celebrating both collaboration and compromise

it's been a while since I had anything really interesting to tell y'all but today I have two things to talk about.
one is the fabulous scarf I was gifted when I visited the Netherlands last (northern) summer, woven from her own exquisite handspun yarns by Caitlin Bongers (she's the one with the voice of the angels who started us all singing by the River Tay a couple of years back).
the other can wait for a moment.

the scarf waited patiently while I sailed in and out of home, emptying suitcases and refilling them, patting the dog, grubbing a few thistles and explaining to my cat just why I had to leave again. it was a busy year. so much so that I consciously cleared my dance card for the first three months of this one, so that I could find some space to breathe, to prepare for the next lot of teaching and to think about what my part of the collab might entail.

I should explain that when I received this gorgeous armful of softness I was quite overwhelmed. I know what it takes to warp up and weave something, and this piece is especially beautiful. I asked Caitlin if she would mind me dyeing it, and being given permission I suggested we regard it as a collaboration.

so this week, in between working on the "other thing" that I will shortly reveal, I sat in the armchair, dogs at my feet, cats and kittens disporting themselves over my shoulders, and decided that I would knot the fringe of the scarf. such gentle repetitive work is good for quieting the mind. while working I listened to a podcast from On Being, John O'Donohue discoursing gently on beauty. it was perfect.

then I was moved to take my needle and do just a little stitching into the piece. just a little.

I soaked it in a diluted iron brew (students may remember it as 'magic potion', made by soaking rusty things in vinegar, and heavily diluted for use otherwise everything can turn black)

it was firmly bundled with Eucalyptus scoparia windfall, and then cooked in a pre-loved dark brew. (it doesn't matter what your bundle is cooked in, it's what's inside the bundle that's important)

when it cooled, I unrolled it, and it just took my breath away.  THANK YOU Caitlin, for entrusting this treasure to me. it will be joining the "essential travel kit".

and the other thing?  that belongs to the 'compromise' part of the title of this post. various people had been kindly urging me to consider making an e-course, but I simply couldn't come at standing and talking into a camera. I'm not good at doing and talking at the same time. something to do with the cerebral hemispheres.

but I do like making books. so the compromise is that I have made a wee book that is a kind of workshop-in-your-pocket (or on your screen if you take the PDF version). it's mostly handwritten rather than typed but I wanted it to feel as though you were looking over my shoulder into a notebook.

what's in it? it contains the secrets of the tsunobukuro, that magical bias stitched bag of Japan that I so frequently share with students. (little ones are perfect for buying vegetables, the in-between sizes brilliant for gathering leaves, twigs or keeping your clothes sorted in a suitcase...and I always carry an extra-large one in case I run out of luggage space.)

it is available at blurb.com and if you send me proof of purchase (via the contact form on my website) I shall invite you to the 'secret' Facebook group where, for the month of February, I shall be posting tips and tricks and one or three "how to's", and where you can post images of the bags that you make, and have conversations with fellow 'baggers' around this marvellous whirled.

thank you for staying with me and for reading thus far. 

here are some related links to explore.

Caitlin's blog

the riversong

On Being

bagstories (the book)

refuge

'lifeboat'

Lately there has been another tsunami of posts on the interpixies by various people operating in the creative arts whirled, complaining about copyists.

The funny thing is that many of them derive a living from having either copied someone else's work from a book, poached a successful business model (in one case, together with the email list!) from an associate or are directly teaching exactly what they have learned in a class.

I stopped giving printed handouts in the year 2000, when someone at the textile forum who had not actually been in my class, helped themselves to a copy and then advertised and presented the class (verbatim) a few months later.

Sometimes people still ask for them...and I can't help but raise an eyebrow when they add "because I've been asked to teach the class to   my quilt group/local school/in a workshop   next whenever.

I have been teaching creative classes of one sort or another since 1986 and have participated in many (over thirty) classes as a student, most recently one with the lovely Lorna Crane. Next year I'll be back at Shakerag...as a student. Will I be sharing directly what I have learned? No.

I choose to attend classes that will add to my practice, in a kind of personalised ongoing post-graduate professional development program. Sometimes I learn more about the practice of teaching than about a specific technique. Either way, the experience is invaluable and improves the way I present classes, but indirectly so.

That's because the experience is filtered through my life, not simply reproduced.

'landgarland'

So when people ask me outright to explain exactly how I make my personal work (which is what happened at the opening of my current exhibition 'refuge') I politely decline. There's enough information freely available about 'ecoprinting' online and I don't care if you are "just a painter and unlikely to use it" because I'm sorry but my bullshit detector redlined when I saw your partner's ears pricked and alert. I wouldn't have explained it anyway. To say that it's a contact print is enough.

Also, I am now wise to the practice of inviting people to lunch to talk about the possibility of working with their firm...and then having your brains thoroughly picked. Lunch is not a sufficient payment for my time (and airfares). I prefer my own cooking most times anyway. In future, persons wanting to "consult" will need to substantiate that interest with appropriate reimbursement for my time and travel. Your lawyer isn't going to drop in for lunch to tell you exactly how to manage a situation either. The other thing I will not allow is prospective hosts to "sit in on a class" to see how it will "fit with their program".  I'm not so much green as I'm cabbage-looking.

On the sunny side, I do love teaching, and that is why sharing the class 'being (t)here' makes me so happy. It changes with each location, and grows as I dream up new techniques and practices to add. Each one is different from the next. The poetry writing, though it fills some with trepidation, has become a rich and fulfilling part of the event. Participants still learn how to print on cloth and paper, but also develop more confidence in drawing and writing. Many tell me that they come away from our time together with a deeper knowledge of themselves and with a clearer vision of where they want to take their own work.

Things like that fill me with a deep satisfaction, gratitude and the feeling that my time on this wondrous planet is not being entirely wasted.

Next year will take me to France, Canada, New Zealand, and Scotland

(look for an announcement soon about

"wayfinding between time in the outlands…" in Orkney)
 as well as (a little closer to home) Queensland and Western Australia.

Maybe I'll see you somewhere out there?

'Albertine' doing her thing

where did the day the week the year my life go?

the title of this post is running like an earworm in my head.

since we last met

I have been in the west of Scotland

and also in the west of Australia

both beautiful.

I took a few days on my own after teaching at Newburgh (the two reddish pix are details of 'shibusa felt', followed by printed paper and then some stitched and dyed organic eri+cotton cloth (acquired from Maiwa)

we had students from all over the whirled...both coasts of the USA, as well as the south-west, Australia, New Zealand , the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as lovely locals.

all gathered together in happy community around a dye cauldron

(and the delight, for me, of bilingual teaching...good practice!)

then I sailed for Harris

where I exhumed last year's bundle

and made a small film

and thought about music

it was hard to tear myself away

but journeying through the Wester Ross brought other delights

notably the extraordinary Inverewe garden, just north of Gairloch

where I spent a happy morning dodging midges

before driving onward for a glorious studio visit

exploring common ground with my friend Kerstin Gren

home again

I was called west, to the Dryandra Woodland

where we had to step carefully, with tiny orchids underfoot

and were required to apply for a permit to gather windfalls

(which, technically, all leaf printers in Australia gathering anywhere that is NOT private property, are legally required to do)

and where we found the perfect pot, with only one small leak that was successfully plugged with clay, scraped from the edge of a nearby dam

now I'm home again, briefly

and thinking about next year.

because I can no longer teach in the USA

(the current regime is not keen for wandering dye-stained gypsies)

those who wish to spend time with me

may like to hop the pond to Scotland (November next year) where

plans are afoot for some new explorations (details to follow)

or

or Norway (September)

when I shall be adventuring with Arts and Cultural Travel

learning life lessons

it was a splendid road trip
pootling across Australia with Kubbi the One-Eyed Wonder Dog
nine hours on the road (punctuated by frequent stops to
wander in the bush and gaze at flora)
is a lot of thinking time.

there and back again is twice that.

I always learn something new from teaching workshops
but
what became crystal clear to me during the three days at Beautiful Silks Botanical Studio
is that the work I do
is also my own big life lesson.

that the act of teaching is my personal journey to be the best person (in this life) that I can be.
it isn't all roses, and it's hard sometimes to resist being catty about the way that the "ecoprint", a term I optimistically coined in 1999, has been hijacked to be anything but "eco-friendly" or sustainable.
because when I hear of the mountains of plastic and the bucket-loads of adjunct mordants being used out there I do become quite despondent.


but then I read this


"Thank you, for another brilliant, creative soul feeding workshop, that brought a group of strangers together but leaving as friends"


and it warms my heart because it reminds me of what is really important.

it isn't the brightness of the colour (though we certainly had that) or the volumes of product ... it's the connections we make when we gather together around a cauldron.



in this instance, a "second skin" class, it was also about the empowerment that comes with the simple skills of making.

I'd probably have made truckloads of loot over the years if I had just kept the botanical contact print process a secret and churned out yardage or silk pyjamas and a squillion printed wool scarves, but for me the greater satisfaction comes with seeing the happy smiles that bloom when dresses grow using simple running stitch, lovely threads and beautiful cloth. (all all we need, really, is 'enough')







in "second skin" we make string, measure with it, make a few marks with graphite and then boldly cut and sew.
no clatter of machines, just the quiet ebb and flow of conversation, and sometimes simply gentle silence.

and magic happens.

in this last class people shared so many life skills beyond just sewing and dyeing.
friendships were forged, wisdoms exchanged.

and that makes my life worth living. with bells on.

and then (fresh from the cauldron)
I was given the most magnificent present hand-stitched
with so much love, and dyed in my favourite colours.
 thank you, Robyn.
it's going to wander with me.

group theory

we are on beautiful Maui
a sacred island where time slows down and turtles wander up the beach
where the days seem to drift gently but the week
has rushed by





















we have written poetry
made drawings, stitched, dyed
made things new to us that appear to have taken up some ancient island essence
gathered shells and made string



there are thirteen of us + me
which makes fourteen (+ our fearless leader, Sharon)
so fifteen in total

nine are recidivists, four are new to me
there are three sets of friends (in two of them, one of each has met me before)
and a mother and daughter (there were nearly two family groups, but my Ma didn't make it)
there are five Australians, ten Americans
two dual nationals (one American Australian, one Latvian Australian), and two Australians who emigrated to America
among the returners, three came to New Mexico , one to Whidbey Island
one to Inverness, one to Santa Barbara, one to Odessa and two to a class in Australia

my mathematical genius (and conscientious objector) grandfather would have had great joy in devising a Venn diagram.

I began to try and draw one, but it turned into a paeonie.

the marvellous thing is that this group melded remarkably quickly into sisterhood.
the talk is easy, the laughter flows close to the surface :: I feel deeply blessed that the work I do brings me together with people whom I hope I see again

I am also hoping to return to Maui, but who knows where or how the winds will blow, the way our precious whirled is going...

september one, lived twice

the journey begins oddly

filled with portents and signs

all too curious to mention

and best not taken seriously

(but they'll be in my novel)

even the man whose eyes tear up

because i remind him of his mother 

which i think may just have been

the effect of too much inflight firewater

otherwise it makes me old

and possibly also dead

after thirteen or so hours aloft

we reach the California coast

blanketed in fog except for

one significant hill above Pescadero

the sight of which always kicks my heart into gear

leaving SFO the taxi driver asks me if i have had any

terrifying experiences in the air

nothing too awful i say

which is his cue to launch into a litany

of gut-wrenching near disasters   

negotiating my release i 

take my encumbrances to the welcome center

where for a financial consideration they 

relieve me of my physical burdens for the day

outside the pavements swell and

roll under my feet - fortunately it is

not the earth, quaking, but my body

set to vibrate mode by the hours of fettered 

rumbling, strapped to a seat

in the flying sardine can

i have things to collect today

some materials for class

a large bag of unruly thoughts 

a ring, and some made-to-measure workboots.

the latter have turned out rather too small

or maybe it is just me, too big for my boots

which could be another sign.
maybe next time cos
good things take time

further up the same street at Macchiarini's

the doorbell won't ring, no pun intended 

but the ring i have come to receive

is truly beautiful with a moonstone

like a drop of Bay water balancing on

a beaten band that looks as though it has been 

pulled from the rubble of a burning building

and so is exactly what i had hoped for.

i do the usual round of favourite places

get my coffee at Trieste, sit awhile on Russian Hill

wander to the park above Fort Mason

snack on cheese under the gum trees there

then walk back to collect my luggage

and drag it across town, giggling inwardly at

the comments that passers-by feel entitled to articulate,

of which the loudest and most critical, oddly enough,

are made by those who share my first language.

they have no idea they are so generously

giving me laughter therapy

and i resist the temptation to say

"schönen Tag, noch!" 

train stations are no longer the romantic places

depicted in Brief Encounter

or in films about Anna Karenina

the temporary transBay terminal is a holding room

for souls desperate to be elsewhere and

the station at Emeryville even more so

where the vending machines make wild promises

but will only sullenly disgorge diet pepsi

filthy stuff that is strictly for cleaning copper

though, once used for that purpose, has impressive 

mordant qualities

i find a tourist map and mark my day on it in thick black pencil

eventually the train pulls in and we fall aboard

i tip myself gratefully into my tiny sleeping closet 

and give myself up to Morpheus for what seems like days

though only a few hours later i awake as we are 

passing through mist-covered desert spiked with piñon and juniper

and wonder if i'm in the right state

then water on which sunlight flashes and blinks

perhaps the merpeople have forgotten to turn their twinkle lights off

somewhere else a broken umbrella hangs batlike

from a bush on the side of a cutting

in Portland i look up and down river as we cross the Willamette

looking for the iron bridge...then realise we are on it

except for the garbled announcements over the tannoy

(there is a special training centre for railway announcers,

run by somebody who teaches them how to 

make announcements in a Turkish accent. 

the same school also supplies the people for 

the Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia)

the Seattle train station is like stepping through 

a time machine into another era

or like stepping deep inside an angel-food cake 

for a white wedding with all the trimmings

i choose the easy way out

and though a braver woman might have 

tackled further public transport

rain is imminent and so i take a taxi.

the driver is old-fashioned and reassures himself 

as to our destination by the simple means of leafing 

through an actual street directory, though i have explained that 

i am heading for a helltell overlooking the ferry dock just

across from Whidbey Island. kindly (and perhaps unusually)

he only switches on the meter after he has closed his book

72 hours give or take a quarter after leaving home 

i enter a room that is not moving and discover to my delight 

that not only does it overlook water, but the doors can actually

be opened wide to the whirled outside

i drift off to the crash of waves and wake at dawn to flat calm

in the distance a ferry hovers in a silver cloud

seabirds stitch their songs across the place where the sealine might be

if it were clear

it's only September 3 but i feel as though i have lived a week 

since the month began

had September 1 twice

and will lose the equinox to the international dateline

but that

will be another story

because now i am here

re-reading a marvellous book i bought at Shakerag in 2010

and soon i shall be 'being (t)here'

but on Whidbey Island, and with slightly longer hair

+      

if you've managed to reach the bottom of the page and would like to read something more important

then you could go here

wishwash

i get a lot of questions about the laundering of contact-printed cloth...should it be dry-cleaned, is the dye washfast, what's the best way of cleaning it etc

the answer, in short, is to treat your plant-dyed cloth as you would treat your own hair.

not too hot, not too cold. no harsh detergents, no greasy soap. because if you use either of those you'll need to rebalance the pH with a vinegar and water rinse afterward (which is kind of what conditioner does for your hair. they only make it gluggy so it won't run off your hand in the shower)

 

be gentle.

wash by hand or using the wool cycle on a front-loader.

i recommended Aesop's APC Fine Fabric Care on my labels, cos it smelled divine and was wonderfully gentle on cloth. so gentle, in fact, that i could have used it in the shower.

sadly though i seemed to be the only customer buying it and so they discontinued the lovely stuff.

their animal wash does the trick, but doesn't smell as nice.

the other important thing is to dry your cloth in the shade.

unless you are washing sheets, in which case peg em out in the sun and the wind.

they'll be crispy white and smell like heaven.

just remember to avoid the dry-cleaner like the plague. the process is neither dry nor clean and will have your favourite silk negligible sloshing around in a vat of petrochemical nasties along with the filthy trousers worn by a travelling salesman for four weeks and somebody else's vomit stained car seat covers.

yuk.

and have a nice day.

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