Hartono! Batik Workshop and Exhibition

The Language of Cloth and Lynne Rutter Studio are thrilled to be hosting Javanese batik artist Hartono, visiting the U.S. for the first time, for a workshop on traditional Javanese batik technique, as well as a trunk show and sale of one-of-a-kind batik textiles.

Hartono is a talented young artist of the newest generation of batik-makers from Solo, Central Java, a center for batik-making for over 150 years. Hartono’s designs incorporate Japanese and European motifs which he blends with traditional Javanese patterns.

Saturday, October 24 from 9am - 5pm
Hands-on batik workshop
* 6 to 8 pm Reception for the Artist

Sunday October 25th from 10am to 6pm
Exhibition and Trunk Sale with batik demonstrations

at Lynne Rutter Studio
2325 3rd St. #207, San Francisco, CA

The Saturday workshop will be an intensive one-day hands-on introduction to the basic techniques of Javanese batik making. Participants will complete their own batik creation on silk, with instruction from Hartono from start to finish.
The class is limited to 8 participants and the fee including all materials is $100.

Contact Daniel at The Language of Cloth to reserve your place: daniel@thelanguageofcloth.com
or call 415-613-9693

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Restoring a tapestry mural

My studio recently completed the restoration of an antique tapestry mural.

This is one of a pair of very nice ten foot tall panels that have hung in the lobby of a Spanish Revival apartment building in Pacific Heights since it was built in 1910. The murals are based on a 17th century Gobelins tapestry designs, and are printed on linen using the newfangled technique of silkscreen printing (invented in 1907) combined with the far more traditional printing technique of stenciling.

a major rip at the base of the mural

One of the panels suffered some major damage: a large rip at the base, followed by a six foot long tear straight up the center. Some areas of the material were missing, and the surface was laden with nearly 100 years of accumulated dust, smoke, and dirt.
To restore this mural, we needed to clean and stabilize the entire piece, repair the damage, and recreate the lost areas.
We started by removing it from its frame, and giving it a gentle cleaning front and back.

During cleaning, much of the more subtle detail emerged.

To stabilize the mural, we lightly stitched the major rips closed, then backed the entire piece with a new piece of linen. The perimeter of the panel was then sewn by hand onto the backing for added strength.

My associate Angela is a skilled conservation technician who has worked for many years restoring art for museums and collectors. We met during a large restoration project in 1993 and she has assisted me on numerous jobs since then.

Angela securing the mural to its new backing

Tears, rips and areas of fabric fatigue were painstakingly stitched to the backing, to prevent the rips from spreading, and to fill in for missing material.

Thousands of tiny stitches fill in the ripped area.

Once the sewing was finished we re-stretched the mural back onto its stretcher bars, which we had also reinforced.

I mixed up eleven different colors of paint to match the tapestry's palette, which I then lightly daubed over the stitches to help them blend in to the surrounding areas.

In some places the image was missing and had to be recreated. While not entirely flawless, the tapestry looks wonderful and its repaired sections are hardly noticeable.





The restored tapestry (left)

Click on any image to view larger

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Re-thinking Batik: The Language of Cloth

Now touring the US is a wonderful show called "A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama’s Mother and Indonesian Batiks" featuring some fine examples from the extensive batik textile collection of Ann Dunham. The show opens June 18 in San Francisco at the California College of the Arts and runs through June 21.

What a way to whet my appetite for pattern, as my friend Dan is just back from Indonesia and will be having a trunk show June 26-28 with all his latest textile wonders!

Through his business The Language of Cloth, Daniel brings together different styles and materials to create new batik designs. Hand-woven silks from Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand; jacquard silk from Korea, and flax-silk from Indonesia are decorated with elements from Japanese kimono patterns, Ainu motifs, European embroidery patterns, as well as traditional Javanese batik motifs. The show will also include reproductions of antique batik cloths from collectors, some reinterpreted in new colors, others reproduced exactly.

"Carbon Emissions" trucks spewing smokey mega mendung

My personal favorites are the contemporary twists added to the traditional batik patterns, like my prized Cluster Bomb sarung. A new piece this year, "Carbon Emissions" is a mega mendung "cloud" motif, with the addition of trucks and cars, in smokey colors.

I am also quite smitten with some of theses Ainu-inspired scarves:

Ainu pattern interpreted as batik ornament: batik tulis on hand-woven Thai silk, with design adapted from applique patterns on Ainu attush robes from Hokkaido, Japan

The Language of Cloth Summer Trunk Show takes place
June 26, 27, 28 11 to 6pm
650-B Guerrero St., San Francisco
415.613.9693 www.languageofcloth.com

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Totoro Fan

One of my favorite anime films is the 1988 Hayao Miyazaki classic Tonari no Totoro. I spied this "20th Anniversary Commemorate Fan" in a shop in Tokyo and was overcome with glee. If you look closely, you can see in its design soot sprites, and even the cutout shapes of little totoros in the spokes of the fan.

Language of Cloth Textile Show and Sale

Attention fashionistas and fans of color and fabric!
It's time once again for the Language of Cloth textile sale.

Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
from November 28 - December 21, 2008
650-B Guerrero St San Francisco
415-431-7761

the blue: hand woven silk with a kotak-kotak pattern (grid) The issen-issen (batik filler patterns) fill in areas defined by the textured pattern of the weave. This design was inspired by an antique obi.

Every year my good friend Daniel Gundlach brings home a fabulous collection of handmade textiles of cotton and silk from Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. Unusual one of a kind pieces blending traditional techniques with modern eclectic style. Wonderful for wearing, for decor, and with many affordable choices for gifts.

the orange:
hand -drawn batik tulis on Korean silk jacquard, in a flowing basket weave. The batik follows the pattern of the weave in some areas.

Each piece is unique, hand-made using a very labor intensive process, and the sale of this work supports the artists, and the communities in which they were created.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Lace Doily Table

It's here! my lace doily table, custom made by my friend Marcia Stuermer of Fossil Faux Studios.


The tabletop is acrylic resin, embedded with lace doilies, many of which were made by my great grandmother. The rest were collected from eBay as well as San Francisco's Chinatown. At 51" in diameter, the table is scaled perfectly to the room, and can seat 6 comfortably.


It has a different color and glow in varying light.
And it looks great with my late relative lyre-back chairs.


I could not be more excited about this. It's perfect!

Needle Lace Exhibit at Lacis

<---- 17th Century Gros Point de Venise lace border

Saturday Kathleen Crowley and I ventured to Berkeley to pick up corset supplies at one of my favorite places- Lacis, where one can get all those little necessities for costuming and beautful living, like chatelaines, patterns for period clothing, corset busques, pewter clasps, bone knitting needles, and of course, lace....

While there I got a tour in their small but fabulous Lace Museum. The current exhibit features some outstanding hand made needle lace from the 16th-19th century, that rivals the lace collection I saw recently at the MAK in Vienna.

this exhibit displays incredible examples of European lace, with photo-enlargements of pattern details, as well as illustrations of how it was used in collars, sleeves, etc.

punto in aria

a spectacular lace fan, and detail of its pattern

click on the images to see larger images and more detail.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Cluster Bomb Batik

Daniel Gundlach designed this piece by incorporating the images of bombers and cluster bombs into a patten from an antique batik sarung.

A recent addition to my textile collection is this modern batik sarung designed by my friend Daniel Gundlach. At first glance it's a traditional pattern with marsh reeds and birds, in an unusual color of battleship gray with green and bits of orange.
And then you notice... the bombers... and the cluster bombs.

Unexploded devices still litter the landscapes of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. They have a high rate of failure to detonate on impact, and subsequently lie like tiny landmines, continuing to mame and kill children and other civilians dozens of years after the bombs were dropped.

Daniel got a nice mention in the San Francisco Chronicle this week. You can see more of his work and benefit from his excellent eye for batik and other Asian textiles at the Language of Cloth Trunk Show and Sale weekends now through December 24.

The Language of Cloth

I'm so excited about his time of year, because this is when my friend Daniel Gundlach has his annual Asian Textiles sale!

the flowers, birds, sea-life, and the unusual color of this Cirebon sarung, reminds me of the work of Ernst Haeckel.

Daniel is a talented painter with whom I worked back in my salad days, and he now spends 6 months or more every year traveling in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, using his great eye for color and form to collect and design textiles. His company, The Language of Cloth, assists communities in reviving the teaching and making of their local traditional arts while giving them a contemporary spin.

This year's show concentrates on the batik work of Central Java. All of these pieces are one-of-a-kind, hand-made, and spectacular. Many museum-quality contemporary works, as well as antique and tribal pieces are available, and there is a good assortment of scarves and smaller items that make wondrous and affordable gifts as well.

Yes it sounds hippie-dippie, and maybe it is, but you can do some very cool decorating and fashion-ating with this stuff.

My own batik collection is growing! clockwise from top: the red batik cotton tuli "mega mendung" (rain cloud) pattern is destined to become a new window shade; that splendid multicolored scarf I've been wearing all year is a Batak tribal pattern; cotton Cirebon-style sarung super cool in purple; a kain panjang cloth in hand-loomed Garut silk and nautral dyes will become an amazing skirt for me soon; contemporary batik scarf on hand-woven Lao silk; green and grey silk batik sarung I use as a shawl.

Update! read about Dan's work in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Language of Cloth Trunk Show and Sale
Weekends now through December
November 23-25/30th
December 1-2 / 7-9 / 14-16 / 21-24

11 am - 6 pm
650-A Guerrero Street, San Francisco

415.613.9693 www.languageofcloth.com

tea towels

kitchen linens by tikoli

tea towels. somewhere along the line i started collecting them.
not the terry-cloth hand-wipers you see everywhere, but nice, smooth lint-free souvenirs with kiwis or scenes from nürnberg on them.
maybe I get the tendency from my grandmother, jane coley, whose fabulous collection of linens i had displayed in my vintage laundry earlier this year during the san francisco decorator showcase house.

maja brugos is my second cousin; the grand-daughter of jane's sister lenore; and it seems she has the linen bug in her as well. she's a talented graphic designer who has created a line of lovely kitchen towels available at her site tikoli.com as well as a number of swell shops across the country.

i'm pretty sure all of these will look great in my wasabi-green kitchen!