In part one Charllotte Kwon introduces Ashoke Chatterjee and explains the application process for a Canadian visa (Mr. Chatterjee, an Indian dignitary with flawless credentials was denied a visa to visit Canada). Ashoke presents the first part of his lecture with visuals via an internet connection to our Vancouver audience.
 

In part three Rosemary Crill explores India's trade with the west as the focus shifted from printed cottons to muslins and Kashmir shawls. She concludes her lecture by answering some questions from the audience.
 

In part two Rosemary Crill explores India's cotton trade with the west. Printed cotton known as "chintz" changed the very fabric of life itself - especially in the British Commonwealth.
 

In part one Rosemary Crill describes the scope and range of India's trade, its historic beginnings and describes in detail the commerce with the countries in the east.
 

In this lecture master craftsman Gasali Adeyemo fields questions from the audience about traditional techniques and about working in Africa and Santa Fe. Gasali concludes with a story about the role of clothing and cloth in life.

In this lecture master craftsman Gasali Adeyemo will open the evening with a description of his early life in Nigeria and tell how fibre art came into his life. As a participant of the Nike Centre for Arts and Culture, both as a student and later as a teacher, Gasali has a range of experience with traditional crafts. He will give a history of the famous adire techniques and illustrate how they relate to Yoruba culture with a compelling collection of slides.
 

Razzaque and Ismail are Khatris – a hereditary community of dyers and printers who live and work in the desert district of Kutch in Gujarat, India. They are joined by researcher Eiluned Edwards, who has lived, worked, and collaborated with them for many years.
 

Razzaque and Ismail are Khatris – a hereditary community of dyers and printers who live and work in the desert district of Kutch in Gujarat, India. They are joined by researcher Eiluned Edwards, who has lived, worked, and collaborated with them for many years.
 

In March of 2008 CBC radio's Sheryl MacKay came to the Maiwa Loft and interviewed Charllotte Kwon, Owner of Maiwa Handprints and director of the Maiwa Foundation. The interview aired on March 22 on Sheryl's program North by Northwest. We asked Sheryl if we could post the interview on our website and she agreed. So in this episode we present the original interview as it aired in March of 2008.
 

Lucy Goffin is one of the UK’s leading textile artists, producing individual works for commission and couture collections.

In part three Karen explores India and visits both the giant tusser moth and the Salvi community, makers of a famous double silk ikat known as Patan Patola.
 

In part two Karen describes her experience in Laos and explains how weaving traditions are an essential part of Laotian culture.
 

Karen Selk has been a textile designer and artist since 1972. Her primary focus has been weaving and fusing felt with silk. In addition to writing, photography, research and textile arts, Karen runs Treenway Silks from her Salt Spring Island Home.
 

Bhakti Ziek has the ability to talk to a group about her life as a weaver while making it seem as if she is sitting talking directly to each person about their own lives and intimate experiences. In this talk, she updates her journey, sharing how a tenuous, fine thread grew into her life line and the sometimes unpredictable path it has taken. Sharing both the triumphs and knots, periods of intense curiosity and spells of disillusionment, she will talk about ways of staying connected that she has found helpful in her struggle to remain involved, creative, and hopeful as an aging weaver, artist, and human being.
 

Bhakti Ziek has the ability to talk to a group about her life as a weaver while making it seem as if she is sitting talking directly to each person about their own lives and intimate experiences. In this talk, she updates her journey, sharing how a tenuous, fine thread grew into her life line and the sometimes unpredictable path it has taken. Sharing both the triumphs and knots, periods of intense curiosity and spells of disillusionment, she will talk about ways of staying connected that she has found helpful in her struggle to remain involved, creative, and hopeful as an aging weaver, artist, and human being.
 

In his episode Edwards tells the story of the events leading up to her first trip to India, how it felt to arrive, and how her life was changed by a meeting with the blockprinters of Dhamadka. The trip was profound and its effects were long lasting, Edwards shifted her focus from textile design to cultural anthropology. She spent the next 16 years researching the textiles of the Kutch Desert, collaborating with artisans, aranging exhibitions and studying traditional Ajrakh blockprints.

Shibori is a test of faith - one invests hours of stitching, blind as it were, before the ‘thought’ is revealed at the end of the process. I enjoy cloth, for with shibori one is so utterly and completely involved in the activity of managing and organizing it. I also enjoy sewing, for there is a challenge in that seemingly endless and prohibitive sea of fabric to conquer. I find completeness in symmetry – no matter how intricate, how complex – it conveys an order, a calm, which greatly appeals.

The Working Traveller was a workshop held at the Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 17, 2007. The panel consisted of John Gillow, Noorjehan Bilgrammi, and Charllotte Kwon. Each member of the panel spoke about their personal experience as a working travller, how they got started, the reason for their journeys and how travel and the interaction with other cultures has changed their lives.

In this, the final episode, John Gillow, Noorjehan Bilgrami and Charllotte Kwon address specific questions from the audience.

The Working Traveller was a workshop held at the Maiwa Textile Symposium on October 17, 2007. The panel consisted of John Gillow, Noorjehan Bilgrammi, and Charllotte Kwon. Each member of the panel spoke about their personal experience as a working travller, how they got started, the reason for their journeys and how travel and the interaction with other cultures has changed their lives.

In this, the third of four episodes, Charllotte Kwon speaks about how she started Maiwa Handprints and how this business led her to start working with craftspeople in India. Charllotte speaks about the Maiwa approach to craft and how it is designed to promote high quality work while at the same time protecting the artisan's livelihood. She also speaks about the the goals of her travel and how she has managaed the many challenges of working successfully in two countries oceans apart.

In this, the second of four episodes, Noorjehan Bilgrami speaks about how she first found out about the traditional art of ajrakh blockprinting and how attempts to sustain and revive this elaborate and skilled craft led to her own studio, Koel. Noorjehan is an artist, textile designer, and researcher. She was one of the founders of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and its first Executive Director. Years of research into ajrak, led to the publication Sindh jo Ajrak and later to the making of the documentary Sun, Fire, River, Ajrak Cloth from the Soil of Sindh.