wandercards

goodness me.

I blinked, and now it is November.

It's been another extraordinary year.

I've had exhibitions in New Orleans, Scotland and England.

Taught in Canada, Scotland and France,

and taught myself a lot about small-scale

film-making for my online school.

The weather is still

awfully dry here in South Australia

in fact

the dams look a bit like that

lovely rusted image above.

I found a pile of dried eucalyptus leaves

in a garden in Mexico

which was a brilliant excuse

to acquire this lovely blue enamel pot.

It's beautifully light and fits

nicely into my suitcase.

The River Tay welcomed me back

(or so I like to think), and several

happy hours were spent filming

bundles drifting on the tide.

Now I'm home a while,

happily dancing with indigo,

teaching myself as much as

I can about that particular magic,

while also working on new projects

for the

School of Nomad Arts.

One of which has been released today.

Some years ago I published a very limited edition

of 'wandercards',

inspirational cards devised to offer ideas for

the exploration of the poetics of place.

There were rather a lot of enquiries about

a reprint, but in the interests of sustainability

I thought it best to make the texts available

online (saving the costs of printing and

mailing) so that people could make their

own unique sets, using repurposed materials

if they wished.

You'll find them here

dear Martine

dear Martine

sorry for the slow reply ... I have tried several times to reply to your kind comment on the previous post, and Blogger simply would not publish. My fingers were crossed that it would work today, because it's nice to be able to engage in conversation, I think. But Blogger refused.

What I wanted to say was that I'm glad you're still here, and that I love "bumping into you" in Europe from time to time!

And I'm so grateful for your support of my work :: it must be about ten years that we have had a connection of some kind ?

That's what I have come to realise about my work...Yes, it's about sharing the printing of leaves on to cloth and paper, and writing poetry and listening to the whirled but it's much more than that. It's about creating community.
And what is really going on, when we gather around a cauldron and make bundles, or sit around a big table and stitch; is that we are (like in old times) gathering around a village well.
There is talk, there is caring for each other. It's not just what I teach but what each person shares, too.

Which brings me to my big news.
I have so enjoyed creating classes for my online school that I have decided to create an annual version of one of my favourite workshops, 'being(t)here', that I have taught all around the whirled but which has been a little different in each version, depending on the place and the time of year, and on what I have been thinking about deeply.

The first online edition will run from March to December 2019, with eleven instalments each delivered on a new moon. It's a huge project and I'm slightly terrified and utterly elated at the same time. But that is what makes life exciting and worth living. It's splendid to have things that are really worth getting out of bed for (in addition to my delightful granddaughter and my loyal hound).

On that note, I wish you a lovely and peaceful Christmas (or any other gentle festivity you might indulge in) and Joy and happiness for the New Year.

lots of love

India

PS if your name isn't Martine and you've read this far I still wish you happiness and health and all good things for the coming year, and thank you for reading my words.

PPS Blogger has now decided it won't publish my comments on other blogs, either. Which is kinda sad, because there are a number that I do read, and it's good to leave a calling card. Guess Blogger has decided to place limits on my screen time. Good thing they aren't hosting my online classes!!!

dear 1393 (the annual report)

the glorious view over the heathlands, from Mount Chudalup

one of the remarkable wildflowers in South West
Western Australia

to the 1393 folks who've stuck by this blog over the years.
a little over ten years, as it happens.

thank you for hanging in there.

this calendar year has been a particularly full one. I've taught five times in Australia, twice in Scotland and Canada,
once in New Zealand and once in France. that's eleven workshops. seven of them were a week (as in 5 days) long, three were three days, one was a mere seven hours and one ran over two weeks.

a string-and-bundle installation
created for the sculpture park
'understory' by the participants of
the retreat to Northcliffe, WA,
in October

I made paper by hand during a brief residency at Richard de Bas papermill in France and spent time in New Orleans, dreaming up new work and collaborating with musician John Fohl.

I built a new website at a new address, and then bought back my old domain name from my former host so as not to lose all the goodwill that it had built up over the past ten years
and
somewhere in between I took a big swig from a cup of courage and
having previously resisted offers from others (the kind that read "come to our studio across the seas at your own expense, let us film you doing tricks and then we'll give you 5% of the profits") launched the School of Nomad Arts, which is giving me much delight.

I had no idea it would be so satisfying to make wee movies and create online classes.
now I know.

I'm writing this post from the beautiful gardens at Inverewe in Scotland, where I am spending the last week of November, dyeing with windfall leaves, preparing for an exhibition in their Sawyer Gallery (next June) and dreaming up more classes for my school.

unsurprisingly, the mirror tells me I'm looking a tad frayed.

it may be time for a wee rest.
time to go home, cuddle that gorgeous grandbaby and go wandering with my dog.

but it's been a fabulous year.

the week at Northcliffe, during which we spent all day each day outside in sunshine and in rain was absolutely glorious. we made a field trip to Mount Chudalup, and created an installation for 'understory', the local sculpture park. people worked on their laps or on the grass, stitching dyed pieces into a 'wayfarer's comforter', a big soft cloth to keep them safe and warm on their travels.

local colour at Northcliffe

a mere two days at home to repack my bags, and I was off to Scotland to begin a three-and-a-bit-week road-and-ferry trip with  Alison Mountain (half of the team of two that make up Big Cat Textiles) . the plan was that Alison would cook for the first retreat (at Ardtornish Estate, near Lochaline) and I would captain the sailboat, and after that we would co-present a retreat on Orkney...meaning we would take turns at cooking and at telling stories. (we are nothing, if not optimistic)

the lovely people at Ardtornish were so chuffed to have us, that we are already confirmed to return in 2020. the gardens there reminded me so much of my parents' lovely garden at Mount Lofty, before it was blackened by fire. and the house itself reminded me of Arthur's Seat, the towered house just a bit further up the mountain from us...where Nancy Harford taught me how to wash Persian carpets with velvet soap and a garden hose, introduced me to the joys of gin+tonic and told me the secret of everything... "whatever happens dearie, never lose your dignity".  I'll confess I'm not always good at keeping that in mind, but I do try.

after five glorious days expecting at any moment to encounter the Dowager Countess Crawley and her withering words around a corner, we left Ardtornish behind us in the wee hours :: driving northward to catch a ferry to the charmingly named port of St Margaret's Hope, Orkney. it was a magical sail across to this gorgeous archipelago, arriving in time for a brilliant sunset. the next day was taken up with serious (double-trolley) food shopping in preparation for the arrival of our participants.  

the Ring of Brodgar

  and so began a week of 13 hour working days, beginning with the morning porridge prep and concluding after the last dessert plate had been cleared. happily we had a cheerie helper (a rare luxury) who smiled through piles of plates and wrangled the ancient dishwasher into submission. 

thank you, Caroline! 

when she isn't disguising herself as a dishie on a far-flung island, she actually runs a clothing company. (and lest the reader thinks I've begun taking interns in return for dishes, no. I have not. both the shared workshop and the assistance will remain unique events. no applications will be received!!)

if you'd like to know more about the actual class...Jane Wheeler has described it in great detail.

and now I'm in my last week here, boiling up a cauldron at the Inverewe Gardens. I came here with the intent of focussing on the eucalypts, but the story seems to be changing as windfalls drift on to my path, squirrels skip across it and herons soar gracefully overhead.  

next year holds four in-person workshops, three solo exhibitions and a number of research trips planned to add depth to the classes I offer online. thank you for your support, whether you've come to a workshop, joined an online class, bought one of my books or simply taken the trouble to sit down and wade through this blog.

let the season of twinkle-lights begin!!

reira he makutu i roto i tenei wahi

ok.

I cheated.

I used google translate in the hope that it would find the correct Māori words for

"there is magic in this place"

(although I will confess that when I pasted the answer back in, and asked her to detect the language,

Granny Google came up with 🌸 Hawaiian)

forgive me. 

there IS magic in this place

...the place being the wonderful garden in the lovely Lud Valley that Judy and Michael Keylock have been opening (along with their hearts) for over seven years now, to let me play with leaves and words, paper and cloth while Chloe cooks up the most delicious food. 

we eat the food that has been grown in the garden while making colour from leaves that drift underfoot. 

there is a particularly special plant, Griselinia littoralis, that doesn't get a mention in any of the traditional New Zealand dye books...but contains a rather fabulous colour (first discovered thanks to my friend Rachelle, who bundled leaves from it during a class I taught in the Whitireia Summer School at Kapiti in 2009).  cooked in water it turns the colour of tea...but bundled it delivers the sweetest pink.

only two species occur in Aotearoa, with a further five in South America. 

sometimes they are epiphytes and live on a friend.  rumour has it they arrived with the Māori (apparently a decoction of the bark could be of use against venereal disease. hmm.)

at the end of each day I went to my favourite place (in the whirled) for a swim. there's something about diving into cold water and bursting up into air again that makes me feel like a new woman. 

and that experience is not only fabulous, but free!

wandering in the Suter Gallery on my way to the airport, I encountered a painting of Huria Matenga who looks astonishingly like my maternal grandmother

even flying in and out is a wonderful experience, as the land and the sea unfold below

though it's so very hard to leave.

which is why the four of us made sure to find a time that suited us all for a return, which looks like being in the third week of April next year (when we can once again have an open fire)

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...

journeying

it's nearly 9 years (next March) since Eco Colour (a book i wanted to call 'botanical alchemy' but was told the title wouldn't sell) hit the bookstores. in that time what i initially referred to as 'ecoprint' has spread far and wide. thousands of people are making a living by printing with plants.

hilariously, though i was the first to publish the technique* i usually see myself referred to as an "also ran" in various media. a recent book about natural processes in textile art listed me merely as a "practitioner" of the technique (though instructions for ecoprinting are scattered generously throughout its pages).

i've seen colleagues absorb my work into their teaching practices, and observed "fashion labels" created after people have taken classes....sometimes only a one day class.

and there are so many people out there teaching "ecoprinting" (though much of it is not ecologically sustainable at all, as toxic adjuncts are increasingly employed) that i no longer offer basic "how to" classes. it would be like having to play "twinkle, twinkle, little star" over and over again.

not much fun for me, and ergo less for my students.

which is how 'being (t)here' took root and has grown into a retreat class that embraces being fully present and at the same time exploring the poetics of place.
it gives me such joy to be able to offer something more than just a class about printing with leaves.

for me, 'being (t)here' is a way of experiencing the whirled that helps open the cracks that let the light get in (thank you Leonard, for that phrase) no matter where you are. it offers a pathway to beauty that can be rolled out whether you're in a verdant forest, a shimmering desert, an urban wasteland or your own private paradise.

we observe and see, write and draw, print and dye. we fold paper into books...  the island book fold and its bigger cousin the river book, making a journals from single sheets of paper :: without having to thread a needle.

together we make discoveries, in ourselves AND in the dyepot. the other lovely thing that's been happening is that many of the students keep in touch with each other after the workshops. sometimes they make a facebook group, sometimes a blog. others just wrestle with an email list. but they maintain the connections and forge deep bonds. it's wonderful.

i've been teaching less through institutions (though i remain loyal to a select few), and more in beautiful and sometimes unusual places. the Yellow Ferry is one of these. there is something deeply magical about being on a boat, which is why i will be back there in February 2017.
i've reduced the class numbers and though the feedback from many people is that they consider the fee too high, the investment for the class is actually the same as for the first one, it's just that i have sourced a richer collection of materials for each person to work with, with treasures such as a limited edition silkymerino dress to take home.
 as a business proposition it is laughable because the expenses won't balance against the income...but to me it is absolutely worth it for the experience we will all have.

because it is the journey that matters, in the end.

and i am loving the ride.



*you'll see references to "nature printing" that are earlier, but that is a technique where the plant is dipped in paint or dye and pressed against a substrate of some kind

wander cards for wayfaring wonderers

It's been a long hot summer, but I have put it to good use.

Some years ago I pondered a small publishing project that wasn't going to be a book, more of a periodical that would have suggestions for things to do as well as beautiful images. 

I let it brew for a while (a couple of years, actually) and this is what happened. Not quite what I was dreaming of, but (I think) much, much better.

I've called them 'Wander cards for Wonderers' and they are a limited edition, printed in vegetable ink on recycled stock, winging their way around the whirled from February 29. There are four sets of 25 in the pack...three of them labeled (in the field / in the armchair / in the mind) and the fourth blank. The idea is that you can pull a card at random as an inspiration for an afternoon's exploration. 

Or choose three (a bit like a Tarot reading except happily there aren't any grim reapers) and see what they might suggest together. 

The fourth set is for you to add notes and ideas of your own. 

I announced them on the FB 'workshops and wanderings' group early yesterday and have been totally delighted that they seem to be finding homes quite quickly. 

 For which I am very grateful.

I'm having splendid fun sorting them into packs, sticking paper bands around them and dyeing the silk to wrap them in (and the silk scarves for those making a more serious commitment). I've also been folding wee booklets to accompany them.

Initially I had wild ideas of sending them out in little wooden boxes with treasures from my studio tucked around them but I soon discovered that little wooden boxes need little wooden box certifications in order to be able to cross borders, and then the postmistress reminded me that I would be filling out countless customs forms and having to remember what was in each box so that idea went zooming out the window.

Here's the simpler solution I came up with.

The cardboard mailing boxes are beautifully sturdy and can be salvaged and embellished and made into permanent homes for the cards. The cards themselves can be dyed (or coloured using hapazome)...work on the blank ones first and give the printed ones a month or two to cure before bundling them (the ink needs a bit of time to settle). If you've signed on for the Yellow Ferry adventure you'll receive a set anyway. If you haven't...now's your chance.

and that long hot summer? Last night it finally rained...so today I was literally scooping up dye from the driveway. Bliss.