Unusual Art Forms to Try at the Verlocal Design Fest
We have 12 artisans who will be teaching basic artistic skills - ranging from watercolour painting to temporary tattoos - but let’s shed some light on some of the lesser known art forms that will be featured during the weekend-long festival!
Ebru
With the explosion of insta-worthy marbled patterns, many are left unaware of the rich cultural history of Ebru, or better known as paper marbling.
Jeff Ang from Artefakts mentioned that paper marbling thrived during 15th century Turkey, but dates back to the 13th century in Turkistan, near the Mongolian region. The word “ebru” is derived from the Persian word “ebr”, which means “cloud”.
Interestingly, this technique also spread through the rest of Asia up to Japan, where it is known as suminagashi. With diverging techniques due to how far the art has spread, Jeff combines and teaches techniques from suminagashi while being respectful of its origins. This is why he starts his classes with a brief history lesson on paper marbling.
Knotting
Although the ancient art of knotting has its roots in China, Ai Geok of Wearable Craft aims to give Chinese knots a contemporary twist. Like its historical counterpart, these knots act as a decorative and symbolic accessory for its wearer.
Even though Ai Geok believes in embedding some spiritual aspects into the knots, she also fuses Celtic, Japanese, and Korean knots into her designs. She also uses colourful rainbow ropes to “be a rainbow in someone’s cloud” despite it being hard to find them in regular stores, according to her.
Realistic Fake Foods — in Minis
You may be familiar with fake foods being used to display what’s available in a restaurant, especially Japanese ones. Since these fake foods come in life sizes, the fake foods industry wanted to spin off from that product by tapping onto the idea of kawaii, or cute in Japanese.
Creating miniatures is one way to make something cute, and The Miniature Kitchen is one of Singapore’s own local craftsmen that specialises in this art form. In addition to making the usual favourites like donuts and chocolates, Shirley also creates local delights like pineapple tarts!
Fake foods use a range of materials that may be expensive, in order to create a realistic look. But for Shirley, using clay and mixed media is sufficient for her creations.
Felt Charms
Felt sheets often invoke an image of 2D collages. But there are artisans who know how to sculpt and sew felt sheets into 3D shapes.
Salinah, cofounder of Simply for Love, explained that some of the felt sheets they use are different from the ones that are readily available from art stores.
“Wool felt sheets are produced from raw wool by compressing wool into flat sheets... These are soft and more organic with colours, [which] we use for our [felt] flowers,” said Salinah. “Those in art and craft stores are an acrylic or polyester mix, which are hard and stiff for certain crafts.”
Felt crafts also require sewing in order to create 3D shapes in addition to stuffing them with polyfill. With 30 minute long workshops, this is the technique that Simply for Love teaches to introduce their students to felting as an art form.
We hope that you have learnt something new about these unusual art forms from our local artisans! If you are interested in trying any of these disciplines during the Verlocal Design Fest, here are the links to sign up for their classes:
