Dialogue 2 My Turn

Once I had dried the cloth and sealed it with a workable fixative, I pinned it to a frame and waited for a windy day.

When the wind came I raced outside with a bottle of brown ink and tried dipping Douglas-fir needles then holding up the framed cloth for the inked needles to draw on it.

But I found the needles couldn't hold enough ink to leave enough of a line on fabric. With previous sampling I had the needles draw on soft paper and it worked very well.

So I rushed inside, hoping the wind was going to hang around, found a small brush and some wire and ran out to the tree again.

I wired the brush tip to the branch, dipped the bristles and held up the framed cloth.



It worked much better with the brush being able to hold more ink.

I think I got so into co-operating with the tree that I overdid the amount of drawing.

But the tree had a lot to say.










Worm casts had stuck to the cloth even after it was dried.

I didn't like these lumps of dirt because bits of them kept dropping whenever I handled the cloth.

So I brushed them off.












Some of the bigger 'bits' were not being held by the fixative and I wanted to keep them on the cloth.

So as my next response, after the tree did its drawing, was to secure the leaves and tree shoots with various types of stitching: closed herringbone, cross stitch, whipping.

I forgot to take a photograph of this stitching before I sent it off to my tutor in the UK. I'll post images it once I get the work back.

Dialogue 2 Continues

After cutting about 15 smaller squares off the cloth, I uncovered the remainder.





There is quite a lot of grey staining and some other brighter coloured marks





Maple tree seeds had sprouted through the cloth in several places.





Once the cloth was dry these shoots withered and stuck to the cloth.



Now it is my turn to respond.




I pinned the cloth on the wall and looked at it for a few days......

Dialogue 2 'The Tree as Verb'

Dialogue 2 is about a conversation with a tree using a textile.

I have been doing lots of sampling. First I buried a piece of cloth under the leaves of a big leaf maple and left it for a couple of weeks.

Then, every 2nd day I would cut off a small square and bring it inside to dry. I would label it and give it a verb from Bill Yake's poem 'The Tree as Verb'.

I put the squares of cloth up on my design wall and spent time each day looking at them, thinking about how I would respond now it was my turn.

The leaves had left some staining but not much. Several thoughtful people have given me suggestions to get more staining going on so I'll do more sampling.

My tutor liked all of the bits stuck to the cloth...

...so I tested lots of different products to find the best sealer that would leave the cloth soft enough to hand stitch into.

The winner was Krylon workable fixative.

More work on Compost Cloth

I have been developing my response to the composted cloth. After I found it was disintegrating, I put a backing cloth behind it - a small tea table cloth. Here is a quick drawing of how it will look.

After stitching through both layers to secure all of the tears, I am now working through both cloths a double running stitch around the embroidery on the tea cloth.

I value this remnant of cloth so I am embroidering it.

The Japanese Saki Ori techniques of weaving, stitching and patching, recycles worn out remnants of cloth because they are viewed as still having value.

Dialogue 1 Compost Cloth

This is the cloth I pulled out of the compost, washed and dried. Now it is my turn to respond to it.

I had this strong urge to preserve it....

...so I looked up 2 of my favourite books, 

Therese de Dillmont's 'The Complete Encyclopedia of Needlework' 

and Weldon's 'Encyclopedia of Needlework', 

to read up about darning and patching. But once I started handling the compost cloth I saw that it is completely rotten with weak fibers so can't be patched or mended.

Next I did a web search on museum textile conservation techniques, which seemed to better suit the condition of this textile.

I attached it to a small tea cloth to act as a support and am now working a small running stitch around every tear, through both layers of cloth.

It is starting to have that nice crinkled 'English quilting' look. 

It also reminds me of Kantha work from NE India and Bangladesh.

A couple of days ago...

A couple of days ago I posted about some books that have been influential in my studies and I forgot to add the one I am currently reading.

I am looking at how nurturing and housekeeping have gone on in the home and taking those activites out into the natural environment to extend our concept of what is our home.

I am racing through this book because it is such a good read. I'm not even stopping to make notes, which I may regret later when I am looking for something I know is is there.

A couple of days ago, I went outside to check my different textiles and I felt as though I was being watched.

"What is that crazy human doing? We can't eat anything she has put out. We tried them all."

I also found the early spring flowers were rather burdened that morning.

The good part was we had limed the grass the day before and we were looking for some moisture to take it down into the soil. By the afternoon the snow had done its job and was all gone. 

Dialogue 1 - Compost Cloth

As part of my studies I am working with different ways the natural environment can leave its mark on textiles. I am calling each of these attempts - dialogues.

The first dialogue is a quickie - with the compost. I put a length of unbleached cotton in the compost, undisturbed for a month. This was the result.

Here is the textile out in the understory of a maple.

Looks pretty decayed and stained...

...but when I washed it most of the dark staining came out. There is some left so the cloth has changed colour.

The soft decayed edges are the best parts.

I have a desire to preserve this textile so I am researching darning and patching methods and will next do some sampling.

ANDREA GRAHAM - Feltmaker

ANDREA GRAHAM - Feltmaker Friend, Linda Wallace (tapestry weaver, stitcher, spinner etc) put me on to this inspiring feltmaker. She moves effortlessly from 2D to 3D and back. I feel aligned with her when she talks about sustainable craft/art and nurturing the planet.

Check out her blog and her unique web site that is full of surprises - I think she designed that too.

Thanks Linda, for the find.

Books Books Books

As with all modules of work in this BA(Hons) Embroidered Textiles programme, there is lots of reading.
I do like having to read because there is no guilt in settling down with a book and looking up to see most of the day has passed, which does tend to happen to me when I get hooked on a good one.
There have been several books this semester that have been most influential in my work.
I devoured Nalini Nadkarni's book on trees.
Even though she is a scientist and professor with a doctorate in tropical canopies, this book is very personal about her own connection with trees and her family life, which makes it easy to relate to.
It is a great example of someone with the ability to link art, science and life.

This book has lots of provocative ideas about what we need to do to survive and thrive on the planet for the next millenia.
It is a book of essays written by experts. There are lots of statistics to back up their arguments and I found it very readable.
However, there is a big problem with the case they present.
Unlike Nalini's approach where she covered all the bases in a loving dissertation on trees, this book thinks it did the same by looking at the role of governments, education, religion, media etc in bringing about a global shift from being a consumer society to sustainable one BUT it completely and totally left out the role of the artist and art as an agent of change.
Art history shows time and time again how art has led the way with what is new in ways of thinking and viewing and doing.
I checked the index, there is no mention of 'art', 'artist,' 'beauty' ... so its not a balanced view.
Makes me wonder what else they left out.

These 2 books have been great references to dip into while I am developing my ideas.
For example, when I am contemplating using a symbol in my work I check it out in one of these books to find out the history and multiple meanings it might have. I then follow these leads with web searches.

Phew, I have been wordy this post.
It is probably because all I have been doing this past week is pecking at my key board putting together 2 art proposals - Assignment C.

Textiles in the Environment

Another of my projects where I am getting very little interaction is this one where I put a length of unbleached cotton in the pond.

It has submerged and moved around a bit, probably been moved by the Canada geese that have returned and use this spot to waddle in and out of the pond.

After a couple of months, the cloth has become brown and a little green but I am sure this isn't the staining I was hoping for and it will wash off when I throw it in the washing machine. In fact, I think the clear spring water is preserving the cloth.

The best part of this experiment has been the lovely photos of layers and reflections I have been able to capture at different times of the day and in different weather.

Once again, I will lift this cloth when I need it for the next 'brilliant' idea I think of.

Wrapped Trees

As part of a project for my studies, I wrapped 4 different types of trees, each in a length of unbleached cotton tied with jute string.

For weeks now I have been looking for some interaction with the cloth.

but there has been nothing, except that the cloth is beginning to fall off the tree, which is just gravity at work.

Some animal has been running up and down the left hand trunk of this cedar and left dirt marks but the tree has not left its mark.

We are nearing the end of the rainy season here so I'm not expecting anything more to happen to these cloths but I will leave them up until I need them for some other 'brilliant' idea.

When I walk past these wrapped trees, I am reminded every time of the many trees in Northern India with 5 foot wide painted bands around the lower part of the trunk. For the 3 weeks we were travelling in India, I couldn't work out why the people did this.

Dialogue with Cedar

One of the trees I have been working with is the Western Red Cedar.

I found this burnt stump......

... and rubbed my sketchbook over it.

The tree has wonderfully suggestive textural bark.

The drawing the cedar did on a breezy day.