![Elaine Bourque is one of a hand full of people weaving the historic brown cotton of Acadiana. She has been weaving since the late 1980s after seeing a demonstration at Festivals Acadiens et Créoles.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/03/05/PLAL/3a2b6fb5-2952-4ccd-8da7-a8430119b12b-Elaine.Bourque.Brown.Cotton.Weaver-7.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Colastie Hebert LeBlanc, often called Tante Colastie by household and pals, was one of many few girls nonetheless making brown cotton trousseau — a dowry for brand new brides. However she had 108 blankets.
When requested to promote one among her blankets LeBlanc responded with, “Oh no! Madamoiselle! I am unable to let you may have any of these. I’ve made them for my youngsters.”
However with so many additional blankets, individuals have been confused with what number of youngsters she had.
“9,” she would inform them. “I’ve accomplished my provide, that’s one dozen for every. Now I’ll have the ability to make blankets for others and my pals who want them.”
Together with a dozen brown cotton blankets, LeBlanc handed her expertise and information all the way down to her daughter Gladys LeBlanc Clark. Clark took Elaine Bourque below her wing to indicate her methods to weave. And now Bourque has an apprentice.
That is how brown cotton weaving in Acadiana has been taught. By way of household and pals. For dowry and heat. To keep up historical past and tradition.
Acadiana brown cotton, formally often called coton jaune, has deep roots in south Louisiana’s historical past. Over the previous 200 years, the plant has waned in reputation and workforce. Nonetheless lately, brown cotton has gone via a renaissance, with extra farmers plotting, artists weaving and historians researching.
All of those have mixed for a resurgence within the basic inhabitants’s curiosity in Acadiana brown cotton. With extra identified about coton jaune, an exhibit on the Hilliard Artwork Museum was created.
‘Acadian Brown Cotton: The Material of Acadiana’ encompasses the creative, cultural and historic significance of brown cotton in Acadiana. Within the exhibit, hand-woven blankets assist inform the 250-year-old story of the craft handed down from era to era.
The exhibit ends June 30.
Brown cotton’s 250 years of historical past in Acadiana
Brown cotton was traced by historians alongside historic commerce routes from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico via Tunica Hills of north Louisiana after which all the way down to Acadiana Suzanne Breaux stated in a 2015 Daily Advertiser article.
When the Acadians discovered themselves in south Louisiana, they needed to make a local weather adjustment and swap from wool to brown cotton.
“And so the Acadians, being as resourceful as they’re, once they moved right here they introduced these expertise with them on methods to weave and methods to spin,” Breaux stated in 2015.
As a part of the mallow household, cotton is botanically associated to okra and hibiscus, which thrive in tropical and subtropical areas.
The brown cotton was then utilized in handwoven blankets, bedding and clothes. Brown cotton seeds are smoother than conventional cotton seeds, making the plant simpler to wash and spin. With the seed coat being seedless and hairless, weavers did not want a cotton gin.
However the naturally tan cotton had its difficulties. The brown colour typically meant it was not as extremely prized and the plant is a “short-staple” cotton, needing extra twists when spinning to carry collectively.
Acadian girls ultimately perfected the artwork of spinning coton jaune — sufficient twists to maintain the fibers collectively however not over twisting as to make inflexible, stiff blankets. By 10 years outdated, many Acadian ladies knew the proper spin for supple brown cotton strands Bourque stated.
Weavers and farmers maintaining brown cotton alive
Elaine Bourque is one among a handful of individuals passing down the information of methods to weave and develop Acadiana brown cotton. She’s additionally documenting brown cotton trousseaus’ she comes throughout and is a keeper of the seed, one of many individuals trusted with brown cotton seedlings.
A State of Louisiana Custom Bearer Award recipient, Bourque found brown cotton whereas watching Gladys LeBlanc Clark spin and weave coton jaune at Festivals Acadiens et Créoles.
In 1989, Bourque and Clark utilized for an apprenticeship and have been awarded a Folklife Apprenticeship award.
“I used to be capable of go to with Mrs. Clark for one yr and study from her methods to spin and weave precisely the way in which her mom and grandmother carried on the custom of L’Amour de Maman – a mom’s love,” Bourque stated. “A 250-year-old Acadian custom of a mom making 12 blankets and several other different handwoven textile objects for a daughter to deliver into her marriage. This was the daughter’s trousseau.”
In the course of the apprenticeship, Clark shared brown cotton seeds with Bourque. For over 30 years, Bourque has planted and harvested brown cotton in Lafayette Parish, maintaining the seed viable.
After the apprenticeship, she made towels, placemats and desk runners in addition to demonstrated at many state and native festivals.
Bourque, 79, has taken on an apprentice of her personal to maintain the custom, historical past and schooling alive.
“My intention was and nonetheless is to pay tribute to the Acadian girls who made these lovely textiles out of necessity to maintain their households heat,” she stated. “It is rather vital to me that we preserve this custom happening via the following generations.”
Caleb Frugé, a farmer in Arnaudville, lately joined the Acadiana Brown Cotton motion in 2019. He got here throughout a undertaking particularly designed for the revitalization of brown cotton in Acadiana referred to as Discipline to Trend.
“I used to be sadly too late to plant that yr, however obtained in contact with them anyway to see what they have been engaged on,” the 27-year-old stated. “Their unimaginable mission to protect this seed that had been grown right here in Acadiana for properly over 200 years actually appealed to me.”
Acadian brown cotton has been the best crop to grown Frugé stated. A licensed hemp farmer who additionally professionally produces lettuce and herbs in a hydroponic greenhouse, he stated he has by no means come throughout a crop as easy to take care of as Acadian brown cotton.
Harvesting the product is a distinct story. Often the primary harvest is in late July or early August, the most popular time of the yr. The seed must be planted in full solar and ideally picked within the afternoon.
Though new to the motion, he is wanting ahead to strengthening the skinny tread of conventional brown cotton via provide and schooling.
“We’re working very laborious to revitalize all the things from the cultivation of the Acadian brown cotton to the spinning and weaving of it to proceed these traditions,” he stated.
Discipline to Trend
Initially, brown cotton was primarily used to create trousseaus. As soon as seen as scratchy outdated blankets, the blankets are actually collector’s objects, some fetching as much as $800 Breaux stated.
Now farmers and weavers are reimagining how the product can be utilized — sustainable trend.
Field to Fashion, a grassroots community, has three objectives — protect the Acadian brown cotton heirloom seed, revitalize native Acadiana brown cotton manufacturing with farmers who’re dedicated to regenerative agricultural practices and create a traceable provide chain for the sustainable trend trade in Acadiana.
Founding member Sharon Donnan established Acadian Brown Cotton, a motion centered on the product, after she and Breaux stumbled upon a conventional brown cotton blanket in 2012 on the Washington Outdated Schoolhouse Vintage Mall.
“The minute I noticed the Acadian blankets I knew there was an ideal story to be advised as solely a Cajun can inform it and nice visuals with the wealthy texture and colour palette within the textiles, essentially the most obligatory components for a profitable movie,” Donnan, a textile anthropologist, stated.
Discipline to Trend was based in 2017 after Donnan and Bourque attended Textile Society of America. They have been impressed to start out a small-scale sustainable cotton trade in Acadiana.
The group is presently working with Belfast Mill in Prince Edward Island to start out creating items from brown cotton grown in Acadiana.
‘Acadian Brown Cotton: The Material of Acadiana’
With many artifacts and textiles provided by Acadiana Brown Cotton, the exhibit makes use of family tree, historic maps, images, audio and video elements, furnishings, instruments, and textiles that display the historic significance and cultural influence of the Acadian brown cotton custom.
“It’ll additionally search to teach regional audiences about a facet of their tradition they might be unaware of, casting new gentle on the ‘itchy, brown blankets’ in individuals’s attics by demonstrating their artistry and worth, in addition to the custom’s continued vitality and relevancy,” Hilliard Advertising and marketing Supervisor Susie Gottardi stated.
Acadian brown cotton represents greater than only a plant — it represents a tie to the previous and a connection to the historical past of the Acadian and Cajun households which might be nonetheless dwelling in South Louisiana in the present day Gottardi stated.
This historical past of Acadian brown cotton can also be typically a narrative of a household, particularly the ladies.
Bourque, whose assortment and works have been used within the exhibit, is honored to have helped the Hilliard Museum. She feels the ladies who created the unique brown cotton blankets have been by no means acknowledged for his or her work.
“We’ve to keep in mind that many of those blankets have been made throughout the time that the weaver might not have had electrical energy or operating water in her dwelling,” Bourque stated. “She might have labored within the subject together with her husband throughout the day, and would work on her loom within the attic when her household was sleeping.”
Contact Victoria Dodge at vdodge@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @Victoria_Dodge
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