Raven and Sparrow

Painting hearts

The little paintings with hearts motifs are proceeding slowly. Three kings and three queens, plus other sundry bits and pieces are being painted with peach and pink, which then will also be waxed over. Everything in this picture that is brown (wax) will eventually be white. Everything that is white here will (hopefully) be a nice strong red. The peach and pink bits will stay peach and pink if they make it through the coming processes without complaining too much. Many steps to go.

Dyeing to teach

For the first time in several years I taught a class on surface design with natural dyes this weekend. It was at Gail Harker Center for Creative Arts in La Conner Washington, a beautiful barn studio in an awesome pastoral setting. There were five participants, all of whom were charming and enthusiastic, and overall I think the workshop was very successful. Surface design refers to the patterning of previously woven (usually plain white) cloth, as opposed to cloth with the pattern woven in (like a plaid). It's what you do to the surface, hence the name. This class was meant to introduce the students to natural dye extracts as colorants, and show some of the ways they could be used as paints, with freezer paper and wax as stencils and resists to hold the colors off the fabric in designs of the student's choosing. Its a ton of information to absorb even if you are familiar with some of the processes, but everyone leaped in and were able to produce interesting experimental pieces. I hope they found the natural colors to be as compellling as I have always done.

Getting ready was a lot of work. I had to mordant all the cloth we used, which means cooking it in an aluminum solution, since most natural dyes won't bond with the fabric without a metal molecule as a link. I also had to gather the tools from the far corners of my studio and storage. The long period since I last taught this class gave everything plenty of opportunity to lose itself, so I spent last week searching out all the bits and pieces I needed, making lists and packing things up.

When I actually started to talk at the beginning of the class I realized that I was pretty rusty at that too, and have been going over everything I said since then, thinking of better ways to explain and connect the disparate blobs of information I was spewing. As I said, the students were very gracious and interested, so they made the interaction highly energizing for me. A couple of the demonstrations failed completely, but most everything I talked about worked like it was supposed to. We made a very successful indigo pot and had lots of fun with clamp and fold patterning.

The experience was unexpectedly inspiring for me artistically. I used this scrap of linen/rayon as a sample, just to show how to apply and layer with wax. It started without thought, but the more I did to it, the more interested I became in it. It feels like it holds the seeds of a larger, more finished piece, and I can hardly wait to take it further. Also, I forgot how exciting and artistically motivating it is to work with other people who are doing the same kinds of stuff. Just seeing their choices and working methods throws new light on mine. It freshens my approach, and I am very grateful for that.

Now that I have hauled everything back home and stowed it, I am pulled between resting (must do, I am exhausted) and starting some new pieces. I hope I will have the chance to teach again soon, but not tomorrow. 

Stormy pink

Once again we are in a time of volatile weather as winter pushes back against the rising spring. Angry black clouds shot with golden sunbeams suddenly give way to blue skies and sparkling water, only to reappear momentarily on icy breezes. Setting a table that captures this dark/bright dichotomy had me rooting amongst my tablecloths for a square I made several years ago with fiber reactive dyes. I was experimenting with asymetry and painted one third of the square a strong solid navy, with the rest a lighter conglomeration of blues, both straight dyes and green/yellow combinations. The magenta bleed that appeared on the edges of the navy blue was unexpected but welcome. It was that dark pink accent that made me think of those flowering red currants just budding up in the woods right now. I went out and cut some branches and popped them into a gray pottery vase. They have graceful branching patterns and looked fine just as they were, but when I added a few sprigs of crystal dealy bobbers I was reminded of the beautiful water droplets that hang from the bare twigs along the driveway after it rains. Those led to my textured Fostoria plates and glasses, with similar votive candle holders. It was simple, but dramatic and, I think, appropriate.

The dinner that went with it was pretty good, but the timing didn't come out well. I cooked the meat the exact time the recipe specified, and had a meat thermometer in it, but when I sliced it it was very rare.  Naturally, everything else was ready, so we had our dinner in courses, with the meat at the end. I was puzzled and annoyed but fortunately there was champagne and we weathered the storm. 

Spring sneaks in

Breaks in the cloudy weather drew us out onto our hillside today to see if the wildflowers had begun. Yes! The first to bloom are these lovely nodding purple ladies, commonly called grass widows. (Olsynium douglassi) It's an apt name because they come up in open areas like our rocky balds, and they are amazingly self-effacing and easy to overlook, even though their color is bright. We go to the places they usually populate, looking carefully, and still usually find our first one by stepping on it. They come out on the most southerly rock face around the first of March and never seem to increase or spread. Apparently they have colonized the spaces they like and that is that.

A larger, showier native plant, the flowering red currant, is just budding up in the woods, ready to provide a true springtime fanfare. These bushes can get fairly tall, their dense dark pink fingers waving along the roads and clumping into open woodlands. In the fall they have little berries that the birds like amidst fall-colored foliage which we all prize. 

The signs of spring are increasing every day and even though the weather here can be dreary in March, the signals of change are unmistakeable.