June 2007

June 1st - 16th

Back in January I worked on a collaboration with Sarah Jarrett Kerr, bookbinder. I wanted to give a wedding present to some friends this summer. The project was to make a Visitors' Book and the fabric that ended up on the cover was a silk noil on which I had worked two layers of wax and dye. The noil ended up as the most suitable of the many fabrics I tried. It's heavy enough that the glue used to mount it doesn't soak through to the surface. It's also just light enough to create reasonable resist for wax and dyes. The result is on the right. The binding is superb. I've distorted the names on the spine for privacy reasons.

The posh shoe for weddings problem that plagues this lifelong and now geriatric Birkenstock wearer (see here) was solved by my discovering that Birkenstock do gold sandals. I don't see the point in celebrating a rite of passage in severe pain and a minute or two in tight formal shoes was quite enough for me.

Interior of church after arrival of bride and groom

June 17th - 20th

Time for some images of the natural-dyed work completed in the indigo session last month. I dyed about 18 pieces of work in the session and the three on the right are among the most successful.

The first image on the right started life as a stitch-resist scarf dyed during a Japanese Indigo session with Jenny Balfour-Paul, who had invited me to dye with her a summer or so back. A great privelege. But not all the scarves were strong enough in design, so I saved them to overdye at some unknown date.

Once in mordant, however, the lovely Japanese Indigo turquoise changed to a soft blue - see here. I overdyed with logwood using clamps, reclamped, and finished off with synthetic indigo. On the final piece (right), but not in the photo, the original stitch resist can still be seen.

Georgette scarf dyed in logwood, modified, re-clamped and dyed with synthetic indigo

Opposite right is a crêpe de Chine scarf dyed with madder and indigo. This had several twist-tied immersions in madder to achieve variations in colour and texture, and then I overdyed with synthetic indigo. I think the alkaline contact that took pace in the indigo vat has really sharpened up the madder. I fact I am excited by the changes the alkaline mix made to many of the scarves I overdyed with indigo.

These scarves were submitted to the exhibition Carbon Footprint at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. They have been selected and will be shown from 30th June until September.

June 21st - 26th

In less than a month it's Art in Action. I need to make quite a lot more work to fill my stand in The Market. I am also preparing handouts for the Summer School in Falmouth, ordering silk, dyes and wax to ensure I have enough for students and my own work, thinking about my workshop at Hatherleigh Festival, wondering how I am going to fit in another indigo session - etc. And today I managed to plant a row of rocket. I expect all the seeds to be washed away in the next wave of our horrendous week of a rain so heavy it would have had Mr Noah reaching for his sou'wester and calling in the animals.

As some of my work will have to be dry-cleaned I need to give the dry-cleaners' a good fortnight to process my work. Sometimes their machine is broken, or there's been a wedding, or a carnival, or a funeral - and my work has to wait its turn. So I always have to calculate backwards to make sure I have the work with them in time. At some dark hour of a recent night I decided it would be have to be ready by Monday 2nd. That had the effect of concentrating my mind somewhat and so I have been extremely busy. I am developing a new design which is evolving out of the Birsay one (opposite). No pictures of work yet so I'll add some images of Malta and Gozo.