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.

being put in my place

I had a hilarious experience this morning...

Accosted by a man with a puppymill designer dog. 

The sort of person who is the reason there's a warning on the curling wand...for external use only. 

He angrily demanded to know what I was doing...just after I had deposited a small handful of boiled plant matter under a bush, in the obviously misguided belief that organic matter is nutritious and helps prevent evaporation. 

He insisted I pick it up, as he doesn't approve of such stuff and prefers the pine bark chips. It appears he is the self-constituted warden of the Greenwich steps...

I swallowed any possible acrid response, smiled sweetly, picked up the offending matter and wished him a pleasant day. (Though it was very tempting to tell him that the phenols in the pine bark actively inhibit plant growth.) 

I understand that it could be overwhelming if every person in the city tucked all their green waste into public gardens...but these were leaves that had literally been gathered from the surrounding streets. 

Who knows what corners they may have blown into if I hadn't picked them up. 

I moved on, whereupon he followed me around the district at twenty paces, watching as I cleaned the sidewalks of more leaf litter. I did an extra round just to give him a bit more exercise. 

Clearly he needed the endorphins.

a dream come true

 

i have wanted to stay on a houseboat in Sausalito ever since the first time i came to the Bay Area. i know the retired pirate in Swallows and Amazons lived on a lake

and i do love lakes

but i seriously love places with tides (which is why the Tay River also has a corner of my heart)

so when i discovered the Yellow Ferry i was delighted.

here was a chance to spend time living on the water

with the space to invite people to come and share in the poetics of the place

sometimes an event is so much worth the doing that it doesn't matter that it doesn't return a profit. it came out even and that was fine (and good for the local economy!)

and happily (at almost the last minute) i had the thought to ask Chef Violette to join us, meaning i didn't have to rise at the crack of dawn to begin prep...and also that the food was far better than anything i could have offered. she flew in on my frequent flyer points, bless her heart. cooked fabulous abundances of vegetarian gluten free food and served us utterly sensational desserts at afternoon tea time (with different ice-creams every day, all beaten by hand)

 (above) lentils, polenta, crispy baked kale leaves, and a rich tomato sauce

(below) shortbread icecream , ginger snaps, caramelized pineapple, fragrant rice pudding and blueberries

three brown feet

bundles (looking a bit like the seals that lolled on rafts just a little ways from the boat)

...

and of course i adore paeonies

Deep in it.

time becomes slightly elastic when i land in New Orleans. 

i fly through the streets on my beloved bicycle, can't leave her alone for a moment though :: when i came out of the Bridge House after foraging for shirts i found her flirting with an almost more splendid velocipede. black feathers, no less. and fringy bits. bells, too.

i'm sure i heard her whimper as i rode her away from him.

i was in New Orleans to work on my preservation dye project at the Press Street Gardens, where i am a sort of de facto peripatetic artist-in-residence and discovered to my delight that Margee Green (the aptly named manager of growing things) has been growing coloured cotton.
blue and green, no less.

this cotton is softer than silk (though it comes tightly packed in hard sharp shells) and can be spun in the fingers to a lovely fine thread

the jars i set up last September are travelling well. i opened one to check and there were no nasty smells, everything behaving just as it ought. so i made nine or ten more and adorned the shelves of the glass house with them

while they were being sterilized in the big cauldron i found time to play on the tracks

possibly a little silly.

my friend let me bundle up a beautiful shiny new damask table runner. new in the sense it has never been used, though i am guessing it's some sixty years old at least.

it will be interesting to see if the preservation dye process manages to get colour into the cloth despite it never having been washed or scoured

i also had the joy of shooting for a new album cover with my friend John Fohl

(the link will take you to his last album from a couple of years back)...more about that when the next is released, fingers crossed my paws make the cut!

and then my friend Shelley kindly modelled for me.

the week in New Orleans went far too quickly.
after a day in the air i arrived back on the west coast
where the streets were littered with eucalyptus :: and where i kicked myself because i wasn't carrying a cauldron.

some of the eucalyptus was neatly piled in brown paper bags. i could have wept.
ah well. i hope someone else found it and used it

i spent my days here doing groundwork for the retreat in May (sold out, no drop outs, sorry)

and gathering materials together

wandering past the church of Saints Peter and Paul at a particularly ice-cream-cake moment

and taking time out for a glass of merlot at Caffe Trieste, so as to play with some paint swatch poetry. the trick is to choose a handful of colours at random, then write a line that corresponds to the romantic appellation of the shade. mostly nonsense but an amusing occupation between walking up and down the lovely hills of that fair city.

though when i reach the top of the Vallejo steps it occurred to me that losing the equivalent weight of this bag from my body would be a very fine idea indeed.

i'll let y'all know how that goes.

being there by the Bay (and some paeonies)

last week i helped my Ma to tick something off her bucket list.

last night i decided to tick something off my own.

Ma was keen to see paeonies blooming in abundance in lovely Aotearoa (so was i, quite frankly). so we went.

it was absolutely wonderful, but more of that later on.

the thing i'm ticking off my bucket list, is a workshop in San Francisco

as those of you who know me are aware

though i have been utterly and irrevocably in love with San Francisco since 1976 

(i love you too, New Orleans, you know that...but only since 1983) 

i have avoided giving a class there and kept the Bay area as a kind of sacred space.

now i have decided to be generous and share my love. it is time.

-->

the poetics of place : being (t)here on the Bay

-->

Join me in one of my favourite places in the whirled, for three delightful days exploring the exquisite poetry of plant-derived colour on paper and cloth.

We will gather leaves and words, make experiential drawings, print and dye paper and cloth and explore the translation of drawn marks into stitch. From these investigations we will form a series of beautiful folded books that will map our experience of place and through our understanding of landscape we develop a deeper familiarity with our selves.

The lapping waters of San Francisco Bay, the cries of the waterbirds and the splashings of the seals will combine to make songs for our hearts and provide background music to colour our readings.  

 As usual there will be good food, wine and chocolate. I am carefully curating a lovely collection of materials so you won't need to bring a thing other than some comfy walking shoes, "clothing that doesn't matter" and a cheery smile.

there'll only be nine places. keeping it small and intimate so that i am able to spend time with you all.

please email me for for detailed information

mail[at]indiaflint.com

and now back to those paeonies.

they were utterly glorious.

 my Ma having a fine old time

 there's nothing quite like a G+T while prone in the paeonies

and if you really truly love them

you can buy this farm

last call

it's been a long journey

i left home in winter

arrived in Scotland in summer

(this year it was on Wednesday)

and will return there next year

i followed a hypericum trail to Austria

played a saxophone in Germany

spent a week or so in France

flew to New York via Iceland

(mentally making plans to spend time there too)

and then stayed a while in my beloved New Orleans

teaching and also establishing a project in collaboration with the Press Street Gardens

that will have me returning many times in the next three years

and will culminate in an exhibition in March 2018.

i may also have acquired some more ink.

the trail led on to Vancouver

where i worked with Maiwa, always a joy

(i'm returning there next year as well)

 then i hopped on a train and then into a jeep and then on a ferry (still in the jeep) and was transported to Lopez Island. a place that (despite a huge hole created by the passing of an unforgettable friend) always warms my heart

as did this description of the class there

after Lopez i went to Portland

too briefly (wish i had had the time to reach out to my other friends there...hoping i will be forgiven for the flying visit and planning to return next year to catch up with the folks i missed) where i was able to dress my friend Sidnee Snell in a few bits of cloth and coax her in front of a camera (something she does VERY well)

now i am in San Francisco

(another place dear to my heart)

tomorrow i begin the long flight home
back into spring

so i'm having a healthy supper with all the vitamins

(a glass of bubble and a Reese's peanut butter thingammy or two)

and writing my new bucket list

because

 it seems a good thing to do

there are a lot of things on it

that will take up a lot of time + space on the calendar

so

it seems only fair to advise those of you who have been wanting to take a class in Australia that other than a workshop pencilled for TAFE Brisbane in November next year (that may, or may not, actually happen) there will be no multiple day workshops offered by me in Australia next year.

the last chance to join me for four days is this year in Mansfield in November

either making bloomers and underduds (November 9 - 12)

or

working on the project of your choice (November 14 - 17)

i'll be cooking yummy food, providing lovely South Australian wine and bringing lots of supplies from my studio; cost of either class $870 

if you're at all interested please drop me a line via 

mail (at) indiaflint (dot) com

it's truly the last chance for a while.

a long while.