August 2009

Field near Monkokehampton

Shibori method learnt with Sue and Rachel Castle. The scarf is twisted, then wound around a narrow tube and bound before dyeing (below)

The scarf has been opened up ready for felting, revealing neat stripes

In the UK, August is traditionally the month for holidays. It's also the time that those of us approaching the less appealing end of life's long tunnel mull over the memories of endless fine summer days in our youth. We also notice how young the policemen seem to be these days and complain about the appalling manners and behaviour of the young.

I will not comment on Policemen and Youth since they are usually capable of discussing each other independently. On the subject of the weather I can say it hasn't been as wet a summer as last year. But as I see the first crisping leaves on the chestnut trees I have the dismal sense that summer is over without ever quite having begun.

At the beginning of the month I drove up to Staffordshire to the Silk Painters Festival held at Rodbaston College. As I left Devon I passed the lovely field on the left, stacked with thatching straw. It would have been captured so much better by James Ravilious, who would have waitied around all day for the right light, sought a better vantage point than I did and returned the next day in case it looked even better. I always think of him when I frame up a shot in my camera. He would never allow his work to be cropped. It's so easy to be lazy with digital photography.

At Rodbaston I was a student for a morning with the excellent team of Sue and Rachel Castle who taught a very well prepared class in nuno felting. I learnt a new way of preparing a shibori scarf and was very pleased with the scarf I made.

I taught a class on design on Sunday and had a small but committed group of students. I enjoyed it very much because offering a design course is always risky. Most students at festivals and summer schools value the item they make and take home more than the new ideas they might instead carry in their heads. I have found that classes are sometimes hard to fill.

I happen to think the ideas are more important than almost anything else. Talking about design is a wide and complex subject and each student will want to develop in their own direction, so there are also hazards for the tutor.

Back home, my crop of Polygonum tinctorium was looking impatient to be used. My attempts to dye with it fresh were not impressive and I only achieved a mild turquoise, vatting the ensuing macerated leaves to stew and await a reduced vat later on. There is a lot of blue in the leaves so I am hopeful. I was given seedlings this year by Jenny Balfour Paul whose great experience with indigo continues to be such an important inspiration all over the word. See here to read about the vision of the Silk Road project and its educational programme based on the subject of indigo.

Polygonum tinctorium or Japanese Indigo