Garden of threads

Khursheed Dinshaw

The Thread Garden located at North Lake Road, opposite Boat House in Ooty is an innovative, aesthetic garden that has been fabricated entirely from thread. Housed in a closed enclosure to protect the flora, it is created on the right of a straight walkway with a railing to prevent visitors from touching the exhibits. 150 different varieties of flowers can be seen ranging from birds of paradise, gerberas, lilies to tulips and neelakurinji which blooms every 12 years. There are also plants, creepers, climbers, lawns and a lotus pond. Only the earth and the water in the little pond are real. The rest including the moss floating in the pond is all handmade.

Embroidered thread measuring more than 60 million metres with 400 different shades has been utilised. What is truly commendable is that each exhibit here is made without using any needles or machines. There is no form of painting or printing either. One can be forgiven for presuming that the garden has live plants, flowers, grass and moss, such is the skill and effort of the 50 specially trained artists, who worked for 12 years to complete it.

Guides in English, Hindi or Tamil, are on hand to explain the laborious process, material and effort involved in creating this garden. They are quite used to the amazed expression of visitors. The basic process consists of hand winding flower petals, leaves and stems. The artists’ rotated their fingers holding the thread in a certain position and spun it around the shaped canvas base. Care was taken to avoid overlapping, knots or gaps between the windings.

The canvas base used for winding gave better support. A single petal or leaf was further divided into different parts to get wound separately and assembled together so as to keep its natural shape and structure. Stems, filaments and veins are made from steel or copper wires and wound with thread. The filament structures of flowers are different for every variety and separate investigation and designing was carried out for their creation.

A pair of scissors was used to shape the canvas and gum was required for everything, from preparing the canvas to assembling the flowers, plants, leaves and stems. These flowers and leaves were further assembled into branches and then into plants using steel or copper wires and gum. Flowers, buds and leaves were fixed to the wire stem keeping in mind their natural order. To protect the plants from moisture and dirt, these are brushed regularly and have jets of air blown at them to remove the accumulated dust.

Anthony Joseph, the brain and heart behind the thread garden, after completing his post-graduation in commerce, started teaching as a lecturer. However after his father’s sudden demise, he had to take control of their small scale-manufacturing unit of textile brushes and wooden accessories. Initially his research was restricted to designing caps, wigs and brushes on an experimental basis using Coats Threads.

The success of these items in an exhibition prompted him to increase his research, resulting in the innovative technique of hand-wound embroidery. His ultimate objective to design an artificial garden using his technology was fulfilled towards the end of May 1999, with the completion of this distinctive thread garden.

After one finishes the tour of the garden, one can buy souvenirs in the form of flowers made the exact same way as in the thread garden. These are placed in transparent cases protecting the flowers from moisture, heat and dust.