Who are you, where do you live? I am Bistra Pisancheva and I live in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Who did you learn to make bobbin lace with, where? Due to historical reasons, bobbin lace came to Bulgaria from Czechia (the Czech Republic). In the beginning of the 20th century, Teresa Holeckova used to teach bobbin lace at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Later, a student of hers opened a lacemaking school in the town of Kalofer, and this is why this type of lace became known in this country as “Kalofer lace”. My teacher, Velichka Radulova, specializes in this type of lace and was the first Bulgarian lacemaker to teach numerous courses throughout the country. In 1989, in Sofia, I took part in the last ten-day course she taught and then could not continue my training with her because she travelled to the USA. In the first couple of years after the course, I made the models provided by Velichka Radulova in order to get to terms with the technique, but when they were all done, I could not find any new patterns. I had no information, books, magazines, or access to the internet. This made me design my own patterns, learn from my own mistakes, but also learn to manage on my own, in my own way, which involved the inevitable challenges. Maybe ten years later, I discovered that my way of working was quite different from what the accepted norms for the technique were.
How long have you been involved in handmade textile crafts? I enjoy working with thread. I learned to crochet and knit when I was five and at 15 had made my first items of clothing. I used to knit a lot for the members of my family, but when my children grew up and fashion changed, I chose other projects, e.g. I crocheted curtains for our village house. When I was 33, I came across bobbin lace for the first time; this is when I attended the training course. The activity turned out to be both pleasant and fascinating, and soon became a passion for me. When I am working with the bobbins, I have the feeling that nothing else matters. This feeling is in turn transferred onto the people who are looking at my lace works and onto the people whom I teach. Lacemaking is a hobby for me, but for three years now, I have been studying and doing research on the people who make lace nowadays. At the moment I am completing my doctoral thesis at Sofia University on lacemaking in terms of cultural technologies and social practices.
What is your original profession? Do you have any art education or are you self-taught? My formal education is in philology and anthropology, I do not have any formal art education. Lace is not my main profession or occupation, neither in terms of making, nor when it comes to teaching.
What does life with lace give you? Lace gives me challenges, opportunities to find out new things, and discoveries. Also, fun, pleasure, and achievement. It provides me with an extra life, a whole new world of friends, meetings with like-minded people. It gives me opportunities for travel and adventure. It opens up new directions with endless opportunities, and multi-faceted answers to questions that interest me. It is like a clever puzzle with both numerous and interesting solutions.
What do they say about your work in your home country? Do you have support or are they more classics? Bobbin lace is not too popular in Bulgaria and this is why people are not able to appreciate what is different or unique in my work. Those who prefer the traditional patterns do ask why I am not making them. However, artistically minded people appreciate my improvisation and like the new and unexpected applications I achieve.
Do you exhibit at home or abroad only? In the past nine years, in Bulgaria, I have participated in a range of exhibitions, demonstrations, and cultural events, always together with the lacemakers from SediankaTA community, most of whom are my students. Abroad I have been part of more than 45 exhibitions, festivals, conferences and other events dedicated to lace. I have also had the opportunity to have solo exhibitions: three three-day ones in Ferrol, Spain in 2017, 2018 and 2019; a one-month one at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin, Germany in 2013; and one six-month long at the Museum of Lace in Arlanc, France in 2018. Unfortunately, my participation in the one in Prague could not happen this year, but I will eagerly visit when you organize the next meetings of the lacemakers’ community.
Do you teach at art school or do you take lace courses? At home or abroad? I teach bobbin lace and needle lace at the SediankaTA social group in Sofia. This is a community where, in an informal atmosphere, different types of handicraft are taught and learned; tuition is on an individual basis and can hardly be named “a course”. In the context of our busy daily life, however, this form of teaching proved successful and attracts the few who are interested in learning such skills.
I used to teach different types of old lacemaking techniques to MA students in Fashion at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia for five years. I was happy to work there with three talented young women from the Czech Republic who were studying at the Academy in Sofia as part of an Erasmus exchange; this is where they experienced the opportunities offered by bobbin lace. My contacts with young people, often thinking outside the box, have been beneficial to both parties’ development.
Since 2016 I have been teaching my way of improvisation in lacemaking on three-day intensive courses in Spain and France. For me this is somewhat strange, but also rewarding, because lacemakers who know more than me, are interested in learning how to make lace landscapes without subordination to any rules and conventions.
Where do you get ideas for your works? I am inspired by nature – landscapes, flowers, trees; by human faces and figures. In the past few years I have been looking at more abstract images that can be rendered and perceived in unexpected ways in three dimensions. In the transformations of Paul Cezanne’s landscapes, I find the technical challenge to follow the idea of a complex art form, and render it in an even more complex way by interlacing the threads on bobbins.
Do you prefer white or colored lace? If you prefer the color, do you come out of the laws of color harmony or do you choose them by feeling and intuition? I prefer working in color. Even when I have monochrome projects, I introduce some variety by adding darker of lighter nuances of the main color. I do not observe any rules when combining colors. When you work with thread, the end result is complex and difficult to predict. I experiment with interweaving colors and achieve different effects and variations. Another variable that affects the intensity of the colors is how close (dense) or wide apart in space the threads are. In my type of lace, in addition to color, an important element is the play of threads of different thickness which also adds to the final effect. Even if I have some initial expectations, experience shows me that I need to stay open and curious for the surprises that come with putting together the different threads.
How complex technical patterns do you use? Do you make them up? Since I learned very few technical options in my training, I was seeking ways to adapt them for my purposes. The classical elements implemented in bobbin lace, as practiced in Bulgaria, already limited. In the beginning, what I was doing in my interpretations, was just changing the positions of the threads and changing the size of the zig-zag when moving the active pair of bobbins, or using twisting, to get away from the regularity. During the last ten years, after numerous encounters and active communication with lacemakers from different countries, I have been learning new elements (e.g. nets) and approaches. When I implement these in my works, I use the variety of textures and the change of direction of the threads, but try to avoid the even-paced and geometrical sequence of positioning the figures. I achieve this by also changing the positions of where the pins are fixed, after the fabric has been created; or by pulling some of the threads, which takes the interlacement to a place different from where it was formed. In the course of this mode of work I sometimes discover new ways of working. I also combine different techniques which always brings a new result.
Do you draw exact templates or do you work according to a simple drawing? For me, the idea comes first. Even if I have a specific place in nature that has inspired me, this is just a starting point. I do not stick to the actual details, positioning or colors too much. In the beginning, I decide where I want a dense patch and where I want more lace elements and air. I also decide upon what the colors are going to be – harmonious or contrasting. I do not use a pattern; I only draw the outline of the patches but I cannot tell in advance how exactly I am going to fill them in. I often introduce changes and keep drawing on the cylinder as I come up with new ideas and different solutions in the course of work. I trust not the drawing, but what is formed by the threads when they are woven together. I am led by the fabric that is created and not by my initial approximate idea of it.
Do you draw originals by hand or on a computer? I draw the outlines by hand and change or add to them in the course of work.
Is there a topic that attracts you and that you want to work on? For several years I have been making dresses themed around the idea “The plants that feed us are beautiful too” where both the fabric and the lace are made of pure natural silk. The first two dresses were created around bodices/corsets made of lace wheat ears – the green one representing young wheat, and the golden one – the ripe wheat. These were followed by two dresses appliqued with pumpkin stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. After that I made some eggplants and loosely attached them to a dress shaped like the fruit of the eggplant. I am now working on a couple of green dresses featuring a bunch leeks and Savoy cabbage leaves both made of lace. With these I am aiming to provoke people’s imagination and prove that anything can be made with lace.
Do you make more decorations, paintings or clothes lace? I usually work in harmony with my inner moods and desires. I do not limit myself in any way. Landscapes, flowers, portraits, jewelry, paintings, lace for clothes – all are interesting to me. For me it is always the curiosity for the unknown that takes me to my next lace project.
