a catalogue for disquiet

I've made a catalogue for 'disquiet'

you'll find a preview here

so grateful to the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery

for allowing me the space and time

to create a story of sorts through my work.

sorry, but it seems i'm beyond help.

correspondence sometimes comes in drifts, like snow

there's the seasonal influx of requests for assistance with school studies.
i try to respond kindly, even when the questions seem silly.

"why do you do art?" is a frequent flyer.
sometimes it is temping to write "because i am otherwise unemployable"
though it's pretty close to the truth.

i don't mind answering a well thought-out selection of questions, but only if you can't find the answers by googling.

towards the end of the northern college year there's generally a bunch of emails from people who would like to come and stay to "assist me in the studio" in return for one-on-one teaching.
a working holiday in the sunny south.

from my point of view this means i would be fully responsible for a person i have never met before, providing meals, a bed, entertainment and transport so that i can explain to them exactly how i want a bundle put together, or a dress stitched, or?

it's far less stressful just to do the work myself. besides, i enjoy what i do. i love the spontaneity that is possible when i am alone (well, with only canine and feline company) wielding scissors and needles and dancing in the leaflitter that carpets the floor of my studio.

and perhaps it is a psychological disability but i feel utter and overwhelming claustrophobia at the mere thought of having to share a month or more of days (and evenings) with another adult whom i may not have actually met prior to their arrival.

in recent years i have been finding increasingly beautiful areas in which to hold workshops and as a consequence the volume of inquiries from people wanting to take a gratis class in return for stoking the fires and gathering plant matter has escalated. i could have filled the upcoming class at Scott's Head entirely with such volunteers :: which could have been hilarious...
a dozen people all stoking the fire and gathering leaves, which would probably look like a splendid pagan ritual but won't pay the electricity bill.

there have been suggestions that i should increase workshop fees so that i can offer scholarship places. i don't see how that would be at all fair to paying participants. it's not going to happen.

and then there are the truly cheeky requests from people who live close to a workshop location and "just want to drop in for a day to see what it's all about". hmm.

some tell me they left well-paid positions in order to pursue their dream career. i applaud their bravery but that is their choice, and not my responsibility. i was an unemployed sole parent (of three) at the time that i returned to plant dyeing. it took me over fifteen years to achieve financial independence and be solely supported by this work. i suppose it's just as well i didn't have a comfy job because i'm not that brave and i might have clung to it and my life would have turned out awfully dull as a result.

but the long and the short of it is, please don't ask me if you can come and stay with me so that i can feed you and house you and teach you everything i know.

because the answer will be

thank you so much for your kind offer, 
but i regret i cannot accept.

on the other hand, if you sign up for a workshop, i will do my best to share my knowledge and skills. because that's my job. and my life. and i love doing it.

ikigai - or, a very fine week

 

what a week it's been.

last Sunday i decided in my infinite wisdom that a curtain originally belonging to one of my grandmothers needed cleaning.

someone (who shall remain nameless) had left it on a pile of other stuff where a certain cat had decided it was pretty comfortable.

my front loading washing shrine (so called because i genuflect before it every time i put in a load) has proved gentle on delicate things thus far so i didn't think twice about tossing in the curtain and choosing the handwash setting.

actually that's not strictly true. i did think twice. i thought that i didn't want to wash it by hand because i was a little unsure about exactly what the cat had been doing on the curtain in addition to slumbering.

a short time later the shrine was complaining of indigestion and upon investigation i discovered that all the fluffy chenille bits had completely clogged the space between the rotating drum and the bigger drum that keeps the water in the machine and stops it running through the house.

not good.

pulling out the filter at the bottom unleashed a replay of the shower scene from Psycho.

thick red dye gushed across the laundry floor and down the centre drain. it was only later, trying to rinse out the machine that i thought to take a picture of it. i hate to think what the emissions from the original weaving mill/dye house must have been like.

not a pretty sight.

three hours later and some very tricky (and repetitive) work with a Qantas stirring spoon and the wire handle of an old bucket (both discovered to be essential washing machine repair tools and now stored with the operator handbook and the dime i use to open the filter hatch) order had been restored. 

also i was filled with that singular sense of satisfaction that comes with having solved a problem without slicing my fingers on the razor sharp edges of the access holes in the drum.

except that it was now 4.23 pm

and

i had been planning to attend the 'unearthed' exhibition opening at the Barossa Regional Gallery at 3pm

no matter, i thought.

they will not have remarked upon my absence,

it's a group show after all.

wrong.

i received an email on Tuesday

telling me the work had won an award.

i was ready to sink through the floor at my unintentional rudeness.

not a good feeling.

but it was wonderful to have the work recognised and commended.

the piece is entitled 'open cut' and refers to the mechanics of extracting iron ore from the earth as well as to the wound left on the earth when the mine is exhausted

 and created from iron objects discarded by humans, found by roads and railway tracks in outback South Australia

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other good things encountered this week include this book

it shows actual size photographs of leaves, together with an image of how they appear collectively AND a silhouette of the tree itself. it is exactly the sort of book that a bear like me needs. i foresee many happy hours with it and suspect it may be accompanying me overseas, though it is heavy. to this end i have ordered a new pilot case, with wheels. schlepping my essential reading material through airports is wearing out my spine.

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the best thing of all this week has been your response to the wandercards

thank you

i'll be taking last orders soon

and am busy dyeing cloth and scarves to pack them up in

ready to mail them out in the last week of February

some of you have written so kindly about your workshop experiences with me,
or about your reading of my books.
it's been absolutely heart-warming.

one person did ask if i could just send a PDF
so she could print her own

but

one of the things i was particularly excited about

was the cardstock i've selected.

it's 100% post consumer recycled and dyes beautifully

so you should be able to have some fun with them.

(instructions for printing with plants on paper come with the cards)

by the time you receive them, the ink (vegetable based) will have cured sufficiently, too.

i bundled a set pretty much hot off the press.

even after curing i would avoid really fresh eucalyptus leaves because in my experience they always stick to paper 

 someone else suggested i should reveal what's on the working side of the cards, because otherwise it would be like buying a pig in a poke. but that would be like spelling out the fine detail of a workshop before it happens, which i think will spoil the experience.

the wandercards are a distilled form of  'being (t)here' workshop in a box that you can use at home or take with you when you travel. 

mine are certainly going to travel with me.

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the other joy at present is minding my youngest grandchild.

i'm not usually a fan of selfies

but

 here we are, having a morning schnuggle.

so where is this long saga leading?

i've been thinking about ikigai

that wonderful Japanese word that means

'the reason for getting out of bed'

i have so many!!!
for me, my entire life is my ikigai.

but if you'd like a methodology to work yours out

you can always try this 

borrowed from Wikipedia

nine years later

back in 2005 i had the absolute joy of undertaking my first [formal ie paid for] costume commission.
the production was 'petroglyphs - signs of life' and the company Leigh Warren + Dancers

i designed and made the costumes, twined a large ball of string that became a key prop and devised the poster image.

it was a wonderful experience.

working on 'petroglyphs' led [in 2007] to creating costumes for the West Australian Ballet production 'debris'...dancer Frances Rings [who had joined LW+D for 'petroglyphs'] had been commissioned to choreograph the show and requested to have me as costume designer

now nine years later i have the delight of working with Gala Moody and Michael Carter who were also members of LW+D back in 2005

both now live in Spain but have been in Adelaide this month working with Leigh Warren and State Opera on the Philip Glass Opera trilogy, Leigh's last production before he hands the dance company that he founded some twenty-five years ago to a new artistic director and heads for fresh fields

the morsels on their bodies were part of the blue series i began in New Orleans and continued in Portland [last year]

kicking myself that i skipped taking a photo of Michael in one of these shirt collar pieces

but am hoping that [sooner or later] a moving image will appear on Michael's website

&

my favourite production so far for  Leigh Warren + Dancers

two bodies dancing

about Frances Rings

lastly, clicking on the photo below will take you to a link with more images from Debris

photo above by Jenni Large, borrowed from the Artful management website for purposes of tempting readers toward the link

how does your garden grow?

yesterday i drove down to Murray Bridge
to install my pieces for the exhibition

How Does Your Garden Grow?

glimpse of the catalogue

 i was accompanied by my "assistant"
who voraciously consumed quantities of milk while busily charming the socks off the gallery crew

glimpse of the cat

 but fortunately fell asleep long enough for me to paint my poem on the wall
[using an indigo-flavoured milk and lime mix]

nightsongs [text]

nightsongs

 when not otherwise occupied, Yoda practiced yoga

here's what the rest of my work looks like

cloud

each precious drop [detail]

each precious drop [detail]

each precious drop [detail]

each precious drop [detail]

each precious drop [detail]

each precious drop [installation view]

please join us there on Sunday March 30 at 2.30 to see the work of Dana Kinter, Petrus Spronk, Morgan Allender and Matthew Bradley[and mine in reality as opposed to batfone-snaps]

at the end of the day my assistant was exhausted

  

me too.


PS the bones were donated by Ginger, a jersey cow who died from natural causes [i think snakebite counts as natural in Australia] some years ago and who was buried respectfully but whose remains were exposed after a vicious north wind that blew the mound away.

correspondence

i get a lot of correspondence from people wanting me to advise them on dyeing. some of it gets quite specific. 

i am sharing this one, not because i want to pick on this person or poke fun or be an inter-bitch but because my responses may answer similar questions for others. [please bear this in mind if you are moved to comment.]

[i have changed the name of my correspondent to the non-gender specific Jordan to save him/her possible embarrassment but otherwise have not edited their messages]


Dear Ms. Flint, I hope this email finds you well. I recently purchased your book Eco Colour and I am totally in love with it! I love the way you wrote it and all the information in it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and for creating such a wonderful book! I'm a holistic interior designer and for the first time I'm venturing into the wonderful world of natural dyeing. I'm interested in developing a line of nautical fabrics that can be used for upholstering, window treatment and beach wear. I am planning to use Linens and Silks for upholstering and window treatments, and for the beachwear I'm planning to use several blends of organic cottons. Some of these blends are a mixture of cotton with bamboo and spandex (around 5%), cotton with soy and spandex, and cotton with hemp. I wanted to kindly ask you if you could possibly guide me as to what kinds of dyes are the most permanent and the ones that are more likely to withstand fading as a result of the sun, salt water, and even chlorine from a swimming pool? I will deeply appreciate from the bottom of my heart any information that you can share with me. Thank you for being such an inspiration. My warmest regard, - Jordan 

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Dear Jordan
Thank you for buying my book. I would be experimenting with local plants (and considering the impact that large scale production would have on the environment ) before launching a business.
Doing light and wash fastness tests etc.  and I'd be researching the properties of the fabrics too.

In any event you have posed rather a lot of quite specific questions. Are you wishing to engage me as a consultant?

Cordially

India

www.indiaflint.com

this message has been buzzed to you by a blue-tailed bee

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Hello Ms Flin, what a pleasure to hear from you. My apologies for having bombarded you with so many questions. I am new to this and I thought that the more details I gave the better. What i wanted to know was basically if there is a particular type of natural dye that is more permanent than others. I guess the answer is not that simple. I am considering starting a home based business for local distribution. I live in a beach town where there are also lots of wooded areas which have a rich variety of vegetation. A lot of the things I create are from recycled materials also. I would love to hire you as a consultant but unfortunately i dont have a budget for it at this moment. If you provide me with your consultation fee I will make a note of it.  

Thank you again for responding to my email and congratulations on your wonderful book! 

My warmest regards,

Jordan

-------

 

dear Jordan

I too would respond more formally but as you have not advised me of your surname I am not in a position to do so. 

Nor have you given me any indication of where you live other than that you are in a beach town blessed with wooded areas. That you call it "wood" and not "bush" suggests that you are from somewhere other than Australia. That you write in English may narrow your location to an anglophonic region. But that could be anywhere and so my advice regarding the [to me unknown] vegetation would be meaningless.

If you have read the book you will know that it's not just about the vegetation, the growing location, the season of harvest but also about the quality of the local water, the choice of dye vessel and the type of fibre you wish to dye.
 
I've developed my methods based on a lifetime of working with textiles and plants. Dyeing funds my living.

Your proposal to develop a business as a result of acquiring my book is on a par with me deciding to set up as an aircraft technician after leafing through a book about planes. 

It would be both truthful and easy to say that indigo and eucalyptus are the two most durable dyes I know...but whether they would be suitable for your applications [you mention spandex and chlorine, two substances I avoid where possible] is not for me to speculate.

May I respectfully suggest that you begin by familiarizing yourself with the local flora? Learn to identify it, know what is protected and what can be gathered and then begin to conduct your own experiments within a context of responsible collection and resource management. Consider planting a dye garden. Peruse the local weed list. Make samples, conduct light and wash fastness tests and then you may be in a position to determine whether you might launch a viable business. You might even think about taking a class.

But you can't grow potatoes without digging the ground. *

cordially
India


*Unless you are going to build a raised bed. Either way it does still require some effort.

PayPal SchmayPal

after a phone call, six emails and hours spent searching for documents, copying them and uploading them to PayPal i am apparently still under suspicion. even though my account page says i have complied.

perhaps they think my whirled-wandering involves training people in nefarious activities [note the bit about "politically exposed persons". i rarely expose myself, preferring to dress [as my children put it] in things that resemble small Bedouin tents and if i did expose myself, it would not be to politicians. so there.

or maybe they want blood? DNA? perhaps my grandmother's left index finger? that last one could be tricky, she was buried in 1987. and i'm not sure i want to disturb her slumbers. and my other grandmother was cremated and later sprinkled around the farm dam. maybe i could scrape up a soil sample?

clearly i was not cut out to be a shopkeeper and it is just as well this has happened now, and not when i eventually launch the promised limited edition publication as it would have made a right dog's breakfast of the distribution process. [thank you, those of you who have suggested other means of accepting payments, i am exploring possibilities]

meanwhile i'm going back to the sewing room. it's nice and quiet there.

wishing merry everything, good health, abundance and happiness to y'all....and if anyone still wants to buy anything i have made [via the interpixies, that is] FarFetch is presently your only option.

the trouble with my name

i have had trouble with my name from time to time
especially when it comes to email
which is why i changed it to appaloosa rather than using
mail AT indiaflint DOT com

because things with india in them do bounce back
and people like spotty ponies better, it seems
i suppose it could be worse.
nigeria, for example

but this morning's advice from PayPal
that they were investigating me for money-laundering
due to the sudden inflow of $ [thank you, those kind people who opted to purchase a scarf!]
took the cake

so
today i am posting the scarves for those kind and quick people who paid before they closed the gate
[though apparently i have to await an investigation before PayPal will pay me]
but any further interest will have to rest on ice

and given today's weather forecast promises 43 degrees C
...that's  109.4    on the scale of F major
ice may be a good thing.

a tangled web

today i was planning to write about what i'd been up to this week
that i needed to make a new scarf [gave the last one away to my uncle who drove from Colorado and back again to visit with me on the weekend]

with the added confession that i was missing the fragrance of home so much
that i actually went and bought some bunches of eucalyptus to play with [sound of hand being firmly smacked]

and that i then quite unexpectedly found a friend here in Portland
whilst wandering the Hoyt Arboretum [with aforementioned uncle]

it's a snow gum and so is an excellent choice for its location [in the wintergarden]
except that it may get bigger in this protected locality than at home in the Australian Alps
[where it would be clinging to a hillside and subject to horizontal ice storms]
and crowd out its neighbours

Eucalyptus pauciflora : snow gum

that it is getting cooler by the day
and so some armies were needed to keep my gathering paws warm

prints from windfall snowgum leaves

and the other side

note : the slender leaf prints are quite a different colour to those on the SilkyMerino shown in the photo at the very top. this is because the sleeves were snipped from a sweater that had been washed several times and thus had been premordanted with a sodium-rich substance

i was also going to mention that there are easier ways of straining bananas
than putting them through a pillowcase
the straining part is fine
it's the washing of the pillowcase that is the tedious part.
bananas have fine stickability and if even minute parts are left attached are almost impossible to dislodge once dry

wandering in the Japanese Garden again yesterday
i betook myself to the small shop there and leafed through a few books
one devoted to furoshiki offered a the perfect answer
reminding me that a piece of cloth can be used to hold all sorts of things
so i tied a piece of cloth to the handles of the strainer by the ears
because there were too many bananas to stuff into a sock

it does look a little as though i have just regurgitated my porridge
but more of that later

continuing my stroll i found an exquisite pond

in which leaves and fir needles were floating
here's a closer look

and then when you take the colour away

it looks curiously like a fusion between the hands of Dorothy Caldwell and Christine Mauersberger
which is kind of sweet, because i first met Christine when we both took Dorothy Caldwell's class in Ohio back in 2009

which was around about the time, or a little after, that i remember receiving a number of emails from Cassandra Tondro with questions about various processes described in my book Eco Colour

so it was a bit surprising to read in Handeye today her description of the ecoprint idea as coming to her from the pavements. maybe she had indeed previously discovered the technique that way [zeitgeist and all that], but if so she didn't mention it in the correspondence.

Christine  kindly said a few words which provoked a comment on her blog suggesting that i in turn had purloined the technique from Karen Diadick Casselman. actually, i didn't.

to set the record straight :

Karen Diadick Casselman's dyeing in bundles that i experienced [as her assistant] at the time she visited Australia in 1998 involved wrapping leaves and cloth together with a range of what i consider to be toxic mordants [as well as household substances such as cleaning sprays and perfumes]. She also did some very fine work with lichens and barbed wire.

We corresponded for a long time and I've always squirmed when people describe my work as 'eco-dye' because Karen coined that particular phrase and it really belongs to her. 

The descriptor 'ecoprint' came into use through my thesis work with eucalyptus as i considered at the time that being able to test the leaves for dye potential by steaming a leaf in a bundle for a short while as opposed to the energy-hungry process of boiling out the leaves for an hour and then heating the cloth in the resultant liquid for an hour [where the dye colour was going to be changed by the water quality anyway] to see what the colour might be [was more sustainable]. 

But I suppose i should have called it Latvian-Easter-Egg-Dyeing-But-On-Cloth which is where i got the idea from myself [before I met Karen]. My family has been dyeing eggs that way for at least 150 years [that's as far back as the handed-down-memories go] and so have many other European folk.
that would be the truest attribution. except it's a bit of a mouthful.

and as for printing on paper, my great-aunt, Master Bookbinder Ilse Schwerdtfeger was doing that back in the 1930s except that unlike her great-niece, she used pressure and time [and a few "eye-of-newt" mordants] whereas i use a cauldron. i wrote about her work in IAPMA Bulletin 52

and now if you've read this far you deserve a gold star. and what i had been planning to mention somewhere along the line and now comes just as you're dropping off is the hot news that Christine Mauersberger has recently been confirmed as teaching down-under next year at the Geelong Textile Retreat, that splendid annual event organised by Janet de Boer and her tireless team and TAFTA

the event also features other luminaries including Dorothy Caldwell and Sandra Brownlee [but i think their classes are already full]

and before you leap to the comment box and tell me to get back in mine...i'm not criticising Ms Tondro. i just found it curious that the appellation 'ecoprint', as well as the process should serendipitously appear from the pavements.

that's all.  and i think it should do for a while.

the work:life balance

 

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