Deeper Than Indigo - Jenny Balfour Paul
/Excerpts from
Deeper Than Indigo
Jenny Balfour Paul
Recorded at the 2016 Maiwa School of Textiles Lecture Series on September 19, 2016.
Jenny Balfour Paul is recognized internationally as a leading authority on indigo.
She is also a woman who not only read the journals of Thomas Machell (written between 1840 and 1862) but who retraced his journeys, visited his childhood home, located his grave, connected with his descendants, and imagined the details of his life with clarity and great sympathy. No, indeed, went further than this: fell in love with him, defended him, championed him … and in a strange way almost became him.
Voraciously curious and a natural storyteller, Jenny Balfour Paul joins us to tell the tale of Thomas Machell: Seafarer, indigo planter, eyewitness to the first Opium War, adventurer, lover of the daughter of a cannibal chief, writer, painter, and journal keeper.
Jenny’s book Deeper than Indigo was released to critical aclaim in 2015. Jenny and Thomas are kindred souls who share a deep relationships with indigo and with India. This evening will give the audience a rare opportunity to meet both of these remarkable individuals.
Jenny Balfour Paul is the author of Indigo: From Mummies to Blue Jeans Published by the British Museum Press. Her doctoral thesis was published as Indigo in the Arab World.
