who knows where the time goes

it's been a while since I've published anything here , and the field of the year has been very thoroughly harrowed in the interim, beginning with the passing of my mother in February. 

not something I am ready to write about yet. so I will not.

in May I travelled to Vancouver, to give my first two-week class at the Maiwa School of Textiles. 

the magical view from the air as you fly into San Francisco

as Qantas only flies there direct in midwinter and midsummer, I had to travel via the United States.
in the past , my arrival at SFO has been met with a cheery "welcome to the United States".

not this time.

I was accused of lying about my tattoos. seriously??? I have a tattoo of a maple leaf on my wrist. it was drawn by one of my daughters, based on a leaf gathered from under the beautiful Acer palmatum atropurpureum that lives at the foot of the Vallejo Steps in San Francisco. the officer asked me what the tattoo was, I responded with "it's a maple leaf, sir". whereupon he informed me that he was a patriot from Ohio who had seen plenty of maples in his time and that it was his duty to keep undesirable elements out of his country. and that he did not like to be lied to.

it IS a maple leaf.
(and my hands were squeaky clean at the time)

the officer continued to insist that it was a marijuana leaf (which, even if true, should not have mattered as Cannabis sativa is legal in California). he wanted the names and addresses of my friends in the US. he demanded to know if I were an activist or an environmentalist. I responded truthfully that I was a tree planter, then he sent me for "secondary questioning".  hours later I was released into the USA. if you want to know what those hours were like, read Mem Fox's account of her experience. it's quite similar, except that in my case there was no apology (and I haven't given any books to Prince George).

curiously, everyone else in that detention room was brown, too.

I wasn't even wearing my amulets, but clearly I look like someone to be suspicious of. 

happily I had had the foresight to book my onward flight to Canada for the following day, otherwise I might well have missed my connection. but as a result of this experience, and given the current administration's attitude to aliens sharing their skills in the USA (although apparently it's ok to have your hats, handbags and suits made in China and Mexico) I shall not be teaching there again for the foreseeable future which is ironic, given the number of people who have set up small businesses churning out ecoprint textiles, teaching workshops and e-courses; none of which seemed to be around before Eco Colour was published. I like to think that I'm actually making a useful contribution and doing a bit of good around the whirled. I could just be misguided.

enough of the sad ranting. I'll miss all y'all.

now back to the story.

having two blocks of five days to work together, with a weekend off in between was just marvellous. I was there to teach feltmaking, of the kind that doesn't require truckloads of soap (but DOES need a bit of stitching and is a splendid means of using up little scraps of cloth. I call it shibusa), but there was of course lots of other dyeing on the side, including in a deliciously fragrant banana-based indigo vat. 

beautiful student work, printing on (unscoured) linen

the students worked like beavers.

on my weekend off I was spirited away to the most gorgeous island , where I slept in a dreamtent

we all found it a wrench to part company on the last day.
happily I've been invited back for next year and the class is in June, so I can fly directly to Vancouver from Sydney on my favourite airline.

after a few other adventures, early June found me in the Netherlands, where I was included in the exhibition 'Earth Matters' at the Textile Museum in Tilburg. 

at the opening I met Christina Kim (whose work appears below). I'd visited her Dosa space in Los Angeles a few years ago going to cross paths, but she'd been out of town at the time. I also met Birgitta deVos and acquired a copy of her gorgeous new book. 

I am so very grateful to Iris de Voogd for organising a workshop at such short notice, which meant that my airfare was covered and I could attend the exhibition opening. also I had a chance to catch up with lots of people I had not seen for a long time, some (Geesje and Dorie) not since 2011.  Marijke (who joined me in Newburgh a few years ago) was there as well, and her daughter Caitlin (she's the one who led the singing in the riverbed) has woven me the most glorious scarf and given me permission to dye it! do stay tuned for developments on that front, we are now treating it as a collaboration!

anyways Iris and I had been having an extended email conversation for around two years about the possibility of having a class there and May 2018 had already been inked into place...but she enthusiastically leapt into action a whole 11 months earlier. (and even let me play her saxophone).

Dorie van Dijk's enormous studio amidst the flowerhouses is a fabulous place for a class. I'm already dreaming of a return, and Marijke has been kindly murmuring about organising something in her region too. 

the seeds are planted, we'll see what blooms.

one of my lovely students, Dajana Heremic, with her delicious apron

the ridiculously bright #nofilter colour from Italian eucalyptus, a surprise delivery at Dorie's studio.

look deep into the heart of a flower

photo by Christi Carter

if you bother to follow this blog then i probably don't need to spell out my thoughts on politics...suffice it to say that given my family history
and the stories i have been told by both sets of grandparents
each of whom chose exile over compromise
the results of the American election
coincidentally announced in Australia on the anniversary of Kristallnacht
fill me with foreboding.

what can i do about this? not a great deal
except
continue to live life to the best of my ability
continue to be care-full for my fellow humans
continue to hold true to the path that has been given me

now, i am surer than ever
that bending my work to the poetics of place
paying attention to being present, in 'being (t)here' as a way of life
rather than simply teaching "how to print leaves onto things"
is the way i must go.

yes, it means continuing to fly about in planes (windsurfing takes too long and my journals get wet) but that also means planting more trees at home to mitigate my share in the emissions
and because so many of you have kindly told me, both to my face, in emails, and increasingly in beautiful hand-written letters
that giving yourself the gift of time
(in a place that is not necessarily home)
to explore the small wonders of the whirled
through dyeing, drawing and writing
has made life better and richer for you,
i plan to continue doing this work.

because it gives me hope, too.

this past month i wandered to the remote western isles of Scotland
found deep magic there
took time to re-examine aspects of what i offer in 'being (t)here'
sat on the wild hillside and sang aloud
walked barefoot in the cold waters and refreshed my soul
brewed dye samples from gatherings around me

and thought about the return to my beloved Bay in February.
decided to make it smaller, more intimate
and to give the participants and even more beautiful collection
of things to work with, to experience and to take away with them

there will only be spaces for seven people this time
working with me, being fed by our chef (my daughter) Violette, and being guided in Yoga and breathing by my friend Shelley Boles

three places are already reserved.

please contact me here if you'd like more information

i'm also returning to New Mexico in 2017....in the spring and in the fall

and now, if you've made it to the bottom of the page, give yourself a beautiful moment. take a deep breath. look deep into the heart of a flower.

I may just possibly have fallen in love

I may just possibly have fallen in love with New Mexico and some of its people. 

The flight in was magical. 

Our first resting place was Casa del Sol, 

located within skipping distance of Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch house. 

We were able to cook our dye pots over a fragrant open fire.
We wrote poetry and drew in our journals,
adding local colour by literally rubbing the earth into the pages. 

We took an excursion to the Chama River, in a region where the scent of Piñon was intoxicating

After unwinding ourselves at (or possibly from) Casa del Sol we moved on to Taos.
Here Carpio Bernal Watercrow graciously shared his story and created a special ceremonial circle for us, as the Taos Pueblo was closed for initiations and we were not able to visit.
A smoking juniper branch was passed among us.
There was drumming and singing and storytelling.
Later his partner Rose joined us and sang several of her original compositions
after which she handed her guitar to the man who had been shepherding our flock around the countryside (but is also a writer and musician who can build things)
and there was more singing and music
(pictured below, minus guitar)

 we had some splendid studio times, including a little "cheating",
using eucalyptus from a local florist (who was frankly delighted to make some
sales before closing for Easter)
...we also dyed with a local weed, Chamisa

there's magic in the local water,
some of the colour was rather interesting
and
not what i would expect at home.
then we dyed eggs

 wrapped in cloth

 one lunchtime i wandered up to the Mabel Dodge Luhan house
and fell in love some more.

i could quite happily live there.

the tour concluded in Santa Fe
where i was permitted to cook dinner for us all
which made me very happy
and
then
in the night
it snowed
which made me even happier,
even if i do look like a Babushka setting out to gather recyclables in St Petersburg.

The group bonded like true sisters and

working with Sharon Blomgren of Arts + Cultural Travel was a dream

so i'm delighted that we will be visiting New Mexico together again,

twice next year....for a start!

sniffing the wind

it's been an interesting month or two. life's bowled me a few wobblies including the unexpected passing of an old friend - i shan't bore you with the rest of them other than to speculate that i suppose it's the whirled's way of keeping us on our toes. in theory i should already be at the Observatory, cataloging the Solace pennants ready for installation but there are just a few more things to sort out here and then we can be off to the North in a couple of days.

in the meantime, for the first time in a very long time, i have actually cooked something from a recipe (as opposed to hurling various ingredients together and hoping they will be friends).

the formula for Lemon Delicious was kindly supplied by Mary after i tasted her fabulous pudding at dinner last week. i will confess to browning the butter in advance (remember I'm half Latvian) and to only having panela in the pantry (the recipe calls for white sugar) which threw the colour of the mix a bit but it tasted a good deal better than it looked. 

i served it with lemon butter, a translucent smear of marmalade (thank you Mary), a sprig of lemon verbena and a dob of sour cream. unfortunately when plating I wobbled with the spoon and covered the whole thing with sauce thus accidentally obscuring the lovely brown crust. it's not quite so light as the original but you know the old line about getting to Carnegie Hall...practice.

this week i also visited Treasure Ships, an enormous exhibition at the AGSA. after my recent foray into curating i was doubly awed by the work that has gone into deciding what should go where. happily for the curators, the makers of the works are long passed and thus unlikely to query the display of their work... some of the exquisite block-printed and mordant-painted cloths are affixed to the walls at well over head height and so cannot be clearly seen at all. 

but that's a small quibble. 

 

rather than paraphrasing the media release...i'll paste a bit of it in.

" The works reveal how the international trade in spices and other exotic commodities inspired dialogue between Asian and European artists, a centuries old conversation whose heritage is the aesthetic globalism we know today.

[...]

The exhibition commences with the small country of Portugal. Located on the periphery of Europe, Portugal re-mapped the West’s view of the world and created a mercantile spice empire stretching halfway around the globe during the fifteenth-sixteenth century. In 1498 Vasco Da Gama’s small fleet became the first European ships to reach India and landed with the famous words, ‘we come in search of Christians and spices’.  Within a decade the Portuguese soldier –aristocrat Francisco de Almeida (1450-1510) had ruthlessly seized control of the Indian Ocean spice trade and established Portugal’s permanent presence in Asia which was to last four hundred years.

Treasure Ships also presents the story of exploration and trade, discovery and shipwrecks, as well as illustrating the astonishing beauty of Chinese porcelain, known as ‘white gold’, and vibrant Indian textiles created for export around the world."

there's a particularly amusing Japanese painting of a group of Portuguese in which each one of the men depicted has the same enormous nose (as my companion pointed out with a small giggle). clearly the artist was fascinated by a prominently protruding Portuguese proboscis and painted it onto each face. practice makes perfect.

the relics above were retrieved from the wreck of the Batavia. the gunpowder canister at the top is made from copper and i can cheerfully envisage bundling cloth and leaves around it. happily it is under glass and therefore safe.

while we're talking of voyaging and wanderment i'm delighted to say the itinerary for the long-dreamed of wandering to New Mexico has been confirmed. i've been corresponding with Arts and Cultural Travel for some time now and it's looking as though some kind of adventure (but not necessarily the same story each time) with them may become an annual event. i certainly hope so.

here's the link to the very first one. (i'm told one eager soul has already signed up so that leaves 11 places)

and finally, for your amusement and because i've been getting the usual seasonal requests for internship (please let me come and stay with you so you can teach me everything you know during my summer break) and last month had rather a lot from students frantically trying to put together a conclusive body of work (i want to print leaves on my final collection, will you tell me how) and a couple along the lines of "i'm starting a fashion business please tell me which fabrics to use and what dyes and mordants you would recommend for them" (no, i'm not joking) i have been having to compose kind-but-firm letters in response.

as some of you know i do respond, albeit briefly, to questions where possible, but sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. Austin Kleon has gathered an amusing collection of letters composed by famous people facing far greater deluges of correspondence.

argentina

image borrowed from : http://www.gondwana.geologia.ufrj.br/

the idea of Argentina has been on my mind for a while

every now and then an email drifts in across the oceans

asking if i will come. 

yesterday i decided to put a ring around some weeks in the calendar

thinking maybe the last week in November, first week of December 2016 

i would need to teach four lots of three day classes to make the trip work financially

(the fee for one class wouldn't even cover the airfare across the big puddle)

but it will be exciting to meet the flora on the other side

and to expore the Gondwana connections between our countries

and though there is interest in the basics of ecoprinting

i'd love to offer a 'being (t)here' class too

so

if you are in Argentina

(or would like to come from elsewhere to meet me there)

and if you are interested in taking a class

please either let me know in the comments below

or better still (because then i will have an email address to write back)

please drop me a line via my

contact page

and perhaps tell me what you would most like to learn?

 

 

A hertz-felt thanks

I went west for a few days

after we had finished our class at Newburgh
and I had committed the Bundle Book to Blurb

I needed some thinking space

to sort a few things out

quiet time in wind and rain and sun to mull over things

to smell the heather

and to gaze into deep waters

and to rearrange small pieces of the whirled
while considering new ideas for classes
and pondering different ways of presenting

it was a splendid wandering : made even more enjoyable by Hertz who upgraded my very basic four-door reservation to this glorious chariot.  

I named him Wolfgang and the keys had to be prised from my fingers when we parted at Edinburgh airport. He purred along for over 400 miles on a scant half tank of diesel

I even managed to write a small poem.
it was a very productive time.
and thenI found that the Australian Embassy in Lisboa
kindly mentioned our exhibition
on their website
which pleased me very much

peregrinations in Portugal

I've never been to this beautiful country before 

but

it's already on my returns list

and

next time 

I need to know more words than just

saudade & obrigada

there are stones to play with

i've hung my dresses in this castle

surrounded by Sally Stafford's beautiful paintings

   

a fierce guard dog keeps watch on the castle steps

   

the light is so clear you could cut and butter it

and tonight

our exhibition opens

see y'all there?

Turning toward the sun

I travel north and across the border

Enjoy a splendid afternoon in good company 

Gathering salmonberries

Spotting likely lichens (yes they would yield purple but no I did not gather)

Wandering about the shoreline 

And then I followed many signs east

I stop at a beaver pond 

Find violets

I think nature's architect is long gone

And has abandoned this project

But

I saw him

On

A sign

I drove between mountains and through woods

Past leftover snow and rushing rivers

And beautiful stacks of crates

And just after a spotted lake

I reached my destination

In the hills above Osooyos 

To begin telling stories afresh. 

I notice to my surprise that the magic number 1313 has appeared in the sidebar 

Glad to have y'all along for the ride.