December 23, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Rites of pattern

by Rebecca Wallace

When he was one of the owners of Printers Inc. Bookstore, Gerry Masteller lived in a world of books.

Now he's trying to read meanings in the curlicues of a tall Indonesian ceremonial cloth. He stands in a small gallery at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, his head tipped back, gazing contentedly at the expanse of cotton.

"It could be forest demons; it could be frogs. I could study it for hours," he says contentedly. "It dances for me."

His audience of about 20 people listens keenly. As guest curator of this exhibit of weavings by Iban women from Borneo, Masteller exudes a certain authority. But it's also his deep, genuine enthusiasm for the art of textiles that makes him compelling to listen to.

The Palo Alto resident got interested in textiles while in Southeast Asia in 1978 and began collecting them in the early '80s. Before he and his partner sold the two-branch Printers Inc. in 1999, the Palo Alto store displayed several Central Asian textiles from his collection on the back wall.

Now Masteller has brought his abiding interest to the Cantor Center, where the exhibit "Flaming Red Cloth: Color and Design in the Weavings of the Iban of Borneo" runs through March 26. There are half a dozen towering ceremonial cloths, hand-woven cotton dyed red with patterns of white, purple-black and indigo.

The textiles were probably made in the 1800s, although the cotton is hard to date and some textiles could be older, Masteller said last week while giving a free talk at the exhibit.

The old world of the Iban was rugged, strafed by frequent torrential rains. As rice cultivators who were hard on the soil, the Iban people regularly depleted the earth and had to move on to more fertile lands.

"They were quite aggressive in seeking new territory," Masteller said. "They forced out other groups or absorbed them."

Some of the textiles were worn, while others served ceremonial purposes, rich with powerful meaning. Hanging in the community's longhouses, they announced harvests, healings, marriages and other ceremonies.

Red dye was highly prized by the Iban, as were certain weaving patterns. Women gained status in society by learning to create ever more complex designs, some of which came to them in dreams they believed were spirit-induced. But not everyone had the strength.

As part of an exhibit of Southeast Asian cloths at The Textile Museum in Washington D.C. earlier this year, a curator wrote of the Iban people: "The weaving of certain patterns is inherently dangerous, and as such only mentally and physically mature women undertake to create these patterns. The Iban and Ibanic-related people also considered many pua designs (those on the large textiles) to be powerful and dangerous, so woven borders were often added to the textiles to 'contain' their power."

The Iban people believed that some sacred patterns could actually make a weaver fall ill if she was not ready to attempt them, Masteller added.

At the Cantor Center, one high-status pattern is particularly intense -- and perhaps disturbing. In a blood-red textile, a vine pattern twisting with tendrils is interwoven with mysterious-looking hourglass shapes. The textile is labeled "Trophy Head and Skull Basket Pattern."

The men gained their status by head-hunting, and the hourglass pattern represents the baskets used to carry trophy heads and offerings in ceremonies, Masteller said during his talk in the gallery.

"It's a little hard for me to get around the idea of head-hunting. But it's absolutely crucial to their society," he said as one audience member absently clutched her neck. "They thought heads were full of seeds. Without the heads, they wouldn't have a successful rice harvest."

Nowadays, Masteller added reassuringly, the Iban use coconuts instead.

Modern Iban still weave -- and the exhibit includes photos of several Iban with looms -- but many are now at least nominally Christian, so it's not known whether the textiles still have the same meaning as they did long ago, Masteller said.

One is continually struck by the intricacy of the textiles and the thorough, methodical nature of the repeating patterns. "The intelligence in this room is so deep," one of Masteller's listeners remarked.

For some reason, the Iban choose to fill as much space as possible in a weaving. This may reflect the teeming, lush nature of the rainforest in which they live, or it may be that the weavers somehow see empty space as dangerous, Masteller said.

Some patterns are clearly representational, such as a line of faces that seemingly run a striking gamut of emotions, from impish to timid to berserk. Others, such as the "Flying Tiger Pattern," present no figures that can be recognized. The tiger, Masteller said, may be considered too fierce to be shown in full.

On a pedestal, Masteller has assembled several layers of transparencies to help visitors see the layers of the patterns.

Manuel A. Jordan Perez, a Cantor Center staff curator for arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, said it's rare for museums to dedicate lengthy exhibits to textiles. The fragile fabric may not respond well to being hung for a long time. But these textiles are owned by the museum, and Cantor officials wanted to give the public the opportunity to see them, he said.

The weavings on display were chosen from about 170 Indonesian textiles given to the museum in 2000 by The Christensen Fund, a Palo Alto-based private foundation that loans non-Western artwork to museums.

Certain standards must be adhered to after the textiles are taken from storage and unrolled. Temperature and light levels are monitored closely in the gallery.

And then there's the little matter of keeping the textiles on the walls. The method varies by the weaving, but one sounds particularly painstaking.

Masteller smiles and points to one of the textiles. "We hired a conservator who stitched Velcro -- very carefully -- on the back," he said.


What: "Flaming Red Cloth: Color and Design in the Weavings of the Iban of Borneo," an exhibit of Indonesian textiles


Where: The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University


When: Through March 26. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, with extended Thursday hours until 8 p.m. The museum is closed Dec. 24 and 25 but will be open Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.


Cost: Free.


Info: Call (650) 723-4177 or go to www.stanford.edu/dept/ccva.

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