something new

Time Flies. August 2011

4x6 inches, mixed media.

a project I'm working on - running a sunprinted and painted image through scanner and Photoshop to reprint on fabric for further needlework

Please respect copyright.

SAQA

"Interviewed" for a volunteer position today, as one of two co-representatives for the MN chapter of SAQA. Sounds like a go...

(Yes, SAQA also stands for South African Qualifications Authority. You've been warned.)

a dream

I dreamed last night that my parents lived in a large old apartment, one with wood floors and many rooms. With all their many antiques they lived, and my sister was there -- still in her teens -- and I was still single, young, though my artwork was in its present stage. I dreamed they had a huge room vacant, one that would easily accommodate all my projects -- large areas for laying out quilts, tables and chairs, lots of light and floor-space. I proposed to the folks that I might rent this room, for $200 a month, to use as a studio. They seemed skeptical...

I see studios for rent here and there, but it's always more money than I want to spend, and so far from the house that I know I'll never make it there -- because work time is squeezed in between my job and my homelife, as it will be until my son is several years older. I've thought about it a long time. My husband would not approve of the expenditure. And yet, now that I'm dreaming about it... I know it's something I truly desire. To have unlimited, un-remarked-upon studio space, where I can make a mess and dream and no one cares what I do. My husband hates my sewing room now, always a mess. I wish he wouldn't be so vocal about it.

sun-printing at Lake Mille Lacs

I packed my art supplies rather hurriedly last week, intending to do some more dyeing or ecoprinting while up at the lake. That didn't happen, possibly because I didn't feel like tromping through the woods in search of dye materials (though I did try dyeing with lake weed, which turned out to be very smelly and disappointing.) I remembered the Setacolor paints I'd packed, and on the bright hot afternoons, commenced with the sunprinting experiments using Setacolors and the raw silk pieces I'd brought with me for dyeing.

I may cut these into smaller shapes for further work, though the "BED" piece will remain intact as it has a direction of its own. That piece includes some stamping, results for which were only semi-successful (hard to get crisp transfer using the watercolor-like Setacolors and unsized fabric, but I'm still content with the results.) Another piece not seen, "FORGIVE", is already being embellished with stitch and will be shown when completed. In the later pieces I did several layers of overdying, adding interest to the positive image.

I also used the Setacolors for regular fabric painting, and started a small quilted piece with that silk which I am embroidering right now -- a Lake Mille Lacs sunset, in honor of our third annual stay at Sunset Bay.

more dye experiments

rich reddish brown using green walnuts

an assortment of marks ranging from brown to dark yellow-green using pods from a catalpa tree

why India Flint?

So I'm dyeing these bits of silk, and I assume it will yield improving results as I experiment more -- but I wonder what the purpose should be? As much as I love India Flint, I know there must be some observers who see only muddy clothes and yard-stains when they look at her work. That's unfair to her aesthetic, to her years of research, but I feel there must be some justification -- for my endeavor, this woman here in Minnesota (so far away from the eucalyptus of Australia). A rationale -- why should I go to the trouble of dyeing fabric with organic matter? Why should anyone care what it looks like when leaves mold on a piece of cotton? Flint buries her cloth in the compost heap and digs it up months later, to transform what must be a smelly rag into an amazing work of fabric art. Is that profound or just obscure? Is it too precious, too close to the trends of "green living?"
"India Flint is known for the development of the highly distinctive “ecoprint,” an ecologically sustainable plant-based printing process that evolved through combining Latvian dye traditions with Shibori-zome from Japan. She completed an MA researching eucalyptus dyes in 2001."  

I'm not a "biter" - not a person who is ordinarily susceptible to trendy ideas. But I loved the sight of those stained silk strips on the clothesline in my studio, and I totally fell for the look of Flint's "Landskins" when I first beheld their wholly organic, process-driven sensuality. I'm inspired by her, and everyone seems to love her latest how-to, EcoColour. 
If I mention onionskins in a dye class there are invariably a couple of people who will pipe up and tell me that they ‘did’ onionskins in the seventies and that they really weren’t all that exciting. I beg to differ. Onion skins are one of the most versatile sources of dye color yielding tones ranging through yellow, ochre, tan, burgundy, lime green, olive green and black depending on the water quality and the composition of the vessel used. Not bad for a humble papery substance casually discarded in the preparation of food. The traditional Latvian use of onion skins to color Easter eggs led me to the discovery of the ecoprint; a low impact ecologically sustainable dye method that imparts color to cloth by direct contact.
Terrific slideshow of her work here. It is gorgeous. And I am enthralled by the real-time, decaying, evolving nature of the work in all its impermanence. Is it rational? Is it important?
Click HERE for an interesting article in SDA's online forum about the world of natural dyes.