'Earth Repair' - the Beginings

'Earth Repair' began as a response to what I considered to be an emergency situation.

March 11, 2011 - quoting from my journal -

'Emergency. It has been a long winter here on the island. The deer are hungry. They are eating the bark on my precious Indian Plum. I need to care for this tree. The deer have free choice in the rest of the forest - even my emerging spring bulbs but my Indian Plum is not part of their buffet.

I am placing sacrificial tea cloths over the wounds to protect them. First, I lost my needle - I felt vulnerable and inadequate - I couldn't do what I needed to do because I had lost my valuable tool. Flashback to an earlier time when women depended on their needlework skills to survive. A lost needle was potentially a loss of livelihood translating to an increased risk of not being able to adequately care for her family.

I ran inside to get another needle after I had given up searching in the deep layers of moss and decaying leaves. When I returned with another needle I found my first one hanging by a thread - ties in with that vulnerable feeling again.

I was having trouble holding the cloth in place and sewing at the same time which had lead to the loss of the original needle. Then I heard a distant ambulance siren reminding me this is a triage situation.

Another run inside to get my wooden-based pin cushion, given to me by my mother. A reminder of how important life skills are passed from one generation to the next.

I was now performing the required surgery as I pushed a couple of pins into the bark to temporarily hold the edges of the cloth as I sutured it in place.'

The 'Earth Repair' cloth with embroidery wrought by and unknown hand.

Sutured in place around the wound to stop the deer from eating more of the bark. 

I have since read the Saanich First Nations people make a bark tea as a purgative and a spring tonic. Perhaps that is all the deer were doing because they had upset stomachs after having to eat plants not usually in their diet.

Continuing from my journal entry - 'The tea cloth continues to function - to protect wood and in doing so sacrifices itself to the elements - it was raining as I secured the cloths in place.

Inside the home, the cloth would be used to present food - outside it is now protecting the bark so the tree can get its food....

The cloth has been taken from the horizontal to the vertical plane. Does it still read as a table cloth? It has been taken from a smooth flat object to a wrinkled curved form. Does it still read as a cloth?'

These were musings for the development of work while I was studying for a BA (Hons) in Embroidered Textiles. After 6 years of study, my graduation exhibition work was related to my thoughts and actions on this Day of the Emergency.

'Earth Repair' Makes it into the World of Threads Festival 2016

Lesley Turner, 'Earth Repair' 36" x 35"/92 x 89 cm, 2011 - ongoing, embroidered (anonymous) vintage cotton afternoon tea cloth, leaf skeletons, cotton & polyester thread, jute string, wooden branch, MinWax; tree staining, washing, ironing, hand & machine applique, waxing.

This work has been accepted into the World of Threads Festival 2016 in the 'Late in the Season' exhibit in the display area of the Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre in Oakville, Ontario, from Saturday, October 29 to Sunday, November 27th, 2016.

Whippee!

I spent most of the day following the instructions in several emails explaining exactly how to get the work ready for hanging and how to box it up.

I made a box so the work will fit snugly and not move around much while in transit. I made the box with a reuseable cap so it can be reused to return the work. 

The work can not be folded or even rolled because of the many layers of delicate, dried, leaf skeletons stitched to the cloth. 

Inside the box, I made a suspension system to hang the work from the top. 

I sewed together pieces of bubble wrap to make a snug bag to pad the work while it is in the box.

Then there was all of the documentation required. Make a label with details of name and title and secure it to the back of the work. Type up hanging instructions with images. Put my name and email on every piece of packaging and both parts of the box. Include a spare set of hanging devices - just in case. Phew!

Now to wait until the right day to mail the box so it arrives between the 2 dates set for the arrival of work in Oakville. 

Dawne Rudman and Gareth Bate are the organisers, curators, festival originators and all of the other jobs it takes to mount such a large exhibition of work from around the world - 134 artists from 24 different countries. You can see why I am very pleased to have work selected again for this festival.

Dawn and Gareth curate the exhibitions with a system I think is unique to their festival. They put out an international call for artists' most recent work and wait to see what comes in. They look at images of the work while identifying some common themes. Work is selected that fits the chosen themes. That's how I think they work.

Next post I'll tell you why this unassuming work has taken 5 years to make - so far.

Backyard Project - Moisture - Mulch - Mulberry

Ron calibrating the moisture meter.

When the rains stopped late June and our dry season began we had to start hand watering all of the new beds. The irrigation system in the backyard had been destroyed by all of the construction and earthworks. The irrigation company we wanted to use was booked up for months ahead but they couldn't start anyway until the next phase of construction was underway. We were a bit tardy on getting that next phase of construction going. I was busy focusing on keeping the new soil beds alive with soil building activity.

After a month or so of me leaping out of bed before 7, every third day, to go and hand water all of the new beds for a couple of hours and coming inside with my PJs wet through Ron got into planning mode and set up a temporary irrigation system. It involved multiple timers, different types of hoses and a range of sprinklers.

In some places, the perfect spot for full coverage by the sprinkler was to set it in the middle of a path. Priorities. It took Ron several weeks of shifting sprinklers, gauging water pressure, testing soil moisture with the water meter and fine tuning the timers before the system could run with less attention.

I have drawn up a moisture level plan for each garden bed with different amounts of soil moisture  related to the number of hours of sunshine and the type of plants to be planted in each bed. The moisture requiremnets are different in each area which added to the complexity of setting up a manual irrigation system.

As some garden beds filled with plant growth the watering needed to be adjusted and all of the newly planted trees continued to need regular watering of a couple of months. We continued to monitor the system over the whole summer.

This year the rains started again with a sprinkle on August 28th and the irrigation system has been turned to manual. I still need small amounts of water now I am into to fall planting.

We are very pleased we got through the summer without any loss of life and now have beds full of deep rich soil. 

Davey Tree Truck full of freshly shredded tree prunings.

Ron made contact with a local Davy Tree company owner who lives near our place. When he has a truck load of good quality shredded trees and prunings he arranges for his truck to swing by our place and dump the load. It is convenient and a cost saving for them and a load of gold for our garden. A win-win situation.

We were finishing off the second mulch pile when the Davy truck came by with a third load this summer.

I must say I am fascinated watching the details of how vehicles work.

This driver displayed impressive driving skills when he backed his large truck in under a tree to dump the load exactly where I wanted it.

Here he is at Control Central with safety vest and ear protectors on. Stabilising legs go down, the cherry-picker hoist is raised, the back door is opened, the tray is raised, the load slides out - all with accompanying different warning signals.

And there it is. I am going to ask Sammy to bring around another load of spent hops from a local brewery to mix into this pile to get it activated and to speed up the breakdown process. 

And... I found a very healthy mulberry tree for the Leaf hugelkultur bed - more details about the tree choice later.

Backyard Project - Planting in the Gravel Bed Garden

Gravel Bed garden

The plants I planted a couple of months ago are thriving, confirming my design criteria for this bed will work.

All plants must be culinary and/or medicinal, able to thrive in full sun, suited to well-drained soil,  need only low levels of water, and have blue to purple flowers with the odd one having yellow flowers.

Confident my design will work I have visited several nearby nurseries to find plants that fit the spec.

Here I am making a path through the bed using low growing plants that can take light foot traffic. I have found many different types of thyme to begin the path.

The rosemary and sage I transplanted from other old beds are thriving. I will be able to take cuttings from the rosemary once the rains begin again.  I will propagate these cuttings for another project I have in mind.

I have marked the spots for the path plants with empty pots weighted down with stones. 

The thyme path meanders through the bed like a river. 

I have read lots of books and checked many websites to make a long list of suitable plants. I keep this list in my bag ready for when I am in the vicinity of a nursery. It is a list of plants for the spots either side of the path and between the stone wall.

I have found out I love reading about a plant, visualising how it would look in a particular spot, and checking on how well it would relate to the other plants around it. 

When I look at this Gravel Bed garden I see it full of mature plants and looking beautiful. I imagine walking slowly along the meandering paths smelling and tasting leaves and harvesting a few springs for the dish I am preparing in the kitchen. There is a spot for a bench which will slow me down even more. It is what I need.

While the garden grows I am at work in my studio...

While the garden grows I am at work in my studio.

A new work. 

The challenge - how to express what is the province of Alberta on one double-sided panel?

I decided to depict the diversity of landforms in the province - landforms shaped by glacial and tectonic processes.

The schematic with a beginning sample. 

Cutting out the shapes.

I decided to focus on the interlocking shapes of the different regions and I felt colour would be a distraction. I auditioned a variety of different unbleached cottons from my stash. I selected mainly handwoven cottons from India. I washed these fabrics and lightly tumbled them dry to allow their different weaves to naturally collapse into wrinkles unique to each cloth.

Problem - how to make a neat double-sided join?

Solution - couching hand-made jute braid from India that I just happen to have in my stash, patiently waiting until needed.

The different landform shapes have been joined.

Yes, the landform edges do need more definition.

Hmmm, not sure about the outline. Is it too dark? Too wide? Does the whole panel need a wider border?

I added a border of a wider jute braid.

Nope - I don't like the way the outline of each shape takes away from the feeling of the different landform regions being related to each other. So I unpicked all of the braid on both sides.

I sewed on a much thinner jute braid.

Much better. 

Now to block the whole panel just enough to make it hang straight while not flattening out the natural landform wrinkles.

I think this must be the first work I have made without the use of my trusty irons.

Backyard Project - Sharing the Fruit and Other Ways of Encouraging Life in the Soil

We have so enjoyed a small crop of figs off our newly planted trees but we left this one for the ants. The ants are working hard at breaking down and mixing the soil in the new Hedge bed.

The results of a fun morning at our local nursery. Now to plant all of these in the beds without straw covers. There are plants that grow lots of leaves, have large leaves, or have lots of biomass in the soil - mesclun, squash, sweet potato, mullein, artichoke. Also, there are lupins to plant around the new trees, with each tree getting 4 of these nitrogen-fixing plants. There are plants for the Gravel bed garden - all medicinal or culinary. 

Willow Water

I pruned the willow tree outside my studio window then cut the prunings up finely and left them to soak in a tub of water. I have since read I need not have put the leaves in the water. Indole butyric acid (IBA) and Salicylic acid (SA) leaches out of the cut willow and into the water. These 2 chemicals act as a natural rooting hormone and prevent infection in new roots. 

I soak each root ball in the willow water before planting and give the new plants a followup drink of willow water. And I talk to them to help them settle into their new home. It all works.

Gardening rule - "One must plant all purchased plants before going back to the nursery to buy more." My sister says she has never heard of this rule and never will. And if there was such a rule it wouldn't apply to all of those cuttings and plants from friends waiting to be planted.

Following the rule, I am now allowed to go back to the nursery for more.

The nasturtiums are doing well growing next to the hot rocks. Hummingbirds and many different insects visit them. I snack on the leaves and flowers while out gardening.

Time to turn the studio beds again.

I take off the straw cover, lightly fork over the soil, give it a good watering...

...and put the cover back on so the soil can continue cooking with renewed vigour.

I am pleased with my decision to leave some beds fallow because it is so much easier to continue adding layers as the soil builds up. On the other beds, I am using plants to do most of the soil building work.

Backyard Project: Soil Building verses Plant Growing

Once all of the soil beds had a layer of mulch topped with a deep layer of straw I planted literally hundreds of seeds and waited. Patiently. But nothing except the potatoes and a few nasturtiums appeared. A month later I thought I must have bought a nonviable batch of seeds so went to another place and bought more bulk seed. 

Weeks later still nothing.

Sammy thought the straw layer may be too thick preventing the seedlings from getting the light they needed to grow. 

We pulled back the straw and found these - they have lots of different names - pill bug, roly-poly, wood louse, armadillo bug, potato bug, among others. The deep straw and rich mulch provided ideal damp dark conditions for the pill bugs and many other insects, worms, slugs and ants to thrive. And they were feasting on every new shoot that dared to pop out of the ground. But at the same time, all of the bugs were doing an excellent job at breaking down the organic matter. The pill bug and his cousins are particularly adept at breaking down the cellulose in the mulch. They were well on their to making rich soil.

I had to make the decision - leave the bugs to do their work or plant more seeds so the plants can build up the soil? I decided to do both but in different beds.

Since the potato beds were doing relatively well I pulled off most of the straw on those beds. It exposed the soil to the light and it dried up a lot and I had the added task of heaping the soil up around each potato plant. There wasn't much extra soil so some of the growing potatoes were exposed to the light and developed green sides. Oh well, I was growing potatoes for soil building and there were still more than enough to eat.

After I mounded up the soil around each potato plant I planted hundreds of seeds for the third time.

In the back straw-covered beds the bugs are hard at work.

In the front is a potato bed interplanted with 5 different types of beans and 2 different types of peas. While the beans, peas and potatoes are good companions, the beans and peas have root nodules the nitrogen fixing bugs like to live on.

Within the week, a welcome sight.

It is all about learning from experience.

Sprinkle Dyeing and Sun Printing Results

Here are my results from a day out in the sun sprinkle dyeing and sun printing.

This fabric had previously been dyed and still needed work.

I sprinkled on a mixed dye. It is interesting to see how the blue migrated further than the red before the damp fabric dried out. The red blob in the bottom is where I sprayed the fabric with water during the drying process.

This dye is made up of many different colours and is sold as black.

Sprinkle dyeing produces a distinctive look that is easily identified when used in a work.

Here are my sprinkle dye results washed and ironed. Admittedly some of the fabrics began as pre-dyed uglies but in most cases sprinkle dyeing has not improved them any. They are still ugly but I may find areas I need that I can cut out. That is the only reason why they will go back into my stash.

My sun printing results were much more promising.

In this sample, I used woven twig place mats and glass stones as resists.

The other samples were produced by twisting painted fabric into knots. The top right sampIe I added a spritz of water to after it was knotted.

So mixed results after a fun day out in the sun with friends.

Sprinkle Dyeing and Sun Printing at VISA, Victoria

During a Mark Makers' summer residency at the Vancouver Island School of Art (VISA) website we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and have a dyeing day outside.

We set up tables and brought out buckets of water to the backyard of the school.

I set up my sophisticated system for working with dye powder safely and gave a quick demo on how to fill salt shaker-type containers with dye powder.

While the air was still we explored different sprinkle dye techniques using Procion MX. 

Wet soda-soaked natural fabrics were folded, rolled and scrunched before sprinkling dye powder over them.

Eileen sprinkles dye on flat fabric.

Brenda sprinkles dye on a linen fabric already cut to shape for a garment.

This is a great way to use up old batches of dye powder. It works best with dyes made up from a mix of colours. The different colours separate out and migrate through the damp fabric at different rates.

After lunch, Dale gave us a demo of sun printing using transparent fabric paints on damp cloth. She showed us how many different resists will work to leave an impression.

With the sun overhead, we all got clear impressions of the resists. Brenda is using plastic shapes she has cut out and leaves as a resist on linen fabric she has painted with fabric paint. Others used flowers, grasses, bubble wrap, paper and cotton doilies as resisits. 

The dyed cloth was covered with plastic and taken home to batch before being rinsed and ironed.