the story so far

reboiled the dressBundle with a handful of fresh eucalyptus tossed in the pot as an "anti-microbial" and decided it was time

there was a lot of string to unwind
revealing

the front and the back
there was a lot of stuff stuck to the surface
notably many pohutukawa stamens
and
bay mud

so i decided [in the interests of science/curiosity/the need to see the bottom of the marmalade pot] to sling the dress into a washing machine to see what if anything would be retained underneath

observations :  and questions

+ most of the brilliant onionshell colour on the applied sample pieces had dissipated. could this have been related to the seawater dip? previous experience has shown seawater to be a "colour enhancer".

+ the Bay Mud had turned black in some places, bluegreen in others

+ where egg had been used as pre-mordant, the original sample colour remained true

+ the mahonia berries made brown marks on the cotton of the dress  previous dyeing with mahonia [on silk,  using seawater from the Bay as opposed to Baker Beach] has resulted in purple and blue

+ the splodges of milk applied to the surface prior to dyeing [of the attached samples] retained their colour [while "unmilked" areas lost solid colour and gained other marks


conclusions

applied mordants in order of effectiveness    Bay Mud [thank you Nikki], whole egg, milk   note:no iron was used

+ wrapping the whole around a steel pipe would probably have resulted in a darker colour [and made the tying much easier]

+ i have my suspicions that the bundle may have become overcooked [in the mould-killing process]


where to from here

while the results so far might not seem all that spectacular i am happy to have introduced some colour to previously snow-white cotton

for now i'm going to dry the dress [it holds water really well] and add a lot more stitching to the surface

and wait for it to tell me  

where it wants to go +X+ what it wants to do next

oh dear.

i  was hoping a bit of fresh air would dry things out a bit

but inspection this morning reveals strange new life forms

 

some of them possibly thinking of lunch

 

 and not just small life forms either...

think it may be time for a quick autoclave session

& opening time may be earlier than planned

stargazy pie

Oscar Wilde famously pronounced

"we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"

and some of us like stars so much

we'll kneel down in the gutter

and take rubbings of them

  much to the amusement of passersby

+++++++++

poetry is everywhere

some quite obviously placed

and some, you have to read between the lines

 after five glorious days in my favourite city

during which i have been offered extraordinary pleasures

sitting for a while on on a ceramics class for teachers of science

taught at the Exploratorium by Nikki Jackson

[for whose friendship and companionship i am deeply grateful]

where i was able to observe some of the alchemical processes

that lead to this

i say farewell

and board a south-bound train

headed for the City of Angels

for twelve hours

the caterpillar mumbles through the countryside

i arrive in Los Angeles and the dress gets an airing

after snuffling in the stuffiness of suitcase

light breezes here in the Hollywood Hills

should help to prevent it turning into a furred bear

[i don't want it going mouldy]

after a restful night in the arms of the angels

we venture out in search of dye material for tomorrow's class

which will be here in a charming complex of eclectic buildings

on Sunset Boulevard, once an outdoor shopping mall

at the Farmer's market

in between stalls of fragrant produce

there are more stars

slow [cooked] cloth

a splosh of Chantilly cream

a dollop of salt caramel

a hefty sprinkle of pecan krokant

and

this slow-cooked-cloth

could well be dessert

but

not

yet

San Francisco days, San Francisco nights

after the immersion, i carried that heavy wet thing home

[the selkie wanders still]

and along the trail back

rested it on some rusty stuff by a bunker

and slightly cleaned a copper post
[which added a green smudge]

gathered a graphite smudge 

 stopped to gaze at a favourite bridge

 then after the day was done

 more marks were added 

using mud from the Bay

and a stencil or two

[but NOT my fingers]

those colourful patches are from the testing i did on the cloth

seeing how it took colour from onionshells

together with various home-brewed mordants

it isn't exactly a typical Alabama Chanin embellishment

but i did construct the dress using a pattern from her gorgeous book

 then i covered it with my gatherings from the streets

[who would have thought that picking up one leaf or berry at a time

would have resulted in such a harvest]

 so it looked like this

those scraps on the pile are the remaining offcuts

hoping they will pick up colour

so i can add them at the end

- then i shall have used up the whole piece of fabric

[waste not, want not]

then

i rolled it up and tied it tightly

[this took about an hour]

and realised the bundle was too big for the travel cauldron

so i nipped out to Japantown

where

for the investment of about $5

i acquired two baking trays

a wire grill [to put inside]

and a handful of metal clips

[to attach one tray to the other]

naturally this couldn't be put on the stove

so

another solution had to be found

now it's a matter of slow cooking

on and off until Saturday

when i catch the train to Los Angeles

perhaps it will get a boil up in Goleta

but after that it will rest until August 9th

[the day i fly out]

unless i can convince a friend to keep it in his shed until the Fall

i will be unwrapping it in a private ceremony

at Moss Beach

and asking the four winds to dry it for me

so i can take it home

baker beach baptism

making sense of the whirled [another day at the office]

today i gathered leaves. slowly and literally 

one . by . one

from the streets of San Francisco

i went out into the whirled with the firm intent

of running a few errands such as

stocking up on reeds from the music store

 looking for interesting papers for the class at Goleta

and seeing if there was anything my students might find useful

from the fabulous Goodwill store down on Fillmore

instead i wandered down my favourite thoroughfare

[Memory Lane, where the potholes have been filled,

the roses are flourishing and fragrance fills the air]

i visited old friends [magnolias in bloom, mahonias in berry]

 

and discovered that it seems my feet know San Francisco

rather better than they know the city where i was born

- in Melbourne i have to carry and refer to a map, while

here my feet just wayfind whilst i am thinking of other things

i found a harakeke [New Zealand flax a.k.a Phormium tenax] 

that was raining flowers and 

the universe kindly provided a clean baggie passing on the breeze

[helpfully labelled "buttons"]

 

i found my heart high on a hill

admittedly a little tubbier than when i last saw it

and a bit ratty around the edges

but still quite serviceable

despite being wind-dried and a bit flat

i also found a nice clean piece of cotton string.

i very nearly filled a book with graphite rubbings

[thanks Roz for making me buy that bargain-priced 

book of Khadi papers in Melbourne the other day]

 

i sat awhile on the Greenwich steps by Russian Hill

where some thoughtful person has installed a small

Japanese-style water feature, and

listened to the parrots chattering in the treetops

- they call them the parrots of Telegraph Hill

but [like me] they like more than one hill in San Francisco

     

wandered past the Asian tailor

who has been closed for at least 36 years

- checked that the windows remained unchanged

it is good to have a few constants in life

   

and went to have an Africano

[to my mind the best coffee in San Francisco]

in my favourite haunt near Washington Square

 

where i couldn't help but overhear

the woman at the next table

extolling the virtues of something she'd recently consumed

stating in rapturous tones that it had been

"godlike, made by the ancients"

and then bizarrely opening a discussion about

"that artist, you know, the Alabama mumbler"

which reminded me of another "mumbler"

encountered [also in San Francisco]

on the shady side of 35 years ago when i kept spotting a somewhat eccentrically dressed woman [yes, yes, i know that's rich coming from me] who would appear as if by magic, mumbling something unintelligible, scrape brickdust or paintflakes or stonechips carefully from a wall, place the harvest in a small plastic bag and secrete is about her person.

i thought she was a fruitloop.

and now i am her. 

pottering about the streets

gathering leaves and dried berries from the pavements

singing to myself

enjoying another day at the office.

+++ sharp-eyed readers may notice the publication date on this blog is a bit kerfoops at present. it's because i am [literally and metaphorically] wandering yesterdayland while my MacBook is all set for the whirled of tomorrow, on Australian time +++