September 2010

Thoughts on the Inconvenient Passing of Time

There has been a gradual shift in the way I work over the last two years and there is less time available to write here. So what am I doing?

I am continuing to study and write up research into the history of the orchil trade. In November I am delivering a new paper, on the nineteenth century trade through Portugal, to the DHA (Dyes in History and Archaeology) Conference in Lisbon.

Since March I have been on the editorial team of the Journal of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers which can take up a lot of time, especially as a copydate approaches. But it's been fascinating to work with a really dedicated team of people who are all volunteers drawn from various Guilds. The professional standard achieved by the Journal is a tribute to all their efforts.

The Journal now has a website here.

I am also for an exhibition which I am curating for the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. This will take place in Autumn 2011. It's as yet untitled but its subject will be Wool and its long connection to Devon and the West Country.

My Japanese indigo Polygonum tinctorium is at harvest point and I have made up three vats so far; there is more to come if we escape the frost for a while longer. I am hoping that the seeds will have time to set. The flowers are more advanced than they were this time last year, so there is a chance.

I have used a lot of weld this year but had to buy it as dried dyestuff from elsewhere. My attempts at germinating weld seeds haven't been very successful although I do have one plant clinging to the idea of life in a corner of the garden. I have also preferred raw dyestuff to the extract form of weld that I used last year.

Madder is doing well but needs a third year of growth before I dig up any roots. I am growing it in a tub as it has enthusiastic habits and puts itself about a bit too much for my liking (and the Head Gardener's).

I have discovered that friends have a walnut tree. So I have been gathering their windfalls and making a hellish concoction from them which dyes a warm brown already. I have also been picking up the windfalls from a neighbour's house which end up in the road. I am probably gaining a very peculiar local reputation as I stoop to pick rotting brown husks from the gutters but I suppose dyers are always nuts.