Textiles and Tea

I'm very glad I caught yesterday's program. Elin Noble is a dyer as well as weaver and machine sewer, with a website worth seeing.

She works in collaboration with her Danish husband, in various places, mostly the US and Europe. 

She had the amazing luck long ago as a student at the University of Washington to have Jacob Lawrence as an instructor. 

He's a force of nature, and created amazing series of paintings about the history of the African American, particularly their trek north. I don't see his influence in her work other than her devotion to his art.

Back to her

On the wall behind her is a Chinese grass raincoat and hat, from her travels.

She has experimented and taught the use of dyes, synthetic and now natural, and is interested in transparency and organdy fabric. My friend! 

 

This is Korean wrapping fabric, bojagi, square pieces to be pieced into clothing.   Using that tradition, she employed also the natural dye she and her husband made from windfall apples and tree bark in Denmark, and brought large amounts to their US studio to work on.

She uses dye like a painter, using shibori techniques to create shapes and  edges in the design, many repetitions in the dye bath and the discharge bath. Dyeing is very physical work

Here's a large installation of her dyed fabrics in grey scale -- white to black with the intervening greys -- in Korea, where people were encouraged to walk among the fabric, kids running and playing.

And here's her book, written years ago, which I've asked my library to acquire.

And here are shibori effects created using slats of wood instead of clamps to secure the fabric so the dye is directed to specific areas of the design.

More amazing works here. 

I do like artists who work with transparency, as she does. And  I like modular work, where you create many parts which you assemble into a whole.

So, after a trying day at the radiation place, this was a great tonic to come home to.

And as I parked at the house, see who was waiting.

He didn't move till I was quite close. We had nesting doves a while back just above where he's standing, and I wonder if their descendants consider this their home. He was definitely the friend I needed to see right then.