Weaver, Ceramist. Ngaruawahia, NZ.
For our second group of international travellers with Rowan Tree Travel we are delighted to have Jess as our Spindle instructor. She will be sharing her skill on an Ashford spindle with the participants who will get to practice under her quiding eye and then will have their own keepsake spindle to continue practicing and learning on. Jess has introduced us all to the wonderful fleece from Haunui Wools https://haunuiwool.co.nz/ which the visitors will get to try, as well as an Opposum and Merino blend crested for these workshops by Tally Ho https://www.tallyhowoolcarding.co.nz/. Both of these very special suppliers have made it possible for us to provide our overseas visitors with a destinctively Kiwi fibre experience.
Jess is one of the 7 invited artists in the cash and carry collection – Touch. For this exhibition Jess has created a variety of hand woven items that include handspun threads and her signature hand turned wooden hanging systems. Here is a small taster of some of those works.
Jess has a love of boutique fibres for creating her woven expressions with. One of these that I would like to draw extra attention to is the Organic Pima Cotton. Here are some interesting aspects of this material, thanks to Silver Bobbin for the info.
Pima cotton comes from a special cotton plant that grows extra-long staples, or fibers, in its boll. The long staples make fine, strong yarns that create a luxuriously soft fabric. This type of plant makes up less than 5% of all cotton grown in the world every year!
Pima cotton comes from a species of plant, known as Gossypium barbadense. This plant grows best in hot or tropical conditions and requires delicate tending and hand-picking.
The main difference in Pima cotton production is that it requires hand-picking for the best results. Most commercial cotton growers use machines to pry away the fluffy cotton ball and then sift out the cotton seeds from the fibers. The delicate G. barbadense plants, however, need a more hands-on approach for the best results.The delicacy of the process is one of the reasons why so little G. barbadense is grown worldwide and why Pima cotton remains a luxury item!
The extra-long fibers in Pima cotton give it unique properties that regular cotton does not have. It is most known for its incredible softness, but it also has greater strength and durability than average cotton! Of course, like most rare, luxury items, it also comes with a high price tag.
Cotton fibers have a corkscrew-like shape. This prevents the tiny fibers from clumping together tightly within a thread. Instead, lots of open space exists between the fibers, allowing air to flow through!
Pima cotton’s most defining characteristic is its incredibly soft texture. This softness all comes down to the length of the cotton staples produced by the special G. barbadense cotton plant.
Cotton bolls look cute and fluffy, but they contain as many as 250,000 fibers! The big difference with Pima cotton lies in the length of these fibers. To classify as extra-long-staple cotton, each fiber in the fluffy snowball-like cotton boll must measure at least one and three-eights of an inch to as much as two inches.
In contrast, regular cotton staples measure one and one-eighth of an inch at most. If this seems like a tiny difference to you, you have never compared the feel of regular cotton and Pima cotton! The longer fibers make fabric that has a much greater softness and strength.
Strength
Extra-long fibers give Pima cotton yarns a much greater tensile strength, too! Tensile strength is another one of Pima cotton’s best-known properties. Its long, fine fibers create yarns that don’t rip or tear easily.
You can easily understand the mechanics of this. When short fibers twist into yarn, each tiny fiber only twists a few times before its loose end springs free of the thread. When long fibers twist together, they can spin around and around each other many times, creating a much stronger yarn!
Durability
Cotton has pretty great durability in general, but Pima cotton typically has a 50% longer lifespan than regular short-staple cotton! Its fine, strong yarns make it resistant to fraying or tearing. Plus, its natural fibers survive lots of washing without taking any damage.
Another reason Pima cotton lasts longer is that it resists pilling. Short-staple cotton has many more tiny fibers ready to break free from the fabric and bunch up as pills on top of the material. Pima cotton’s long fibers do not break or pill nearly as easily!
https://silverbobbin.com/what-is-pima-cotton-fabric
Jessica Moughan’s work seeks to examine connections between the somatic experience of traditional craft, in conjunction with the utilisation of organic material, as modalities of healing. Residing in Aotearoa, New Zealand, she has developed a deep connection to the land where she lives. Through her work with natural materials, she explores the possibility that the repetitive nature of ancestral crafts such as weaving, intrinsically hold the power to heal both the practitioner and viewer of the final work. Despite being in her first year as an emerging self-taught artist, Jessica’s work has been already been selected as a finalist in two National Contemporary Art Awards.
In April 2022 Jess teamed up with Jan MacNeil to create the exhibition More Than A Feeling. Here is the link to that exhibition page. https://fromoutofthebluestudiogallery.com/more-than-a-feeling/. For me personally it was a delight to have Jess’s beautiful sensitive handwoven works in the gallery. Her choices of fibres and techniques was fascinating.
Please call the gallery on +64 021 407 424 or email on viv@blacknosugar.com for more details about any works by Jess.