Veteran lace maker tries to revive her art

Some 60 per cent of Gozitan women know how to produce traditional lace but most of them no longer do it because they think they would have to declare their income or register as part-time workers with the Employment and Training Corporation, Consilia Azzopardi believes.

Mrs Azzopardi is the director of both the Koperattiva Ghawdxija tal-bizzilla w artiggjanat (Gozitan cooperative for lace and artisan work) set up in 1996, and of the Malta lace guild, an organisation for lace makers as well as anyone interested in the folklore and other aspects of lace.

"Lace-making is a small cottage industry and people do it for fun. It is not a lucrative business and it does not pay," she said.

The cooperative, which has 19 lace makers as members, has an annual turnover of about Lm4,000. There are also several part-timers who help when the cooperative has a big contract that has to be completed in a short time.

"Lace making is a very time consuming pastime. People spend hours working and have very little to show for it in the end. When you consider the prices at which lace is sold and the number of hours that go into producing it, you find that you are receiving 50 cents an hour, which is ridiculous.

"If one had to charge by the hour, the price would be unaffordable. If one were to charge at Lm1.75 an hour, a piece that sells for Lm20 would cost over Lm50," she said.

But fear of the bureaucracy involved has a worse effect than the relatively low income. "When the cooperative receives an order for a wedding dress or a piece that requires a lot of work, we try to seek women who we know are good to help us, but they often refuse to work because they fear they would have to declare some income," she said.

Mrs Azzopardi has been the driving force behind efforts to revive traditional lace-making and together with a few others, she teaches the art of lace making both at the school of fine arts at Ghajnsielem and at the Gozo University centre, which has a part-time lace making programme where one can learn from the history of lace in Malta to how to make technical drawings, theory as well as practice. Groups of between 10 and 15 attend such courses, half of them from Malta.

Lace appeared in Europe in the early 17th century and started being made in Malta almost immediately as Malta had significant trade in cotton at the time and kept abreast with trends in Europe.

"Maltese lace was influenced by classical laces that were sold to noble families and kings in European countries such as Spain and France. But the Maltese invented a special technique not practised anywhere else," Mrs Azzopardi said.

In no other country where lace is still made is the trajbu (pillow) used. A cushion is used in other countries.

The Maltese trajbu is made of tightly packed straw. The plants are pulled out roots and all. The roots are then removed and the remaining lengths of straw are cut down to the exact length required.

If they were cut by machines, they would be too short, Mrs Azzopardi explained. The straw is tied and is today covered with jeans fabric. Before it used to be covered with a piece of sack cloth. Cotton sheets are then wound around and it is finally covered with brown paper.

"Everything is glued with flour paste. If other kinds of glue are used, it becomes too hard and one cannot pin needles into it," she said.

The combini (bobbins), are usually made by retired people who use wood from fruit trees.

Mrs Azzopardi said the British had tried to revive the industry in the 1850s and started selling Maltese lace in the UK. They had brought designs, while others started making designs locally.

"It was a lucrative industry and women making lace started making more money from it than men at that time. We are now working on the same patterns that were designed at that time," she said.

But because it is so laborious, there are no full time lace makers left and it is no longer an industry.

"Tourists buy very small things, such as book marks. The market has become very limited.

"Locally made and imported machine-made lace is available at cheap prices and some of the hand-made items found in shops do not reflect the quality that craftswomen are still making. Many of those who still make lace, do it for themselves or to give as presents to friends and relatives.

"Table cloths, veils used for the first Holy Communion or wedding dresses, can be ordered to measure at the cooperative. We also weave surnames' coats of arms and can turn pictures into a lace pattern, but we work only in one colour to keep our tradition. Contemporary lace encourages the use of colour and different threads, but that is a universal lace, no longer Maltese.

"At the cooperative, we do not deal in cheaply made stuff. Competition does not really bother us because the level is very high. In fact we are always insisting that members and students raise the level and do away with the concept that if one is doing something for sale, it can be less refined," Mrs Azzopardi said.

"Lace making used to be a social encounter, and women used to meet and weave together on the street. They learnt from each other and enjoyed each other's company. But because of the vehicular traffic, you no longer see women weaving lace outside," she said.