India inspires UK painter to foray into dress-making

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British-American painter Sarah Butterfield has been inspired by her love of vibrant Indian colours to make a foray into dress-designing and sewing.
Ms Butterfield, who first visited India as the official tour artist on the royal tour by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, in March 2006, was profoundly inspired by the people and the colours she encountered there.
“When I went to India with the Prince, I was amazed at the gracious, dignified and the amazing people wearing these sensational colours. I bought some dresses and skirts when I was in India and used them on the models in some of the paintings I did of India when I got back,” recalls Ms Butterfield, who is a qualified architect and has trained at Ruskin School of Fine Art in Oxford.
The Indian experience and impression, however, stayed with her and her second whirlwind trip to India, this time as part of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s entourage with her husband, David Willetts, who is minister for universities and science, last year cemented that influence.
“I realised after I bought an Indian tunic from a shop here that I had to repair a bit that there was a new way of looking at the clothes where you love the material and don’t worry so much about the sewing,” says Ms Butterfield, whose latest paintings, including a range of dresses, are being exhibited at Frost and Reed Gallery in London. Above the Horizon includes 60 of her paintings, including different series on landscapes, night-sky views, beaches and food.
“The connection between the dresses and India is direct and immediate and I hope I can visit again next year to stock up on new material and also visit more places,” says Ms Butterfield, a mother of two college-going children.
Her approach to making clothes is unique: She says buys the material when she falls in love with it, but the material she buys is unique too as the secondary colours and designs are different for almost every metre.
“I then keep the piece of cloth within my sight for a few days so that it can tell me what it needs to be rather than approaching it with a pre-conceived idea,” explains Ms Butterfield, who was mentored by her dress designer friend Annabel Shand as she first decided to create and sew dresses.
The dresses she makes are closely linked with her paintings, says Ms Butterfield. “The dresses are made of a rich-coloured thin material on top of a bright and thick lining cloth, experimenting with the shapes and flow of the fabric. I am still crazy about creating these dresses. “When you have got the thin material over the brighter lining material, the two move and you get these half-turns and half-turns are what painting is all about,” she explains.
The inspiration for both painting and making clothes is symbiotic. “The steps and connections between paintings and making the clothes just continue all the time. Some of the dresses were inspired by the paintings and some of the dresses were inspired by the paintings,” says Ms Butterfield.
Her latest paintings, especially the ones of the night skies, too find their inspiration from her India trips. “The beautiful starry skies I encountered in India were totally different from what I had seen before and the night views from my mother’s holiday cottage in the United States and the Hubble Telescope images are the different inspirations behind the series of night skies being exhibited here.”
Describing her foray into dress designing and sewing as extremely uplifting, Ms Butterfield says the process of sewing dresses makes you happy. The best part is, she says, “You can sew at night.”