Patchwork
Tamara Bigot
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi, I’m Tamara, and I’m 32 years old. I was born in Paris, France, and moved to Portugal in 2018 with my partner who’s from Porto. But we decided to settle in Lisbon, where the weather is better. I was a production manager for TV documentaries and shows for almost 7 years before moving here. I loved it as much as I hated it. It was very challenging, part that I love, but in the end, I didn't feel aligned with the values of this world. I’ve always wanted to do art school in a specific branch, and I was attracted by fabrics, but I knew that I didn’t want to be a stylist or designer. In the end, I didn’t do art school, which I regret sometimes. When I arrived in Portugal, I wanted to change my life completely. It took me several years then to have the courage to dig into textile works and create Distinto.
What was your early motivation to express your creativity through natural dyeing, embroidery, and quilting?
As I was saying, I´ve always loved fabrics: patterns, colours, and embroidery. It was not about designing clothes but more about how they were made, and how the patterns were designed. When I was still in Paris, I started to use Shibori dyeing techniques- the Japanese art of creating patterns on fabrics, what we call in the Occident “Tie & Dye” - and I loved it. I was upcycling old piles of bed sheets inherited from my grandmother but I was using synthetic dyes. Then, I discovered a designer on Instagram around 2015 and 2016 using natural dyes, and I was hooked. As for quilting, I discovered it while traveling to the US, as a teenager and young adult, and it also formed my way of seeing Arts & Crafts. I think that I have always been into upcycling. I was upcycling vintage clothes since I was a child, and then the bed sheets from my grandmother and family. I´ve never been very interested in buying new stuff but rather, I´ve always liked a lot the charm and beauty of unique pieces with history. I was struggling to see how I could use my passion to make something and I was still working on TV production, so I didn’t have a lot of time to dig into that. It was way later that I realised that I could combine all my favourite techniques. These techniques are not Portuguese at all, but I find that being closer to nature, and living more slowly (people in Paris are always in a rush, everything goes so fast) is helping me to fully express my creativity.
How would you describe your practices?
Im being mindful during the process. Creating a new piece, it’s my way of telling a story. I love hearing people’s stories and telling mine. But writing has never been my thing. So I tell stories the old way: by dyeing and stitching. First the colour choices: which colours fit the story I want to tell? Then it will guide my materials choice. Also, since I am working with natural dyes only, I am dependent on nature’s cycle and seasons. I can’t have the same colours all year long. Once I’ve chosen my colours, I can start the dyeing process which can be long if I want to make a big quilt. Then I chose the designs I am going to use, then I saw, and I quilt. It takes so long, but I am putting a little bit of myself into every step.
Can you take us through your creative processes, both for natural dyeing and quilting? Do you have a favourite part of the creation process?
My favourite part is the dyeing, and almost equal with the quilting. Dyeing because it still, after all these years, amazed me how I can create such deep and rich colours from plants. The sewing part is the part that I can struggle with sometimes because I am not a patient person and sewing can be hard, especially if you’re making a quilt made of the repetition of the same pattern.The quilting is the step when I slow down and admire the path I made to end up here, where my quilt is almost done. Running the threads is very calming and I usually listen to podcasts while doing it. It’s a very personal moment. For the moment I prefer to use old american patterns and use them to tell stories. My focus is on the colour combinations. Sometimes I make choices I regret but always tell myself it´s how you learn, especially since I’m learning all by myself.
What does your research for the plant dyeing colours look like?
I try to pick up everything I feel that can produce a dye. I go to the forest for walks and look for natural colour combinations. My favourite one is brown and blue - like the sky and the trees. Then I work with the seasons, sometimes of the year I can’t produce this or this colors because the material is not available. I don’t buy any pigments - except indigo - and pick up everything from my surroundings. So my colours’s palette has limitations. If I can’t find a plant around me giving me the colours I want, well, I won’t work with those colours. It’s frustrating, but I prefer to work that way. It’s good to learn to work with what we have.
How do you choose the materials you work with for the quilted pieces?
I lost my two grandmothers in just two years. And since I have a passion for old things and unique pieces, I am always the one emptying apartments on sad times. I found kilos and kilos of old bed sheets, table cloths, some from the 19th century in their closets. And I was the only one interested in keeping them. This conditioned my way to work: I simply couldn’t work with new fabrics coming from the factory. First, the quality from these antique fabrics is insane. They gave me the best colours - dyeing depends also on the quality of the fabric - and I love to give them a new life. Some of them have been folded in a closet for so many years, it brings me joy to find them a new purpose. Eventually I ran out of fabrics from my family, so I go on treasure hunts. I find antique fabrics in second hand shops, online, or talking with elderly people in my neighbourhood. I’m always on the lookout for people emptying apartments after passing. It can sound creepy but I feel it’s a way to honour the dead too. I did a huge patchwork piece for an art show, using only my grandmother's antique fabrics and it was very emotional. It was a way to keep her memory alive.
Can you share a bit about how you’ve been introduced to Sashiko sticking?
Sashiko is something relatively new for me. I did classic embroidery for years, and the more I was digging into the Textile Arts world, the more I was in touch with Japanese textile crafts. One of my friends is a designer and passionate about crafts, and she introduced me to this technique a few years ago. I dye fabrics with indigo and so applying sashiko stitching was making so much sense. I have to admit I am not feeling 100% comfortable in using Sashiko as I am not Japanese or Japanese descendant, and I don’t want to make any cultural appropriation. That’s the main thing I am struggling with in my practice when it comes to dyeing with indigo and doing Shibori, and Sashiko.
We know that you often run outdoor workshops on natural dyeing. Can you tell us a bit about these workshops and about the benefits of immersing the attendees in nature?
The workshops I organise outside of the studio are my favourite ones. I do them with my friend and fellow natural dyer Annette from Tinctorium Studio. It is literally the best way to connect with your surroundings, especially if you live in the city. You learn how to walk in nature in full consciousness, how to recognize plants, how to choose them and how to dye with them. You learn how to work with your environment, not against. We do one every season, so the colours are always different and the results too. That’s what people like: they’re creating a memento of this special day, at this specific time. Nature is so rich: our forest of Monsanto in Lisbon, even if not natural and created by humans, is full of little treasure if you know how to look for them. We love to be teachers of this knowledge.
Where do you think lies the biggest potential to preserve important local crafts and traditions?
aSince I am living in a country that is not mine, I have different views. Preserving the French local crafts and traditions for example is not a big issue. Obviously it suffers from globalisation and capitalism, but we have big and powerful institutions preserving them. In Portugal, it’s different. Since the Revolution happened not that long ago - 1974 - the crafts have been moved to a second line. And it’s normal: women were forced to learn how to weave, how to saw, how to embroider. So when they were finally freed from that, they wanted to leave all the traditions and crafts aside. The new generation is slowly taking that back. The thing we have forgotten about crafts and traditions, is the joy that it brings us. To make something out of your hands and to be proud of it. Even if it’s not perfect, who cares, you made it. You focused for x hours on a project that is only yours. So I think it would be that: the joy that it brings.I believe that once you start doing that you realize that hey, there are so many materials, processes, and steps involved in making everything around us and that everyone depends on each other in some way or another. And that’s been the constant in whether it was an older system of production or the present industrial one. When it comes to reclaiming traditions and skills, looking back at all that has been passed down to us in the way we dress, move, create, or speak, I have come to realize that it's a long line. These traditions are not stuck in the past, they are very alive because of us choosing to continue with them. We are keeping it alive and we are transforming them and creating the future through them.
What is your greatest ambition now, when it comes to your practice?
My biggest ambition would be to keep on learning. As I was saying, my only regret in life is not having attended Art School. And since I don’t want to live in regrets, I want to keep on learning with passion and joy until the end.
Where and how can people engage more with your work?
I am the most active on my instagram @distinto_studio where I post on a daily basis glimpses of my studio’s life, projects I am working on, workshops dates and also things that inspire me.
