Khadija Sareshwala

Americana

Textile Dabu Printing

23.6" x 14.25"

$400

This piece was inspired by old world American farm living, where the rugged and weathered experience is everyday life. The nostalgia of yesteryear, where American experiences are shown throughout the work, harken back to simpler times. This piece is especially unique as it is painted using a traditional technique from the Indian subcontinent. The technique of Dabu printing forms everything from the white circles to the blue backdrop to a hint of red in the corner.  

The medium I used, Dabu printing, is an ancient mud resist block printing technique from Rajasthan, India. This art form almost vanished in the last century, now many artists are taking the initiative of reviving this art form.This is an extremely labour intensive process and involves many stages of printing and dyeing techniques. This process, however, yields extremely artistically beautiful and breathtaking results that might not be possible with another method.  

What is Dabu printing: 

 The fabric is block printed with dabu, which is a mud resist paste made from clay and gavar gum, and sprinkled with saw dust (so the fabric will not stick to itself), and laid to dry in the sun. The dabu mud makes the printed area resistant to dyes, and therefore will remain unaffected when it is later dyed. 

- Once the mud is dry, the fabric is immersed in a dye, usually indigo, and again laid to dry in the sun. The printers may repeat the dabu printing on top of the dyed fabric to create further layers of resist and again dye it in darker shades of the dye. 

- Finally the fabric is washed to remove all traces of the dabu mud, and revealing the resist area to be the original white (or other colors depending on how many times the fabric was dabu printed). The fabric is finally dried in the sun.