This image on a textile blog completely captivated me, and I made a comment about its beauty and asked what textile it is. The “question” resulted in my speaking directly online to the person who had posted the image from the very heart of the Ancient Silk Road in Uzbekistan, Azizbek Gulyamov. Thus our journey and my connection with the fascinating and unique world of Central Asian Suzani Creation had begun. I became completely captivated by the story of Suzani as told by Azizbek Gulyamov.
Bukhara to Cape Town Suzani Textiles was born
I have since been passionately involved in studying the story of Suzani and aiming to spread appreciation of the beauty of this ancient art and craft and its revival since their Independence from Soviet times during the early 1990’s when young girls were once again taught Suzani embroidery as practiced through the ages by women in Central Asia.
Since 2012 I have shared pictures and information about the Suzanis that Azizbek has sent to me on consignment. I receive textile lovers, by appointment only, at my home to share these beautiful Suzanis left in my stock. I can also meet with clients on Instagram or WhatsApp.
My Background
I studied Textile Design and History at the University of Stellenbosch during the 70’s and it became my dream since then to be able to do work that involves heavenly silk textiles. The Ancient Silk Road history captivated me and silk has held a special magical charm for me since childhood when I was fascinated by watching my pet silk worms eating mulberry leaves and later spinning their golden silky threads.
The wonder of colour and pattern observed in nature and art played a major role throughout my life. Learning about Suzanis combines all these loves in a very unique way. Suzani and her “herstory” is the perfect platform to study the story of motifs, patterns and symbols over the centuries and to trace and guess about the ever-changing messages they bring down to us. I am absolutely passionate about helping to keep this embroidery art flourishing.
My task is to share this Beauty and to tell the story about the creation of our suzanis
to love them, promote and look after them and to find homes for each one worldwide
To really understand the beauty of these Suzanis, you need to see them first hand. Bukhara is rather isolated from the world. I am proud to be able to share them and spread the news about them from Cape Town, South Africa. This art can only be kept alive through international interest, support and buyers.
The Suzanis from our collection were embroidered over time by one artist per Suzani, with love for the art of embroidery and pride in these true traditional artworks, not in a hurried process for purely commercial reasons.
Created with the dream of keeping this proud tradition alive for generations to come. These Suzanis carry the energy of the artist’s meditation on, and the love of her work, and can almost not be repeated nowadays anymore as the specialised stitching has become really unaffordable and the availability and price of silk thread and base-cloth has also become wildly expensive.
I feel deeply privileged to have learned about Suzani Art during the early part of this century, when creating “modern” interpretations of traditional antique Suzanis in Uzbekistan ( after years of being discouraged under the Soviet Rule ) was still in the early stages, before “mass production “ copying and group work, machine made copies and even Ai interpreting of this ancient art and craft ran away with itself like a real wild fire.
So many brash watered down inferior copies are now being made in viskose and bamboo thread. Sometimes it can be difficult even for the trained eye to spot the difference in the thread used.
Silk has survived the centuries and will always remain the most beautiful, alluring and strongest, timeless thread to embroider in.
In our fast developing Ai era , we are sure “handmade” will always be celebrated.
We have taken part in many exhibitions in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Hermanus
I have built up my own unique private collection of Suzanis from Bukhara. I love showing and sharing them with interested visitors. It is my dream to exhibit this unique collection in future as a whole.
His Background
Azizbek Gulyamov is the driving force and “director and producer” of the beautiful Suzanis in our Cape Town Collection, and is my Suzani soul mate and has become a dear friend since I saw that image of the Suzani that he posted on a Textile Blog in 2012. We have worked and travelled a long road together to share this Beauty to the world. I have the highest regard and respect for the body of work that he has achieved with his group of artists, and feel truly privileged to be able to share these with lovers of true textile art worldwide.
Our Suzanis use only pure silk and the traditional rules of embroidery for creating Suzanis, and each one is embroidered by one woman per Suzani. Many synthetic Suzani copies have been made of our work, embroidered by groups of women working together to make Suzanis hurriedly for the online and tourist market. More and more affordable viscose copies and even printed works have sadly flooded the market. This makes it difficult to market our beautiful traditional expensive works of art.
Azizbek grew up during the Soviet time and still lives in Bukhara, and has been passionately involved in the drive to revive Suzani embroidery since Independence during the early 90’s. While he was growing up traditional Suzani embroidery was strictly discouraged, in favour of machine made export embroideries. Families treasured their inherited Suzanis and women kept embroidering armlets to wear and to practice the age-old traditional embroidery skills they had learned from their mothers.
Since the Independence of Uzbekistan from Russia it has been a celebration amongst Central Asia women to freely embroider traditional Suzanis again. To carry their embroidery heritage and the magic of Central Asian Suzani creation into the future,
In his childhood home embroidery work was highly cherished, and this memory inspired and drove him into doing the conserving work he does now to help keep this art alive.
After Independence he lived and studied in Germany for 8 years. During that time he witnessed antique Suzanis flooding into antique shops and onto markets and shops in Europe. Precious textiles were being bought up and swapped for “modern” kitchen utensils in the villages of Uzbekistan. Seeing this partly drove him to research and further his knowledge of antique Suzani history and design online, in museums and in private collections around the world. He returned to Bukhara to set out on his dream to contribute to the drive to create traditional Suzanis in as he called it “Noble Bukhara”.
From 2009 onwards he built his own team over time. His inspiration and designs came from his heritage and research of antique Suzanis. He stresses that he never copies, but interprets this inspiration to create new adapted beauties.
An important starting point was to find the best graphic designer to draw the designs on Adras, this takes immense skill. A Suzani can only be a success if the underlying drawing is perfect. Few artists are trained to do these very specialised Suzani design drawings. It used to be the task of an older woman, called “the kalamkash” in the family, who knew the family designs and secrets, to draw the underlying design of a Suzani for the embroiderer to follow.
Different graphic designers, mostly male artists have done this drawing work for Azizbek’s Suzanis. They do the drawing on the Adras or Silk cloth for the embroiderers to embroider her magic on in needle and silk. Her art is to decide the distribution and balance of the colours used and to further add her personal interpretation to the prepared design.
Some Silks and Adras are still woven in bolts by families in home industries. The Silk background used for our Suzanis, was developed by Azizbek. It is called “Atlas” (Arab.-flat, smooth) It is a one-faced smooth fabric, which is woven from natural silk. He was the first one to commission embroideries to be done on this textile. He asked his weavers to combine silk with a cotton backing to improve its strength for the embroidery work. This “Atlas” Silk textile is now widely used for Suzani embroidery.
The silk threads are also produced by home industries. The natural dyeing and colouring of the threads is produced by yet another group. Each group keeps their family’s age old trade secrets locked away from outsiders.
He had to search for suitable team of carefully selected older women embroiderers from the villages who learned the art of Suzani embroidery in craft schools after Independence, to do the hand embroidery for his Suzani projects. He insists that each individual Suzani is embroidered by one artist only, otherwise there is not a good consistency in the stitching. When a group of women work and stitch together on a Suzani it does not have this stamp of “a work of art “ to its name. The female world of traditional embroidery artists in the hill towns and villages is very secretive and private and is strictly controlled with its very own rules.
The creator of each Suzani remains present inside her handicraft.
I have learned that it takes an entire very carefully chosen and highly skilled team to create each Suzani, and they all have to work together to let these interpretations of traditional antique Suzani designs come to life for us.
During the years of my involvement in this world of Suzani i have seen these contemporary silk artworks of incredibly high quality grow more beautiful and unique every year. The more recent Suzanis are also “signed” on the back by their creator and artist to my great joy.
In 2013 I visited Uzbekistan, and the more I learn and discover about this ancient world of the Silk Road, the more it captivates me. I really need a few more lifetimes to explore and learn about only the smallest fraction of it.
Having grown up in a time of machine woven and printed textiles, I am overwhelmed and inspired by these hand embroidered Suzanis with their exuberance, beauty, craft and elegance. Each one is an artwork, alive with unique history and energy. They do not follow the rules of design as I learned them at art school and yet each Suzani hangs together in her own perfect harmony. It is utterly incredible that in this high speed technological time of distractions and lack of practicing "slow-time", that there are women who are still skillfully and patiently creating this pure traditional art and craft. I love the fact that women could and still do gain great respect and personal pride in her community through the excellence of her embroidered art work. This art form has always been held in the highest esteem in Central Asia.
2016
Sewing Paradise Exhibition at the Irma Stern Museum called “ A Sisterhood through Suzani “
Below are recorded interviews at the opening night of “Sewing Paradise” Suzani Exhibition at The Irma Stern Museum 2016
2013
visiting Uzbekistan
an adventure that changed my life
Photo by Frances Marais for
HOUSE AND LEISURE
Photographing new arrivals.
From the time that the first parcels arrived in Cape Town from Bukhara with the neatly folded hand embroidered magic from the Silk Road, I realised that they will all find their homes quickly and I would not see them again. I asked the help of professional photographers to record as many as I could in their studios. Justin Patrick was the first photographer who helped me with this task and then Colleen Coppenhall and Roheen Abdulla.
