over the past month. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to visit in person, so I am very privileged to get more insight into Petrina’s residency despite the current lockdown, all the way from Taiwan. The project features contributions from multiple artists, questioning the complex tensions, relationships and identities of Hong Kong, born of colonial, racist British legacies. Amy Lam (@amychingyan) provides her reinterpretation of a 1997 commemorative T-shirt as well as an essay juxtaposing her experience of Brexit with her attempts at retracing the cession of Hong Kong to the British following the Opium Wars. Lam recounts the futility of trying to learn about the Opium Wars in London’s museums (which do however manifest misplaced pride of their legacy as the first power to use Agent Orange-style solutions, in the euphemistically named “Malaysian Emergency”). I couldn’t help remembering how I personally learned about my ancestors’ role in exploiting China, at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum just over two years ago, a mixed experience which simultaneously brought to me the horrors of the Opium Wars and my first sighting of my own heritage in a museum. #opiumwars #hongkong #textilemuseumofcanada #distantwater
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