Linda Brassington's work in the Crafting Futures project represents her creative response to the cultural heritage of indigo dyed textiles in Georgia.

“The history of supra - the Georgian term for both 'tablecloth' and 'feast' - has been the starting point for my exploration. In all of my field study visits to India, Japan, former Czechoslovakia and other European nations, the resistant materials I have encountered in traditional indigo dyeing have most commonly included starch-based substances – wheat, rice, maize and other cereal crops – each one re-purposed in the context of cloth. I am intrigued that the term supra, meaning tablecloth, also translates as 'feast'. As such, it seems that food and textiles are inextricably linked in Georgian culture, and food substances are implicit in the traditions of resist dyeing. In this project I have manipulated dough, both as a material to resist dye and as a basis for visual imagery. Cloth qualities are always central to my work. For Crafting Futures, I have sourced vintage table napkins with circular damask pattern as units for my compositions. In this series, my work references textile tradition and innovation, integrating indigo dyeing with screen printing as collage on cloth”.

Brassington's experimental approach to the Crafting Futures project has evolved through dialogue with Georgian artist Tinatin Kliashvili between Farnham and Tbilisi. The two artists' parallel practices in indigo dyeing are documented in the accompanying blog - each post investigating textile heritage from a different perspective.

Read more about the project on the Crafting Futures Blog.