Textiles and Tea and stamping and such

 Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured Alanna Wilcox, one of the highest energy people yet. Full of ideas, energy, rapid speech, the hour was over in no time.

Here she is, glam shot, with her book. She's a dyer and textile worker, spinning and knitting, who has developed a system for exactly matching colors in dyeing. She uses commercial dyes and has calculated the exact ratios to copy colors at will, for yarn dyeing.

She's a generous teacher, offered to be in touch with anyone sending her questions.

Here's an example of her spun and knitted color and design, matched to a painting.

She designed, spun and knitted the mittens as a requirement for advanced study in dyeing and fiberarts.

And here's her motto

She also daringly got into a discussion of art and craft, usually a tricky thing because of passion around the whole issue, and a lot of conflict. Me, I'd rather just get on with working and not get embroiled, but she went there, interestingly. In brief, here's her Venn diagram of the intersection. 

 

And here's how she thinks!

She likes to spin yarn with a concept in mind, as in this Wizard of Oz shawl, each character depicted in the color and texture of a yarn.  She's a master spinner, as well as dyer.

So here was yet another generous, happy textile artist. 

I still would have liked to know why an artist wants an exact match. Both she and her interviewer seemed to take it for granted, but to me it's a question. 

It's about the ability to replicate,  I suppose, but I haven't found a reason why an individual dyer/spinner not making yarn as a business, would need to do that. Serious question, and if you have any input, please input it. 

Perhaps because I'm more interested in natural dyeing, where replication isn't an issue, nature having little interest in it, that I'm puzzled. Or maybe it's the other way around -- only if you have little interest in replicating would you venture into natural dyeing.

Anyway it was a rapid hour, and her skills are amazing.

Speaking of natural dyes and other such thingummies, I finished the stamp fest yesterday, and here's the curtain back in place. 

With a detail of the design. 

Lighting in the bathroom leaves a bit to be desired, but you get the gist. I like how the gold catches the light as the curtain moves.

The sepia stamping is archival, waterproof, ink. 

All in all, a happy little detour. 

Figures five and six, and the next fun thing.

So the figures have changed dramatically from the human type shapes where this started. I  went with what seemed called for, after trying many ideas.

This is a two sided piece, showing you here both sides. I need to make a stand for it. A bit more might happen after I've looked at it a day or two, but maybe not.

This definitely needs to be exhibited where you can see both sides behind glass. Which, if  my plans work out, it will be. I also need to name it.  I have several thoughts about this. They'll probably work out once it's set on its stand. And the name will make the meaning clearer. The plan! Reactions welcome as always.

Next, another project I remembered, in the course of finishing the latest figures.

This is a piece of, well, if you know fabrics, you know it's linen, lovely piece from Dharma trading. I dyed it years ago with turmeric and yellow onionskins. It's variegated, interesting, not the dull solid color of synthetic dyes, which are good sometimes, not here. In real life it's a deeper color than here. The white LED overhead light washed it out a bit.

It's a portiere from the upstairs bathroom where I took the doors off the base cabinet. Cat owners, or staff, need no explanation. I have another one in the downstairs bathroom, waiting to be dyed. That will empty out a section of the freezer where my containers of natural dyes live.

Finally I'm going to do the stamping on this one that I've been meaning to do for nemmind how long.

And here's the doings. 

 I carved these stamps from plastic erasers and other materials. The great thing about carving erasers, aside from their being just the right texture, is that you  can draw your design and carve on both sides. 

I do seem to have a thing about two sided items. At about eleven o'clock there, you can see part of an eraser drawn but not yet carved 

I've used all kinds of sources for design ideas, a cross section of the inside of a deer's nose being a favorite, and a satellite picture of the tributaries of the Mississippi River another. Sometimes I draw then carve, sometimes I carve freehand. Whatever floats my boat at the time.

A pencil and a small Xacto blade, size 3"×2" plastic eraser,  is all you need. Try it, it's really fun. Much more interesting designs than laser cut rubber stamps which to my mind, are too full of anxious details. But that's me. 

The white plastic erasers are what you need. The pink ones don't carve -- the blade bounces off and buries itself in the thumb holding the eraser, ask me how I know this.

And after humming happily and rummaging through the collection, I selected some for decorating the linen piece.  

Also some metallic acrylic paint. Totally washable, in fact if you get acrylic paint in the wrong place, you'll never shift it. 

And it doesn't matter that it won't be as soft as fabric paint would be, for this purpose. You can see I've used it quite a bit with these stamps. You need to wash it promptly after stamping so you get the paint out of the grooves before it dries permanently in place.

I'll probably use only one or two stamps, repeat pattern, in practice.

It's enough fabric for a summer skirt which, who knows, it might eventually become.

So that's the current State of the Studio chez Boud.