African resist techniques

This wonderful picture of Yoruba women in Nigeria reminds me of my trip to Nigeria when I was 20!! I was so lucky to be selected to represent UK in an exchange scheme and my research was the crafts of Nigeria. I was a ceramic student at the time but also went to a village to see the adire cloth being designed and dyed - must upload the photographs! Indigo dyed Adire cloth is resist- patterned either tied areas called oniko, stitched areas called alabere and/or by a starch resist method called eleko. The Yoruba specialise in adire eleko which works in the same way as wax resist where the temperature of the dye vat does not rise high enough to dissolve the starch. The Yoruba use a cassava or cornflour based paste called lafun. It has alum in and was traditionally applied with a feather quill. But since the 19th century it has been applied through metal stencils.

' In the early 20th century, the Yoruba developed an ingenious way to reuse sheet metals, which had arrived in Nigeria from the Far East as the linings of tea chests. Although stitched- and tied-resist adire cloth was traditionally produced by women, it was the men who cut the stencils from the metal sheets. A thick paste of yam or cassava flour is pushed through the holes in the stencil onto cotton, which is immersed in a vat of indigo dye to turn it blue. When the paste is removed, the covered areas emerge as a lighter pattern against the darker background. The resulting indigo cloth, dyed with cassava paste, is called adire eleko' (Textile Museum of Canada).
So my visit to the 3D workshop will also be used to see how these stencils can be made. I need to start developing some of my own designs rather than exploring mark making. The Yoruba women had designs handed down from generation to generation.

I found this photograph which sums up my memories of a very proud tribe wearing their adire clothes showing the traditions of generations where the respect and support for each other was enviable. So sad that in coming years a revolution and the influence of western ways would destroy the way of life I witnessed.