keeping it simple (1)

take a piece of

cloth 

(a gift from Marion of Beautiful Silks) 

and 

a handful of leaves (swept up from the studio floor)

something to wrap them around

and

some string with which to tie them

snug as a bug

chugalug

introduce them to a pre-loved brew

topped up with rainwater from the tap

give them time to become acquainted 

and some heat to help seal the friendship

keeping it all sweet and simple 

like this beautiful poem by Mary Logue

 

and do swing back in a few days if you're curious about the result

or just follow the simple steps above

to write your own poem on cloth

out (t)here

last Saturday the Dog and i filled the ute with supplies, lashed down the tarpaulin (on the first rainy night here in months!) and set a course for the North

arriving just before sunset

Wirrealpa Station is a wonderful place. it's bigger than some European countries i can think of

the light is astonishing

birds witter and warble and squark and chatter all day long

kangaroos thump past, emus make deposits on the doorstep in the dead of night

lizards visit at lunchtime 

though

now that my friend Janet* (who came along to help me by peeling, chopping and slicing as well as setting tables and doing endless piles of dishes) has introduced them to strawberries i fear they'll find the ruby saltbush berries a little sour

my days began with wood chopping and firelighting to ensure there was hot water for showers in the bathhouse

the 50,000 year old petroglyphs of Chambers Gorge inspired works on paper and cloth

coloured with roadside ochre harvests and windfallen leaves

we wrote, drew, dyed
gathered leaves and interesting objects
twined string, folded paper
composed collective poems
and made many bundles

Lily, Snip and Kubbi dispensed dog-love to anyone in need (and kindly didn't howl when i played my saxophone)

the beauty of a live-in retreat like this is that work can continue as long as participants have energy. we fired cauldrons most evenings

and sometimes even in the early morning

it's a place for walking, dreaming, thinking, observing and absorbing

too soon we were making our farewells
i boiled up a last dyepot, packed up the kitchen, washed all the sheets and then sat down to a hot footbath and a cold gin
immersed in the Great Silence on my last night there




today Kubbi and i made our way home, via Eurelia and the World's End Highway,
a little sad that our retreat out (t)here to Wirrealpa was already over.
but
i will be back. even if it IS a long way to the shops for a sausage roll.

* i have to say i could not have managed without you, Janet...and i am deeply grateful to my medical team (Janet and Isobel)  for being present, patching grazes and building the odd cardboard splint!

eco, schmeco...ranting about plastic, rust and other things

i'm beginning to wish i hadn't given the name 'ecoprint' to the contact print that results when eucalyptus leaves are heated together with cloth in a damp environment.

since i first observed the phenomenon back in the early nineties the word 'ecoprint' has been adopted by countless commercial printing houses

and these days it seems everything is 'eco'

what concerns me too is that the method i've been teaching [which does not employ synthesized adjunct mordants] has been adopted by others who seem to be less concerned than i am about environmental concerns and student safety

if you teach, you have a duty of care

the bottom line is : printing with leaves using toxic adjunct mordants and layers of plastic is not environmentally sustainable*

and students participating in classes where fabrics pre-mordanted with Ferrous sulphate and layered with plastics for "clear leaf prints" may like to consider that as these bundles are heated, the vapours given off comprise a toxic cocktail of polyethylphthalates as well as the poisonous mordant in combination with whatever plant matter is being used. it is to be hoped that the latter has been identified and that toxic plants are being avoided but either way...you're breathing it in. i worry too about those teaching these methods...  Ferrous sulphate is a cumulative poison.

not all eucalypts are safe to use either...some contain cyanatogens, others offer small quantities of arsenic and E. nitens has been implicated as a possible carcinogen

remember that if you can smell something, you are breathing it in...and that the surface area of your lungs [if they were opened out] allegedly approximates that of a tennis court

i know that microscopic amounts are used to treat anaemia but overexposure to Ferrous sulphate can cause 

irritation eyes, skin, mucous membrane; abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting; possible liver damage 

is it worth it?

i use found iron as co-mordant to achieve dark colours. archaeological evidence supports this. time and again you'll read in texts about discoveries that cloth found in proximity to metal in the absence of oxygen was best preserved. whereas traditional plant dye advice was always to be cautious about using Ferrous sulphate  as it makes cloth brittle

iron soaked in an acid solution [vinegar, fermented fruit waste or an exhausted leaf-based dye bath] makes a safe mordant for dark colours

the current craze for rust has me worried too. rust particles are sharp and if breathed in, can cause bleeding of the alveoli [those little things in your lungs that take up oxygen]. be careful with it. and avoid wearing cloth that has been 'rust printed'. remember that your skin is your biggest and most absorptive organ

do your homework, make sure you are well informed and stay safe. 

and if you want clear leaf prints, put recycled paper between the layers. you'll have the bonus of making something gorgeous to write on.

* yes i am aware that my extensive travel is not sustainable. that's why i plant trees. lots of trees.

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.

the Maiwa Symposium

this still taken from a video i made yesterday captures the spirit of our class at the Maiwa Symposium this week, working on a 'wayfarer's wandercoat'
it seemed to me that dyeing and stitching cloth was only a small part of it all

the intangibles...adventure, empowerment, affirmation, acceptance, companionship, contentment, generosity (both material and of the spirit)...were present in abundance

we gathered leaves from the pavements (the area around the Maiwa East studio has everything you could want) and participants brought things in their pockets as well

we re-shaped much loved pre-worn clothing, harvested pieces from other garments to build on and extend our coats

dyed samples

and bundled the coat itself to give it a blue blessing

photo by my lovely assistant Sophena

our five days together were about beginning the building of this coat

a wandercoat that can be worn and added to on the wearer's lifejourney

that has pockets for poems, petals and passports

jewels and journals

love and leaves

(i'm hoping my students will wear their coats if they come to hear me tell stories again next year)

some of us even wrote poetry into the cloth itself

there was the daily ritual of unbundling

each precious bundle opened with respect and wonder

and on one evening
i was invited to partake of supper on a boat
during which i felt as though i were in a faerie tale
and that at any moment the boat might take off
to sail through the clouds




this advice found on the fridge at the net loft (another part of the Maiwa family) sums it beautifully. i think we did all that this week.
some students told me they had begun queuing on registration day at 5am to sign up for this class and i heard that it was sold out in the first hour of registration, which has me somewhat stunned and humbled as well as deeply grateful.

there are places i travel to that i really like to return to

Maiwa is one of them.

happily i will be back at Maiwa next year, am off to lovely Lopez next
and will offer the last of my Australian extended classes at Mansfield, Victoria in November this year  after our journey into the arid lands in October

there may be the occasional shorter one offered when possible but presently my dance card is fairly full until the end of 2017...with some very exciting adventures on the horizon including a voyage up the Amazon and another along the coast of Croatia

for which i had better build a few more pockets into my own wayfarer's wandercoat... so that more people can slip poems into them
(as the lovely Suri did yesterday, thank you)

this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver that had not yet wandered across my path

dodging raindrops in the Press Steet Gardens

the second session in New Orleans was held in the Press Street Gardens
an area of lush abundance managed by Margee Green
and her assistant Elliot 

the colours of the first dyepot were luscious

and things just kept getting better

rain blessed us every day

but despite being soaked everybody remained cheerful

and produced beautiful work

i spent my last day in New Orleans at work in the garden

setting up a new project that will carry me through until 2018

- more of that in a future post

for now i have dragged myself away from Louisiana
and am somewhere in Colorado
en route to Canada

down in the ninth

 

 'being (t)here' in the lower ninth was so absorbing i hardly took any photographs at all. but here are a few...we walked along the levee

and wandered through the streets

finding several enormous pecan trees whose inhabitants were cheerfully hurling unripe nuts to the ground

those nuts made a fabulous brew

as ever, the bundles were a source of joy. we worked with cloth and paper

experimented with kitchen-sourced mordants and spent time considering words in gentle poetic forms

New Orleans water has a quality all its own. the reaction to the spent gladiolus flowers was particularly beautiful. that blue came instantly

we had interest from a pair of goats who seemed keen to join us in the studio

not to mention a rather lovely cat who happily rolled in our poetry after hours,

rearranging the words to his satisfaction

at one point he took centre stage on the shared work table and cheerfully faced each offered camera in turn so that everyone could enjoy a photo opportunity

i'd like to thank each of my students for being t)here, for sharing your stories and for adding to the general pool of wisdom. 

this one's for you, Ma

one of the things I love to do in New York is get up earlyish and totter across to the Chelsea Flower Market

it's a visual delight and the fragrances are intoxicating - i wish this could be a scratch-and-sniff post

and then the contents of the gutters had me wishing for a dyepot