Raven and Sparrow

Double-ended dye

Instead of over-dyeing Lisa's autumn in plain gray I decided to do a double color by dipping one side in quebracho red and the other in logwood gray, leaving a bit of the yellowy water stain in the middle. At first I thought I would just drape the folded cloth over the edge of the pot and let the color wick up, but then I remembered the pvc pipe rounds I used to transport the table runners for Joel's wedding (three years ago on Sunday). I rolled the cloth on the pipe, covered the exposed top with plastic wrap to keep it wrapped and keep it damp and stood the pipe in a dye bath of q-red. It was immediately clear that wicking would not happen in any interesting way, so I stood there and rolled the pipe around the pot, jigging it to make a more gradual transition from dark bottom to paler middle. I kept the temperature lowish to help preserve the wax.

Then I made a pot of logwood gray and dyed the other end, starting with pale gray and then lowering the liquid level in the pot and adding more gray to make the outside darker. It took quite a while and was somewhat tedious because I was trying to compensate for lower dye temperatures with extended dyeing time. When I was done the red end looked darker than the gray end. I unrolled the cloth and let it dry to see what values I really had achieved (judging a cloth in its wet state is a good way to be disappointed). In spite of the rolled cloth being only about four thicknesses deep, the inside was markedly more pale than the outside. (Duh, but I had expected more dye uptake in the middle.)  I actually like the pale end better, but the cloth hasn't been washed, so will be more pale even than it seems now, and the wheat motifs won't show well without more contrast. I think I need to re-roll the other way and dye both colors again. The wax has lifted onto other parts of the cloth and the pipe, so I still let it get too hot despite my care. I am re-mordanting now and will try again with the double colors soon.

Center color

My original color idea for Lisa's autumn runner was gold on gray, but after staring at the center motif for a while another possibility presented itself. I mixed up some logwood gray with a little thickening, added a dash of logwood purple, painted one side of the circle, and then did the other side with quebracho red. (I think both logwood and quebracho come from South American trees.)

It can be hard to judge how well painted dyes will bite and these colors both dried a little pale, so I sprayed the circle with mordant and re-applied the colors. Then I waxed over the whole thing to preserve it against future manipulations. Now the cloth is back in mordant.

Autumn wheat

After a long time of inactivity Lisa's autumn runner is moving forward rapidly (at least rapidly in my working terms). I prepped the water-marked linen/silk blend by cutting the piece as accurately as I could and stabilizing the cut edges with machine stitching. Then I mordanted the fabric in alum acetate, allowing about six days for it to sit in a plastic bag in the fridge so the mordant could bond thoroughly with the fabric. This was one of the things Michelle Wipplinger taught me when I worked with her. We did tests and discovered that there was a visible improvement in dye "take" if the mordant had time to sit in the fabric before dye was applied. To begin getting the design down on this piece I silk-screened my circular motif at the center of the runner in myrobalan (tree from India) thickened with gum tragacanth. I over-did it with the squeegee and ended up with an indistinct jumble on one side of the design. I am not always a good screener. Then I painted the wheat ears with a brush and the stems with a ruling pen. Also poorly. I ran out of energy way before the job was done, but had to continue while the fabric was still damp so the dye would adhere as strongly as possible. Wetness in the cloth keeps the chemical processes going, according to all my sources, so I covered the whole thing with plastic and let it sit for a couple days.

When the myrobalan had a chance to bite, I went over all of it with wax to preserve what will eventually read as butter yellow (I hope) in the finished piece. At this stage the myrobalan looks brownish because I applied a pretty strong mixture. Painted dyes tend to be weaker than dyeing in a pot, and I want these to resist the colors to come. Waxing went more precisely than painting, thank goodness. I think the center motif will be sharper because of the wax, but we'll see. There is always something about wax that is more engaging than the plain cloth. I wish I could leave it in, although it looks even more brown than the paint.

The next thing is to over-dye. I was originally planning to make it all gray, but now I'm considering other possibilities.

 

Picking back up

When I finished Becky's table settings I already had some ideas percolating for a seasonal series for my sister Lisa. In fact, I was kind of excited about my plans and thought I would be getting to work right away. Well. I did decide immediately that I would use purchased fabric for spring and winter, leaving summer and autumn to be made by me. I could see them in my mind, but could never get them out of there and onto paper. Every time I sat down at my drawing table I ended up with a dull, spiritless design that I knew I would never go to the trouble to make. I made other nuts and bolts tablecloths (that's when I was playing with French seams), thinking that if I just let things percolate I would come up with a way to get my ideas to work, but that didn't happen. After a while there was just nothing. I let my cherished plans go.

So, back to the drawing board (literally). I made a blank scale drawing of a runner that would fit Lisa's table and just looked at it while I thought of my sister, of autumn, and of her dishes. Wheat ears came into my head...golden wheat. I've always admired the shape of wheat. I also like the aspect of autumn that wheat symbolizes...the replete satisfaction of harvest so nicely evoked by Keats in his poem To Autumn: "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun....". 

There. A design.

I'm not sure about this, but the fact that I immediately moved to begin says that my reservations don't matter. I will try to make it. 

I'm planning to use my linen/silk blend that has been water-marked from the flood in my studio, and my circular silk-screen. The fabric is in the mordant.

 

Chaco Canyon

Visiting Chaco Canyon took most of a day on our New Mexican adventure. It is not easily accessible...the southern route in is over twenty miles of washboard gravel roads. We came from the north, which involved a mere thirteen miles of gravel, with the last four miles just rutted dirt. I'm not sure why the approaches are so difficult, but it must be intentional. Chaco Canyon is a World Heritage Site, so perhaps the bad roads are a form of protection. Quite a few people made the trek on the day we were there, but the canyon is so big that all were easily absorbed and nothing was crowded.

Chaco was the administrative center of the ancient people of the Southwest and includes numerous ruins. The biggest and most impressive are at Pueblo Bonito, which I remember from my art history book back in school. The archaeologists say that no one actually lived at Pueblo Bonito or any of the other great houses, as they are called. They apparently were used for storage and ceremonies by a culture that traded heavily as far afield as South America. When Pueblo Bonito was first excavated in the 1920's, sealed rooms full of turquoise and parrot feathers were discovered. The many smaller companion settlements were where people actually lived

Numerous (like more than fifteen) round structures attest to the ceremonial importance of this site. They are the kivas, subterranean sacred structures, that are still part of the religion of modern day Pueblo people all around the Southwest.

Chaco Canyon was at its height from 1000 AD to about 1300 AD, serving as the center for the culture that spread outward in all directions. A network of roads connected them with other communities even though they did not have draft animals or wheels. The reasons for the emergence of what was clearly a highly organized society in this spot are mysterious. What the people did in their elaborate structures is mostly unknown. Their sudden decline and dispersal is puzzling. There are Many Questions.

As a drop-in from another time, I can attest to the haunting quality of this place and these remains. People lived complicated lives here. The evidence of their labor poignantly hints at the intense beliefs...passions...that would have been necessary to bring forth such effort. What happened to them?  Extrapolate, extrapolate....what will happen to us? What is important in our lives as we are living them now? What is the essence of existence that makes life meaningful and drives us to build, invent and create? What will we leave when we are gone? These questions whirl in the wind that blows through the ruins. 

There is still at least one resident in Pueblo Bonito: