Tree Cloths Removed

In March 2011, after 14 months, I took the tree cloths off the trees, laid them on the grass to dry then brought them inside. They were washed and ironed.

Were these domestic activities to be my response in the dialogue?

Each tree made distinctively different marks. 

I left the cloths up on the wall for quite a while, not sure how I was going to continue the dialogue.

What did I want to say?

My tutor advised me it was time for more sampling.

Staining on Tree Cloths

By November 1st snow and cooler temperatures slowed down the rate of staining on the tree cloths.

In the darkness under the Cedar tree its cloth stayed wet and had decayed more rapidly than the others.

By November the Cedar tree cloth was in a fragile state.

over the summer and fall I had continued with other dialogues within the  Douglas-fir ecosystem. I laid a piece of cloth on the ground and left the leaves and debris fall on it. Each week I would uncover a corner, cut off a piece and bring it inside.

On windy days I tied a brush to a branch and held a framed cloth up for the tree to draw on.

Most of these dialogues suggested ideas I could take further but it was the tree cloths I decided to focus on for my BA(Hons) studies.

Tree Cloths

Within a few weeks, the cloth wrapped around the Cedar was rearranged by fauna running up and down the sloping trunk. I didn't touch the cloth.

By October staining was clearly visible.

As I had hoped, each tree stained its cloth in a distinctly different way.

The cloths are tied on the trees with a hand made jute string I bought at 10,000 Villages store. It was showing signs of decay too.

BA(Hons) Graduation Exhibition Work

I have been rather quiet on my blog this past month or so because I have had my head down stitching. I am working on my final work for a degree I have been pursuing for the past 6 years. Soon I will be finished. My final work began over 2 years ago when I initiated a series of dialogues within the forest I live in. One of these dialogues involved wrapping cloth around tree trunks.

I wanted the trees to leave their marks on the cloths.

I selected 4 different types of trees, hoping for distinctive marks from each one.

Cedar - Arbutus - Douglas-fir - Maple

Eco-printing a la India Flint

Recently i spent a day eco-printing, experimenting with plants from outside

After steaming i left the bundles tied up and resisted even peaking, leaving them to peacefully cure

A lichen covered snag blew down from our magnificent Dogwood tree.
I have temporarily claimed it, wrapping it in various pieces cloth. 

It is outside my studio window...

... where it serves to remind me of the pace of natural staining processes.

MISSA Day 5

After completing a screen printing of a wallpaper over the whole cloth, I put on a wash of light blue paint beside the yellow. I put it out in the sun and manipulated it to get the right flow of soft lines.

I added leaves and flowers as resists - the same plants/shapes as the screen printed motifs

Linda working on placement of motifs on her compositional cloth

Judy cutting a stamp to make a motif on her cloth.

We ended this wonderful workshop with our instructor, Eleanor Hannan giving us a critique of each of our cloths as they hung in the stage area of the smaller theater on campus.
In the week everyone had completed their cloth to a stage where they could now add the final layers, whatever they needed to be. I'll keep you posted on how my cloth develops.
I will be returning to MISSA next year and I look forward to another class with Eleanor because among other joyous things, she gave us all permission to just play for a whole week - something I need more of in my life.

MISSA Day 4

Another layer was added to our cloths by freely brushing on the back with paint

I added some dry brush strokes with a tree stump under the cloth

While drying in the sun my cloth attracts some comments

MISSA Day 3

The 3rd day was spent mostly on silk screening on our 4 meters of cloth.

I wanted a wall paper effect so combined an alternating band made with a stamp and my silk screen pattern rotated 180 degrees each time. 

I didn't quite get the motifs in the right place to make the pattern interlocking but it worked well enough.

At this stage the 3 layers were looking a bit jumbled up in parts.
But there was lots more work to be done to pull it all together.

MISSA Day 2

We began day 2 by making different stamps and playing around with them.

The next step with our cloth was to establish territories on it. 

I used my stamps to define the different areas of an abstracted face. 

In the afternoon i sun-printed with ferns down the side.

At the end of the day i hung the cloth from a balcony so i could see all of it when i returned to the classroom the next morning.