sorry, but it seems i'm beyond help.

correspondence sometimes comes in drifts, like snow

there's the seasonal influx of requests for assistance with school studies.
i try to respond kindly, even when the questions seem silly.

"why do you do art?" is a frequent flyer.
sometimes it is temping to write "because i am otherwise unemployable"
though it's pretty close to the truth.

i don't mind answering a well thought-out selection of questions, but only if you can't find the answers by googling.

towards the end of the northern college year there's generally a bunch of emails from people who would like to come and stay to "assist me in the studio" in return for one-on-one teaching.
a working holiday in the sunny south.

from my point of view this means i would be fully responsible for a person i have never met before, providing meals, a bed, entertainment and transport so that i can explain to them exactly how i want a bundle put together, or a dress stitched, or?

it's far less stressful just to do the work myself. besides, i enjoy what i do. i love the spontaneity that is possible when i am alone (well, with only canine and feline company) wielding scissors and needles and dancing in the leaflitter that carpets the floor of my studio.

and perhaps it is a psychological disability but i feel utter and overwhelming claustrophobia at the mere thought of having to share a month or more of days (and evenings) with another adult whom i may not have actually met prior to their arrival.

in recent years i have been finding increasingly beautiful areas in which to hold workshops and as a consequence the volume of inquiries from people wanting to take a gratis class in return for stoking the fires and gathering plant matter has escalated. i could have filled the upcoming class at Scott's Head entirely with such volunteers :: which could have been hilarious...
a dozen people all stoking the fire and gathering leaves, which would probably look like a splendid pagan ritual but won't pay the electricity bill.

there have been suggestions that i should increase workshop fees so that i can offer scholarship places. i don't see how that would be at all fair to paying participants. it's not going to happen.

and then there are the truly cheeky requests from people who live close to a workshop location and "just want to drop in for a day to see what it's all about". hmm.

some tell me they left well-paid positions in order to pursue their dream career. i applaud their bravery but that is their choice, and not my responsibility. i was an unemployed sole parent (of three) at the time that i returned to plant dyeing. it took me over fifteen years to achieve financial independence and be solely supported by this work. i suppose it's just as well i didn't have a comfy job because i'm not that brave and i might have clung to it and my life would have turned out awfully dull as a result.

but the long and the short of it is, please don't ask me if you can come and stay with me so that i can feed you and house you and teach you everything i know.

because the answer will be

thank you so much for your kind offer, 
but i regret i cannot accept.

on the other hand, if you sign up for a workshop, i will do my best to share my knowledge and skills. because that's my job. and my life. and i love doing it.

correspondence

i get a lot of correspondence from people wanting me to advise them on dyeing. some of it gets quite specific. 

i am sharing this one, not because i want to pick on this person or poke fun or be an inter-bitch but because my responses may answer similar questions for others. [please bear this in mind if you are moved to comment.]

[i have changed the name of my correspondent to the non-gender specific Jordan to save him/her possible embarrassment but otherwise have not edited their messages]


Dear Ms. Flint, I hope this email finds you well. I recently purchased your book Eco Colour and I am totally in love with it! I love the way you wrote it and all the information in it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and for creating such a wonderful book! I'm a holistic interior designer and for the first time I'm venturing into the wonderful world of natural dyeing. I'm interested in developing a line of nautical fabrics that can be used for upholstering, window treatment and beach wear. I am planning to use Linens and Silks for upholstering and window treatments, and for the beachwear I'm planning to use several blends of organic cottons. Some of these blends are a mixture of cotton with bamboo and spandex (around 5%), cotton with soy and spandex, and cotton with hemp. I wanted to kindly ask you if you could possibly guide me as to what kinds of dyes are the most permanent and the ones that are more likely to withstand fading as a result of the sun, salt water, and even chlorine from a swimming pool? I will deeply appreciate from the bottom of my heart any information that you can share with me. Thank you for being such an inspiration. My warmest regard, - Jordan 

 -------

Dear Jordan
Thank you for buying my book. I would be experimenting with local plants (and considering the impact that large scale production would have on the environment ) before launching a business.
Doing light and wash fastness tests etc.  and I'd be researching the properties of the fabrics too.

In any event you have posed rather a lot of quite specific questions. Are you wishing to engage me as a consultant?

Cordially

India

www.indiaflint.com

this message has been buzzed to you by a blue-tailed bee

 -------

Hello Ms Flin, what a pleasure to hear from you. My apologies for having bombarded you with so many questions. I am new to this and I thought that the more details I gave the better. What i wanted to know was basically if there is a particular type of natural dye that is more permanent than others. I guess the answer is not that simple. I am considering starting a home based business for local distribution. I live in a beach town where there are also lots of wooded areas which have a rich variety of vegetation. A lot of the things I create are from recycled materials also. I would love to hire you as a consultant but unfortunately i dont have a budget for it at this moment. If you provide me with your consultation fee I will make a note of it.  

Thank you again for responding to my email and congratulations on your wonderful book! 

My warmest regards,

Jordan

-------

 

dear Jordan

I too would respond more formally but as you have not advised me of your surname I am not in a position to do so. 

Nor have you given me any indication of where you live other than that you are in a beach town blessed with wooded areas. That you call it "wood" and not "bush" suggests that you are from somewhere other than Australia. That you write in English may narrow your location to an anglophonic region. But that could be anywhere and so my advice regarding the [to me unknown] vegetation would be meaningless.

If you have read the book you will know that it's not just about the vegetation, the growing location, the season of harvest but also about the quality of the local water, the choice of dye vessel and the type of fibre you wish to dye.
 
I've developed my methods based on a lifetime of working with textiles and plants. Dyeing funds my living.

Your proposal to develop a business as a result of acquiring my book is on a par with me deciding to set up as an aircraft technician after leafing through a book about planes. 

It would be both truthful and easy to say that indigo and eucalyptus are the two most durable dyes I know...but whether they would be suitable for your applications [you mention spandex and chlorine, two substances I avoid where possible] is not for me to speculate.

May I respectfully suggest that you begin by familiarizing yourself with the local flora? Learn to identify it, know what is protected and what can be gathered and then begin to conduct your own experiments within a context of responsible collection and resource management. Consider planting a dye garden. Peruse the local weed list. Make samples, conduct light and wash fastness tests and then you may be in a position to determine whether you might launch a viable business. You might even think about taking a class.

But you can't grow potatoes without digging the ground. *

cordially
India


*Unless you are going to build a raised bed. Either way it does still require some effort.

how to run a workshop

every so often i get an email asking for advice on how to run dyeing workshops. sometimes people will ask me quite specifically [and i may say, audaciously] for teaching plans or class outlines. often i wonder whether they are writing to the right person, especially if they refer to dying workshops. i do not feel competent to instruct anyone about that.

sometimes they tell me that they've been to a dye class somewhere [not necessarily with me, i might add] and now they want to teach too; or that they "have the book" and are "ready to teach" but are wondering where to begin in terms of running a workshop.


in general i respond as follows :


dear 'X'
 
I have been working on developing my workshops over some thirty or so years and I'm beginning to think they are at last moving in the right direction.

But what works for me may not necessarily work for you. My teaching is founded in my history, informed by research and practice, enriched by continual re-examination, research and further study.

Each of us finds our own way into our own reality. The one sure thing I can tell you is that your work will be a clear reflection of you.  

go well

India

 

today as i was happily bundling away and stitching on my blue cloth while waiting for the billy full of bundles to boil i found myself pondering the subject of teaching in more depth [one of the great benefits of an artist residency is being given the gift of time, not just to DO, but to THINK] and so i made a few notes that i thought might be worth sharing

the first classes i taught were at remote communities out along the East-West railway line that crosses the middle of Australia. at the time i was employed by the Arts Council of South Australia [now a mere shadow of its former self] as their exhibitions officer.

together with South Australian artist Yasmin Grass and R.I.C.E. i travelled out on the Tea and Sugar train with an exhibition of colourful clothing set up in one end of an old railway carriage and a lino-printing workshop at the other. at night we unrolled sleeping bags and slept on the floor of the show. that was back in the 80s. sadly the Tea and Sugar doesn't run any more.

we taught at places like Tarcoola, Cook and Barton. at the first stop, Tarcoola, there was a one-teacher school and as i recall the teacher disappeared off to the pub after unloading all of his 15 students on to us. i guess he didn't get many days off.  it was "seat of the pants" flying and a good learning experience all round.

at the beginning of the day all i really knew was "more about lino printing than any of the students". by the end of the day i was beginning to get a grip on crowd management, had learned to make sure that we would have a first aid kit next time [cellophane tape and toilet tissue aren't the best emergency response for cut fingers] and had developed a mildly ridiculous comedy routine that helped get the clean-up done at the end. nobody bled to death, everyone had a printed T-shirt they were happy with and we had managed to foil the class clown who was busy carving an expletive into a piece of lino with the intent of inking it and placing it underneath fellow students as they were about to sit down. it was a creative idea but he'd forgotten to reverse the letters so it would have looked pretty silly anyways.

but back to the subject...how to run a workshop

know your subject inside out. that means understanding things yourself before you attmept to present them to others. in the case of dyeing with plants it means being able to identify the plants you plan to work with, knowing their properties and understanding the chemistry.
taking a few classes or reading a book does not make you an expert. practice and research and study will help.

prepare. i have a good friend whose motto is "luck is for the unprepared". i find it takes me at least a day of prep for each day of teaching, and a good bit of time spent after class thinking about what went well, what could have been improved and what really needs to change before the next time 

take care of your students and help them to learn how to do things safely and sensibly.

repeat things from time to time [we learn to remember by repetition]

be a student yourself. i take at least two classes each year as a student. they may not necessarily be classes that are obviously related to WHAT i teach, but they help me to learn HOW to teach in a more engaged [and i hope engaging] and effective way

if you want to use something in your teaching that you've learned from someone else's class, ask their permission first. and when you do share it with your students, acknowledge the person you learned the skill from. #

listen to your students. you can learn a lot from them, not only interesting information but about how they understand [or don't understand] things

keep on reading, researching, experimenting and learning in your chosen field.

and keep on asking questions.

the truth is you can never know too much about your subject. and the last word [for now] goes to Bill Shakespeare.

to thine own self be true.  

and while we're talking about workshops...there's a three day class with me near a beach on the Otago coast on new Zealand's beautiful south island at the end of April next year that still has places...in fact, so many places that they're thinking about pulling the plug on it. if enough people sign up in the next few weeks it will go ahead, otherwise i'll be spending more time at home in the studio...polishing up my skills!

# i shall be forever grateful to Nalda Searles [who taught me how to make string] and to Sandra Brownlee [who kindly let me borrow her idea of a "clothesline talk"] ... by combining the two ideas i've derived a useful and amusing means of presenting information to students and keeping it available to them for the duration of the class

a blessing. of sorts.

let me tell you a secret

deep inside

i am a shy

and

somewhat solitary bear,

it takes courage for me to step into the spotlight
i'd rather stay home than go to parties
[close friends have told me i am socially inept]
and i tend to take things quite literally

i tend to be forthright

i have a strong sense of justice and

i WILL speak out if i see something that is not right

it is how i came off the assembly line, reinforced by how i was raised.

if i kindly advise someone that it would be better

in the interests of [their] potential longevity

not to be consuming food in an atmosphere redolent of toxic vapours

i am doing that out of concern

and from what i perceive to be a duty of care.
in short

i mean well.

so if you then tell me i have "crossed a line" and go on to demand whether i realise that by coming to teach i have "inconvenienced others who normally use the space" and snicker derisively when my Precious rises sponstaneously to my defence

then all i can say is

"Bless you and be Happy"

 i shall not darken your doors again.

signs and doings

being away for a week

and just sorting out work emails on the batfone

leads to a big pile that needs excision.

the delete button is useful

especially

when you get things like this

yeah. right.

delete.

and then there was the one from 'Qantas Telephone Sales'

[i don't buy ANYTHING over the phone]

that wanted me to open a .zip file

i must look like a cabbage to some people

so much so that FaceBook

told me i was logged out

wanted me to log in again

and then

wanted to "check my computer for viruses"

er, no, thank you.

rather than take the risk and click the 'confirm' button

i'm outa there.

instead

you'll find me in the workroom

beavering away on muddy waters

 also

designing costumes for Company Miji

writing 

and

doodling

if there is a spare moment

flotsam, jetsam, froth and bubble

-->

The internet is rather like the ocean. A lot of stuff floats about in it that we might never see, hear or know of – but thanks to a clever bit of programming called ‘google alerts’ you can cast a net on an ongoing basis and regularly have an interesting kettle of fish delivered right to your lap[top]

I have a google alert on my name and on a few key phrases. It brings things I want to learn more about to my attention and sooner or later it also tells me whenever my name is mentioned and in what context. It’s how I discovered that the phrase eco-dye had been trademarked and where I read that a person I have never [consciously] met is giving masterclasses in ecoprinting. Perhaps I should attend.

A haul this morning revealed several people referencing my work [thank you kindly] along with the virtual version of a newspaper article in which a person not only used my name [without actually bothering to ask] to endorse their new business venture but also claimed they had been “trained by India Flint”. 

The only people I have EVER trained have been horses and Border Collies…and quite frankly I think it was more the other way around.

When things like that wash in on the tide it’s a bit like being thumped by a drifting log that you didn’t realise was floating in behind you on the same wave. In this instance I feel a friendship has been seriously compromised. If it happens again I may even take legal advice, given it’s a matter of intellectual property, blatant mis-representation and [not to put too fine a point on it] openly trades on my ‘good name’.  

Fortunately today I am by the blessed sea, which has washed away the cares of the whirled and let me float like a leaf adrift on the waters, gazing down through the crystal clear blue to the rocks and sand drawings below.

So many mixed metaphors. 

happily the internet also brought me these lovely words

“Somehow it doesn’t matter that I’m not in the Lud Valley – it

feels good that you and your group are working with leafage

while some children at Otaki Kindergarten look at leaves differently and

sip berry tea from agee jars before painting it onto fabric.  Energy travels.”

as well as a link to an article about the workshop this week

and

my horoscope  [fellow Sagittarians will enjoy this]

Well folks, thanks for reading, have a truly splendiferous day wherever you are…and before you go do please take a moment to swing by Lotta Helleberg’s blog. She has written a wonderful story about sustainability and clothing [and very kindly mentioned me]. and she makes gorgeous ecoprinted paper journals that are well worth your investment...

muttering and fondling the crystal ball

i've been roaming the whirled and teaching many many classes since the publication of Eco Colour [2008] and Second Skin [2011], the two books into which i poured my dye knowledge so that

+ folks out in the whirled could make fabulous colour without the need for toxic chemical mordants

+ the techniques wouldn't get lost and so that in the event my children [or who knows, potential grand-children] ever wanted to know what Mumsie was brewing out the in the shed they could look it up

+ there'd be some kind of record that, although i didn't rush out and patent the ecoprint [something many people have since told me i should have done], it was actually me who realised that when Latvian Easter Egg Dyeing techniques were married with Shibori-zome and blessed by eucalyptus then extraordinary magic would happen.

musing on life in this crossover limbo time sliding between one calendar and the next,  i'm beginning to wonder. foremost in my mind is that you can't have a dog and keep wandering like a fly in a bottle...and i am very much missing the daily delightful companionship of a dogfriend [thank you all those kind folk who let me have dog therapy with their friends last year, especially that lovely chap in Washington Square, San Francisco who let me spend time with his two polar bears who were pretending to be Maremma's]

doing my 2011-12 tax [a little late] on New Year's Eve the numbers were scarily clear. there i am rushing around the whirled, disseminating techniques that took me years to develop but there's not that much over after paying bills. it may sound glamorous and it can be wonderfully satisfying but in the end it's also really, really exhausting. [even though i've never had jet-lag]

 i try to distribute transport expenses by setting a flat fee whirled-wide but despite this very often when i am asked to teach a class somebody will want to haggle about the cost.

 a person in Alaska actually had the audacity to suggest that i consider a teaching gig there as a holiday.

what?

on which planet does that make sense? how is it a holiday if i am working? how will it benefit me to pay $4000 in airfares from Australia plus accommodation plus plus plus. oh yes, i forgot, it will be a holiday. thanks so much.

to cut a long story short, i'm letting y'all know that while workshops have been planned for 2013, there may not be so many in 2014.  there'll be a West Coast series [Washington, Oregon, California] in the northern fall this year [2013] and a gig in Vancouver, Canada 

none of which is listed on the website yet

but

other than the yet-to-be-posted West Coast Wandering, what's on the workshop page is IT for now.

if you would like to learn something from me in the Southern Hemisphere there are only three options available. one in West Australia in April and the other two in New Zealand [one on each island] in a few weeks time.

the workshop in the South Island will be held at the Keylock family property in the Lud Valley. we might even manage an excursion to Cable Bay [the scene of our wonderful "wade in the water" session the year we made reconstructed garments and immersed them in the sea prior to dyeing]

we'll be making a wayfarer's wanderbook. stitching a beautiful wrapping cloth. dyeing paper and fabrics. telling stories, doing a bit of writing - penning poems as well as prose. we'll be paying close attention to a very beautiful part of the whirled - enjoying nourishment for the spirit together with very practical dye techniques.

if the prospect of five days doing this interests you, do please drop Judy Keylock a line here  

     judykeylock[at]mac[dot]com

or give her a tinkle on +64 [0]3 545 2176 as there are a couple of places left in the class

if you made it to the bottom of the page, thanks for hanging in there.

and have a fabulous year.

learning to expect the unexpected

we had another splendid day at St Augustine's

quite appropriately

ecclesiastical purple seemed to prevail

[the pagan orange usually provided by eucalyptus was in abeyance]

although a couple of pre-loved teabags did their best on this landskin

  

 

this little flower may prove to be the new love of my life

+++

+++

+++

and in a remarkable coincidence

i said to the class "i'm about to hand out a little present"

and one of the students, Aviva

said

"i have a present for you too"

handing me a lovely ball of wool dyed in yellow and green

oddly similar the the silk thread i was handing out

 at lunchtime i swung into the Selvedge shop

conveniently situated just up the road

yesterday i found a book of Chiyoko Tanaka's work

and i thought i'd have a look to see what other treasure might be on the shelves

[particularly as they were having a 20% off sale]

imagine my surprise when i found the catalogue

from my 2005 L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival exhibition

"benedictus ex-dress" on the shelves amid the books being offered for sale
[i sent it to them way back then as part of a media kit]

especially remarkable as Selvedge declines to stock both

Second Skin & Eco Colour

looks like the cat's IN the bag

it's tricky to pack a bag

that is already full

by request

firstly this is for Samm cos she asked how the flotsam dress worked [see previous post]
hope the scribbles make sense, adjust sizes of bits to fit own body
[hint - measuring with a piece of string much better than using a tape-measure]


and then in answer to another request which arrived as follows [published with original spelling but name removed] :

...I am about to graduate from college and I was hoping that I could email you a few questions because I am really interesting in your chosen occupation and want to know what to expect...

 to which i initially responded :

To be honest I never had a career plan other than architecture but shall do best to answer queries as long as you don't expect an essay! 

I'm curious about the phrase "what to expect". I have few expectations and so find that I go through life being pleasantly surprised. 

and then came the reply [my answers are in green]

I was just wondering about simple questions like what do you do on a typical day at work. Do you find the work repetitive or is it different every day. it is different every day. thank goodness.  

How long does it take you to die [um i'm hoping you mean "dye"] the material [oh thank goodness, you were referring to cloth. i'm not ready for the other yet] and then begin designing your clothing? i make the object first and then dye it. it could take a couple of days, or six months or a year  

What kind of work can I do beforehand to be successful at finding sustainable plant dyes and making clothing designs? be curious about everything. it helps if you treat it as play rather than work 

Would you recommend any type of classes or something that will make a person ready to start creating dyes besides reading your book? yes, mine. or Tracy Willans'. or Roz Hawker's. or Nalda Searles'. 

Do you plan out your own designs before you begin with the dye or is it purely experimental? depends on the project  

What kind of salary do you make if you are just beginning in your field. wondering if this question is a joke. i have never had a salary in this field. even now after over twenty-five years professional experience i barely end up with a profit. but i have enough and that is all that matters 

Is there anything really good or bad about your job that persuaded you to start besides being really good for the environment? i didn't choose my field of work just for the environment. i do this because i cannot "not" do it. it's called a passion. if you don't have it, don't do it. that goes for anything.  

Do you have any advice for people that want to follow in your footsteps? see previous answer. and it's better to make your own footsteps [people walk at different rhythms. try walking in someone's footprints on the beach sometime. can be tricky.] 

 Is there a lot of demand in what you do or is it very difficult to start? it takes 100% of me and then some. that's what makes it fun.

cogitating on the coincidentality of confluence

it was interesting to read Ronnie's thoughts over at 'art & ect' this morning
especially as i'd just participated in a workshop that centered on the premise of drawing from memory
and not just memory but specific memory
of a piece viewed in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia
[ie the first instruction being "draw a copy/your memory of a work by another artist"]

it was an intriguing and rigorous physical and intellectual exercise
and as the instructor [Christopher Orchard] very clearly pointed out
none of the pieces drawn by participants were "art"

and in fact, pieces made in workshops [of any kind]

should not be considered as part of a person's oevre

and certainly not exhibited as such

[regrettably something too often seen in the textile world]*

but continuing in the spirit of Ronnie's discussion
i thought it might be interesting to put some of my drawings up here
with a link or two to the original works

the visual information was gathered when i wandered into an exhibition at the AGSA titled "Terrain" and found this object by the late Rosalie Gascoigne, an artist whose work i have long admired [i even flew to Melbourne for a day a couple of years ago just to see a retrospective of her work]

i won't paste her image here [copyright issues] but you can follow the links

so my first image went like this

it then wandered on to

and then sanguine was introduced as a variant
but still using elements of the original image

followed by the instruction to call a figure to mind [again from the collection]
and bring it into the composition

the figure is rather less recognisable than the more graphic work, but was derived from Mortimer Menpes "alone in a shoe shop"  and you can see that by this time [in the afternoon, some three hours after viewing the original painting] my memory of the figure is more than a little hazy [and drawing figures ain't my strength in any case]

one of the points our instructor made along the way is that it would be pretty difficult to draw/paint something free of anything you had previously seen. our imaginations are inevitably influenced by experience and memory [subject food for discussion with a good glass of red]

i had a fabulous few days working at drawing and was quite satisfied with the marks i made. but again i stress they are not art. they are perhaps wobbly stepping stones in a stream on my path to somewhere else. breadcrumbs in the forest.

i told a student in a class a couple of years ago in response to her announcing she wouldn't be stitching together the pieces during class as her intent was to frame all her samples and present them as her upcoming solo show, that no self-respecting artist would exhibit workshop samples unless they wished to lose all credibility. i won't be exhibiting these either or using them as the foundation for deriving "new" work.

but you may well spot some distilled essences of them somewhere in the future...a good friend has already been pointed out to me by that the drawings i made under Orchard's direction in class could be seen as being influenced by the weavings of Sandra Brownlee with whom i spent time in Halifax recently [even though they were drawn from Rosalie Gascoigne] . they might well be. i'd have to be a stone NOT to be influenced at all by her work.

then again
it might also have been influenced by Greg John's sculpture 'Fugue' on the banks of the River Torrens. [i had my lunch on the grass nearby]

where am i going with this? acknowledge your sources, ask people for permission [especially if you want to publish their work] and play nice. it's better karma and makes for a nicer whirled.
and now it's time for a cup of tea.


ps and before you ask, yes, i made that big word up.

* and before someone takes up the issue of exhibitions and textiles and calls my bluff on The Talisman Dress, let me state that exhibitions openly described as being the outcome of a workshop process are an entirely different matter...especially where the stated intent of the class is to collectively exhibit the work

just for the record

each week i get at least 2 emails from people who want to come and stay with me and "help in the studio"

i'm sure they mean well, but my studio is quite messy and a little erratic and the rare occasions i'm home all i want to do is be alone and think and play and sew and brew cauldrons and draw
and make noises on the saxophone
and stand quite still
practicing my tarasana pose

so
i'm afraid i've been writing these sorts of letters....[warning to the kind-hearted, i do sound a bit mean]

..."touched as I am by your youthful enthusiasm, the sad reality of the matter is this. I am rarely, if ever, home for more than three weeks at any time and when I am at home...it is my sanctuary where I work ridiculous and slightly erratic hours, very much as a lone wolf. 

Also I live in a most impractical location; the nearest village is an hour away on foot [ie you would need a car or bicycle] and is not on public transport routes [well, there is a bus but it's once a day in the afternoon and only goes to a shopping mall in the north of the Adelaide metropolitan area] nor is there any short-term rental accommodation other than a rather unpleasant hotel. my house is lived in by more than just me and we do not offer  homestays other than to really close friends 

So while I thank you for your interesting proposal, my answer is no, I do not [ever] take apprentices or interns or workers-for-free. I do however teach workshops at many locations around the world where you would be most welcome to sign up if you were interested in learning sustainable dye techniques"... 

if it's not one cat, it's another

here i am working like a dog to fulfill a pile of promises before i skip across the next ocean and certain felines are having a splendid time chasing leaves or trying to shred cloth. keep telling them i don't need to make string right now but nobody is listening

just for the record

it's a tricky business, making a living as an artist. many of us have to wait tables and wash dishes at some point just to keep body and soul together. i have taught school [paid and also unpaid], painted scarves for the tourist trade, cleaned hotel rooms [nasty] and worked in dress stores [strangely entertaining]. i have driven exhibition trucks and toured art [made by others] to remote corners of the state.
that was then.

now i am in the fortunate position of being able to juggle teaching [mostly adults who actually want to learn and don't need me to engage my best theatrical skills in order to secure their attention], writing [the odd commissioned texts for set fees as well as the more rewarding sole author trips ie Eco Colour and the soon-to-be-unleashed Second Skin] and exhibiting. sometimes  if i am lucky i have the time to make a few dresses and in between i am grateful to Leigh Warren for offering me costume work.

this is not a hobby. it is my life and my profession. it supports not only me but also three children, 6 rescue cats, 5 elderly horses, a wind-dumped parrot and several bunnies. one day i hope that list will again include a Border Collie or two.
yes, i do get to travel to interesting places...but no, mostly being crammed into cattle class for long flights isn't a great deal of fun [even with gin and hours of stitching]. it's getting harder to bounce back after those long flights so i have to schedule a recovery/adjustment day after each one.
yes, i amass flyer points and sorry folks, i do insist on flying [as far as possible] with Qantas. loyalty pays off and call me old-fashioned but i like to think that the pilots know what they are doing. if the wings fall off they'll calmly deal with it, rather than screaming and leaping for the nearest parachute. so no, i won't fly with the cheapest airline just to save a few pennies.

it all sounds very exotic but lining up the ducks is not so easy as it seems.
i really don't know what artists did before credit cards were invented. maybe it's why some of them cut off their ears. think about it. in order to fulfill my commitments i usually have to organise and pay for my flights in advance. this year i have one European trip, three trans-Pacific flights and have just put some weeks in NZ behind me. in between there are several gigs in Australia. unless i personally take bookings from students [in which case, thank you dear friends, there is cash in the kitty] i am paid at the end of an engagement. sometimes the cheque doesn't arrive until a month or two after.
administration is not my forte. recently i found a cheque in my travel kit that was over 6 months old and could no longer be presented to the bank. i'm still blushing with embarrassment.

i drive a fifteen-year-old car and don't buy new clothes [except for knickers and socks]. i don't go "on vacation". when at home i work seven days a week [admittedly because sitting around doing nothing ain't my gig]

anyway you look at it, this way of life requires a substantial turnover of $

the funny thing is, i can work as hard as i like and fill my year with a squillion trips but in the end, each year i net roughly the same amount of money once expenses have been taken into account. and it's frankly not enough to fund a pension plan so i'll probably still be tottering on to planes at 90, hoping someone out there is still interested in listening.

if you're still reading you may be wondering what my point is.

i'm trying to explain why i don't haggle, give discounts or sleep on couches [9 times out of 10 i find homestays involve interrogations over breakfast and dinner and by the time i get to class i am already worn out and can't remember what i was going to say].

these days when people start to quibble and mutter about my fees, i just back away. this is why i am not teaching in Belgium, Holland or Italy this year. it is also why i will be attempting to present a tri-lingual class in Switzerland and enthusiastically visiting Canada and the US several times and one of many reasons why i will continue to delightedly visit my beloved Aotearoa.

argue with me and i run. treat me as you would any other professional person [would you ask for discounts from your lawyer, dentist or car mechanic?] and i will respond by giving it my all and handing out chocolate against "day 4 syndrome"

and at the end of the day, Dogs willing and with a fair wind, i wouldn't want to be doing anything else. thanks folks. bless y'all.

oh really?

[oder vielleicht auch nicht...] *spotted in a window on Market Street, San Francisco

i see that someone who had her first experience of eucalyptus dyes in a two day class with me last year is now teaching about them at a European Museum. Apparently she will " teach everything you need to know about how to dye with Eucalyptus"

wow.

that's a promise that i am not brave enough to make - i haven't even learned all of the botanical names of the 1000 plus species and sub-species of that miraculous genus yet

or experimented with them all individually

maybe i should sign up for the class...

or retire