A Day in the Life of a Digital Printer - by Robbie Gardner

My name is Robbie and I'm in charge of digital printing at Beckford Silk

About a year ago Beckford Silk invested in a 'New' digital printer... I say new but it was a demonstration model. It is named TX 5 and is a hybrid of a printer and belt roller, the roller is to secure the fabric down for printing. Although this technology has been around for some time, and I'm sure most of you have a paper printer somewhere around the house. This is (only) slightly different: the main difference is that it weighs and is about the size of a car, although the printing heads are almost the same as for ordinary paper printers, the 8 colour process uses Acid dyes (the same type that we use for our hand printing, only more refined). And the fabric is fed on with this large self-cleaning belt system. Basically, it is a printer and you press buttons to make it work.

Our digital printer

So why would a traditional Hand-printing business invest in such outlandish tech? Well, it’s because we have almost 40 years of hand-printing experience, so the time seemed right. Not to mention that digital printers have now got to a level where the quality is good enough to compete with flat colour pushed through a screen.

But where is the skill? True, all I do all day is stand and watch 'printer-head tennis', while pulling out tiny creases from meters upon meters of silk. But, to get to this point has been a real battle! You see, you can't just get a roll of fabric and flatten it paper thin and print on it. The material must be treated first, with the exact same recipe that we use to mix our dye for hand printing. I must coat the silk with a mixture of starch-gum, urea and Ammonium-sulphate... basically, it stops the ink from bleeding out as soon as it touches the fabric, and then helps the colours to 'pop' and connect with the silk in the steaming process. So once I have coated it... and if anyone reading this has ever done this process: I coat using a winch, and a centrifugal spinner (which you will know can't be done and I must be mad for trying it, how could you possibly...etc) True my methods maybe old-fashioned and unusual, but you know what... it works. So once it has been coated it must be dried and straightened. This is done with our pre-war machine that is called a stenter (I'm not going to go into what a stenter is, but basically a big machine that dries and stretches fabric) and carefully we batch the silk off as straight as we can onto a roll for printing. Now straightness is important. When I say straightness, I am referring to the weft (the strand across fabric when it is woven) if it’s not straight, then when I put it through the printer, the scarves will come off looking like a Salvador Dali painting! Now other printers out there will know that this straightness is the key, although many will not print scarf panels so will not be as affected as we are. And so affected are we by this, that my father and I have created a special top-secret straightening machine... ok so it's not so top, and we are not much for secrets. But explaining it in this format would put my head in to knots (not that it’s technical), so maybe just come to Beckford silk and I’ll show you how it works.

Rolling machine

So once we have our perfect roll of fabric, and our amazing designer has created a masterpiece of a design, and we have printed it. Then it goes through the same process as the hand printing does, steaming, washing, drying, and finally finishing, which for us is either hand-rolling or machine hemming.

So that is it from our digital printer for the moment, not much of a ‘day in the life of’, more of a ‘how-does-it-work’, but nonetheless (and hopefully?) 'captivating stuff.' Please feel free to come and see our printing, hand and digital and also visit our website at www.beckfordsilk.co.uk

Excuse for not blogging!

I owe you a serious apology for the complete and utter lack of content that has not been appearing on the Beckford Silk Blog!

I started off with oh so many good intensions which all went by the way side as soon as we started getting busy.

What can I say?

SILK SCARVES ARE BACK WITH A VENGEANCE!!

From about October last year we started to get seriously busy with orders for our Museum customers – and I’m delighted to say there’s still no sign of it letting up. In February alone we despatched more orders than in January, February and March put together 12 months previously.

I think we can put this down to a number of factors:

·         When times are tough then rather than splashing out on a new outfit, we’re more inclined to treat ourselves to an accessory that will jazz up an old one. Hence the sudden revival of the silk scarf.

·         Made in the UK is the buzz on the street! And as one of the only silk scarf suppliers in the UK actually producing it all ourselves in the UK, this is giving us a major advantage over the competition.

·         And of course we are now a one-stop-shop for silk scarves, offering traditional screen printing, digital printing and the highly sought after handrolling of the edges (done by a small band of local ladies).

So where will you find our scarves at the moment?

There’s still time to catch the Bowie exhibition at the V&A where we’ve had enormous success with the long geometric design scarf inspired by a jump suit he wore as Ziggy. Here’s Suzanne hard at work packing them.

Suzanne packing Ziggy scarves for the Bowie exhibition at the V&A

The Gary Hume exhibition at Tate Britain has two of his scarf designs in the gift shop. I snapped Beth as she was working on the print colours for one of the designs.

Beth working on dye recipes for the Gary Hume design

And if you are going to see the view from The Shard then have a look in the gift shop for this memento of your visit – one of two scarf designs we have produced for them. This one is a photograph of the building shimmering ghostly against a night sky.

Scarf designed for The Shard London

So that’s it for this time – I promise not to leave it so long!

More Artist Scarves

Donald Hamilton Fraser 1929 - 2009

Donald Hamilton Fraser for The Genius of Venice exhibition at The Royal Academy, 1983/4

Born in London, Donald Hamilton Fraser studied at St. Martin’s School of Art (1949-52).

The ballet and landscape were common themes in Donald’s work, which was largely figurative and influenced by the School of Paris, where he studied from 1953-1954. He taught at the Royal College of Art from 1957-83 and was elected RA in 1985.

The scarf pictured above was designed by Donald for The Genius of Venice exhibition that opened at The Royal Academy of Arts in 1983. The central image of the harlequin was taken from a hand painted valentine's card that he had made for his wife. Apparently he made one for her every year. I do remember that we had to take great care of it and return it to her safe and sound.

Abstract by Donald Hamilton Fraser, early 1980s

 Donald Hamilton Fraser was a very kind and gentle man and a wonderful colourist. He visited us at Beckford on a number of occasions and my father got on with him particularly well. He lived at Henley on Thames in a beautiful house next door to the Leander Club and the year that my brother Charles was rowing at Henley in the final of the under 18s, he invited our family for a delicious lunch before we watched the race in the afternoon. My brother's crew were beaten but this in no way diminished a wonderful day.

Artist Scarves

I've been looking back through our archives at Artist Scarves that we have produced in the past, following a phone call from The Tate who are interested in re-launching a selection of them next year and I realise that we have a pretty impressive collection that reads like a who's who of 20th century artists.
I thought I would share some of them with you and the stories behind them. Here are the first two.

Patrick Heron 1920 - 1999

Gourmet by Patrick Heron

Born in Leeds, the son of TM Heron, the founder of Cresta Silks. As a child he lived for some time in Cornwall where he eventually settled at Zennor, St. Ives.

Patrick Heron studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (1937-9). As a conscientious objector during World War II he worked on the land, also having a short time at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives.

In the mid 1950’s Patrick Heron began to paint abstract works and he was Britain’s  strongest link with the New York Abstract Expressionists.

This scarf was produced for a major exhibition of his work at the Tate in London in 1998. Unfortunately not well enough at the time to produce a new design, my father went to visit him and Patrick Heron chose this design (originally done in 1969) from his archive and then worked with James on re-colouring it for the exhibition.

Gillian Ayres 1930 -

Design by Gillian Ayres

Painter, mural artist and teacher, born in London where she mainly works. Gillian was married for a time to the painter Henry Mundy, and has taught at Bath Academy of Art, St. Martin’s School of Art, Winchester School of Art and The Royal College of Art.

Her work is richly coloured and in fact her original scarf design contained many more colours. In order to make the scarf commercially viable we had to bring the number of screens down to ten and so when Gillian visited us at Beckford, she went through the design with us, pointing out exactly which shade of colours she wanted us to use.

I remember her being a very nervous character and a complete chain smoker! She had obviously had a bad experience in the past and was paranoid that her colours were going to be 'messed about with'. Because of this it was particularly gratifying when she telephoned me on receiving the proof, to say how thrilled she was with the finished result.

 

Behind the Scenes at Beckford Silk

Beckford Silk is one of the original ‘factory shops’ where visitors can come and watch the printing and get an insight into how our scarves and ties are printed and made.

We have two half hour tours a day, at 11.30am and 2.30pm Monday to Friday for individuals up to a maximum of 10. We also offer a talk and tour for larger booked parties by prior appointment. If you are coming along for one of the daily tours then it is worth phoning in advance to make sure it’s going ahead as party bookings will take precedence.

This morning’s tour was taken by one of our printers, Rob. He met the group in the shop at 11.30 and took them upstairs to where we do the printing.

He explained the colour separation and screen making before carrying on with the print that he was working on which was for an order of dress fabric.

Rob explains the printing

Once he had finished the print he took the group downstairs and through to the steam room to explain the steaming and fixing of the colour into the cloth.

Steaming and fixing the colour

They then went through to the main workshop which houses the dye winches and colour kitchen. James was in there making up a batch of dye for Rob’s next print.

James at work in the dye kitchen

Finally Rob took the group through to the Stenter Room. The Stenter is the large machine that we use to dry and finish the cloth once all the other processes have been completed.

Rob explains how the Stenter works

The daily tours normally run Monday to Friday and we charge £3 per adult (children under 15 are free). However this is then redeemable against a purchase in the main shop (not the Silk Store).

If you are interested in booking a larger group tour then do give us a call on 01386 881507 and ask for Anne.

Designing a scarf

So how do we go about designing a silk scarf?



Victoria working on designs



Well in the first instance we discuss with our customer what sort of scarf they have in mind – do they want a traditional silk square, a large square, perhaps a long scarf, or a small neckerchief? What sort of fabric have they got in mind? Light and floaty like georgette or chiffon, soft and luxurious like crepe-de-chine or satin, or rich and opulent like velvet?

Once we’ve decided on the format we begin to look at the source material. This is often in the form of digital photographs of objects or perhaps artefacts or paintings from a museum collection.

In the case of the velvet scarf that we produced for The Art Fund, the source material was a beautiful piece of furniture inlaid with semi precious stones, a technique known as pietra dura. From the photograph we enlarged the details and then hand drew the individual elements. We then scanned these drawings and tracings into Photoshop and manipulated them to create the finished design.



Design board for The Art Fund velvet scarf



The reason we do this is because the marks that a human being makes are often irregular and the brain picks this up. By using hand drawings from the start we retain this human element through to the finished design.

Hand drawing of designs

The Art Fund velvet scarf



Close up of The Art Fund velvet scarf



The scarf and tie design for Morgan Motor Company was a challenge. All they could send us were photographs of cars, bits of cars – and of course their logo! For this one we played around with filters in Photoshop to reduce the images to line drawings before producing hand drawings that we used for the final design.

Design board for Morgan Centenary scarf and tie

And here is the finished design, a simple two screen print on satin for the scarf, and silk twill for the tie.



Morgan Motor Co. silk scarf and tie



Our piece of Public Art

I was driving to work this morning and caught a piece on Radio 4 about public art in the UK. It got me thinking about our own piece of public art here in the courtyard at Beckford Silk and thought you might be interested in hearing more about it.

Sculpture at Beckford Silk by John Poole 1990

The statue that sits on a Cotswold stone plinth in the centre of the courtyard space created by our building is the representation of a skein of silk created for us by the sculptor John Poole (1926 – 2009).

His obituary in The Independent describes him thus;

"Anthony John Poole was one of the most distinguished and versatile British architectural sculptors, letter-cutters and restorers during the last half-century. His base was the Midlands, which has many of his sculptures, but his fine and often monumental works are to be found much further afield…. Poole was one of the last sculptor-craftsmen upholding the values of traditional practice and technique"

My father had started a tradition that when opening a new venture he would commission a work of art. For the opening of The Falconry Restaurant in Evesham he had commissioned a bronze statue of a falcon from artist Walenty Pytel. For The Wheatsheaf Restaurant in Tewkesbury local artist Bryant Fedden was commissioned to design and engrave glass panels for the entrance that depict the battle of Tewkesbury during the War of the Roses (this can still be seen in the building that is now a book shop). So as he was working on the design of the ‘new’ Beckford Silk building, he was already starting to envisage some sort of sculpture.

The contact with John Poole came via the boyfriend of one of our employees at the time and in 1989 James commissioned John to design and carve a statue that was to be inspired by a skein of silk.

The stone came from Hopton Wood Quarry in Derbyshire and started as a two tonne block. John worked on it in his studio in Bishampton Worcestershire but the piece also travelled to an art festival at Water Perry Gardens near Oxford where John was demonstrating. James remembers going to see him at work there. John completed the sculpture back at his studio and the finished piece was installed at Beckford Silk ready for the grand opening of the building in August 1990.

The finished sculpture is approximately 1.5m x 0.9m (5ft x 3ft) and weighs about one tonne. It is our own small contribution to ‘public art in the UK’.

Close up of sculpture A Skeine of Silk by John Poole

A Skeine of Silk by John Poole