February 2007

February 1st - 2nd

New month, and time to show some new work. Here are a few clamped scarves on very fine organza. They are from the batch that made it through the steamer before it fell sick. Photographing these sheer gauze scarves can be difficult. The camera won't focus on the scarf if there is a white background and everything ends up looking fuzzy. I bought some black velvet this week as I seem to know from way back that the camera can cope with the focus of sheers on a dark absorbent ground.

This one and below: oblong clamps on concertina fold	This one and below: triangular clamps on triangular fold

February 3rd - 9th

Family business took me to Bristol this week, where I saw the Clifton Suspension Bridge properly for the first time, as well as the SS Great Britain. Neither of these were part of the family business and purely incidental to the visit but I admit I'd be rather proud to have had a Brunel antecedent.

The steamer is back in business with a brand new element and all my experimental pieces are now through. There were no problems with the gutta-worked scarves as I had feared in January, here. So I must assume there was something wrong with the processing I did last year, and will probably never know what it was.

I have received my first sample lengths of silk from Ahimsa Peace Silks and started experimental work with them too. This is part of my initial probing into the idea of sustainability in my work practise: see here.

I have done an experimental de-gum of the finer sample received to see whether by selective removal of sericin I can create a ground on which dye will attach at different rates. I boiled the (clamped) sample in a solution of soda ash. There was a clear definition in the surface structure of the finished sample but it made little difference to the eventual dyeing which I did with my acid dyes. I need to try this again with a heavier silk. The heavier the silk, I assume the more sericin I can remove.

February 9th - 19th

I have been continuing experiments with the Ahimsa eri / eri AS 522 silk. Ahimsa Peace Silks are made from the cocoons of wild and semi-wild Indian silk moths (eri, tussar and muga). In production, the pupae are not stifled or killed to obtain reeled yarn. Eri cocoons are open-ended, and the tussar and muga silks are spun from pierced cocoons after the moths have emerged.

The eri / eri combination AS 522 is very fine fabric with an initial stiffness that seems to disappear on washing, but which then reappears when ironed! Ahimsa have told me that when it's handled it eventually softens up. So I rubbed a piece fiercely for half an hour or so and it transformed into something more like a very fine, soft linen. I have used onion skin dye on it and also a wax / acid dye process. Both times the colour took up well.

I am a novice with natural dyes so I need to find out whether the onion skin dyes will fade, and will do a test in the studio. But I achieved a beautiful colour with about 4 cups of onion skins and a tablespoon of white vinegar. I steamed the silk too as I wasn't sure I had made the dye bath hot enough - I had used wax and so couldn't risk its melting. I think the colour was more intense after steaming but as I didn't reserve an unsteamed portion I can't be sure.

1 : Wax resist on eri / eri sample. Onion skin dye. 2: Steamed sample from 1, which by then had a further layer of wax plus dye. The second layer of wax didn't show at all but extra dye-dip plus steaming seems to have achieved a deeper colour. On right of image 2 is the acid-dyed sample, using two layers of wax and dye. Fabric was artificially softened by rubbing, as described in the main text.

In the post came a neat card container of woven samples from the award winning Denise Bird. She is an eco-enthusiastic designer and weaves in natural fibres. The selection sent (below) were in various combinations of bamboo, hemp, cotton and pakucho. I am not planning to abandon silk for the moment but the fabrics are inspiring. Bamboo and hemp, according to the information with her samples, grow rampantly without the use of chemical fertilisers. Pakucho is a cotton from Peru produced under Fair Trade conditions. It is colour-grown and doesn't use dyes. For more information, go to the pakucho website.

February 20th - 22nd

While my parents listened to the news and agonised about the world going into Terminal Round III during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I had other things on my mind. It was time to make serious choices.

I wriggled in discomfort on the hard three-legged stool in the Science Lab and took in the weird oily smell from the wooden work benches. I saw sinks and bunsen burners and dreary empty walls. Finally I eyed our geriatric, haggard, mad-haired Science teacher. She didn't have much control of us girls and her lessons were sad and very boring. They were double lessons too. As a result I chose to do Art, upstairs. I had always liked drawing, our Art teacher was young, talked about the outside world and appeared to have at least some engagement with the living.

So are life's defining decisions made. There was then no requirement for us to have subject balance in our education and I ludicrously made all the vital choices myself. I hated maths, so I dropped it. Anything that involved formulae, numbers, calculations and asking questions when I didn't understand (yet again) seemed a waste of time. I didn't DO science.

I have managed, most of my life, to get by with only a vague understanding of electricity; what makes a car go (or not) and why an aeroplane doesn't fall out of the sky. I have no excuse, I just haven't particularly needed to know. When I had to manage a large budget working in industry, it was a matter of simple calculation which I could handle easily, and I was never over-budget.

On the other hand I do have some idea why a husky's paws don't freeze, why a woodpecker doesn't get a headache (link in case you too are curious) and of the complex life-cycle of the flea . If things intrigue me or I need to know for some practical reason, I listen, or look things up. Radio has always been a prime information source. Now there is the internet.

What is becoming clear to me in my meanderings around the Sustainability question is that I must now make an effort to understand some of the basic chemistry I avoided in 1962. Without this knowledge I don't begin to relate to most of what I have been reading.

So when the Surf-Snoopers look through my endless lists of URLS to see where latest obsessions and depravities have taken me this week, an Alert might sound down a far off corridor. Some new, out-of-context stuff has started to appear. Like this. Perhaps strange men will soon appear on the driveway with warrants.

This will give them something to think about. I bought a mystery object yesterday and it's all in the name of sustainable art practise. Answers on a postcard, please.