Back from my adventure in Covelo: the katazome workshop with John Marshall. The road to Covelo, CA follows the Eel River, officially Wild and Scenic. A wonderful place to swim too!

Eel River, on the way in and out of Covelo, CA

Classes take place in John’s home/studio, a restored flour mill. The dates on the facade are 1888-1914-1999. The name of the gorgeous pink flowers escapes me.

The Mill

A few insights:  Yes, I have been making my rice paste too thick, and the raw paste too dry. Revelation: golf balls and dough-nuts are unnecessary. I really like this! Here, the raw paste is ready to steam.

Rice past resist ready to steam.

I have been working with freeze-dried indigo this summer, and it was great to observe the preparation of the vat and then the re-heating of the vat the next day. Here are pictures from our indigo experience.

Introducing the freeze-dried “instant” indigo to the vat:

Adding indigo to the vat of body temp water

Here are two ways of skimming the oxidized bubbles, “aibana” or indigo blossoms, from the top of the vat, which is necessary unless you want the dark spots of bloom on your work.

skimming method 1

skimming method 2

Using the 2nd method is great — you can then dry the bubbles and use them as indigo pigments along with the soymilk.

attaching cloth to frame

Ready to dip the cloth.  (That’s my Covelo house-mate Eva Pietzcker, an artist from Berlin who makes gorgeous woodblock prints in the Japanese tradition.) John has a rope and pulley system, used primarily for larger pieces of work which need the larger ceramic vat (which you can see behind John). These containers are from China and were originally designed to hold soy sauce.

ready to dip

In goes the cloth … count to three … pull it out and over the outside edge of the vat to drip. You want to avoid introducing oxygen. John’s rule of thumb: the rice paste resist can withstand three brief dips, then must hang to dry before further dunking. If you want it darker repeat that until you achieve the depth of color desired. Observe the paste — you want to stop before it starts to break down.

into the blue

See the lovely dark green which will turn blue as it oxidizes …

dark green turns to blue with oxidation

Afternoon break most days featured home-made shaved ice! John has a lovely Japanese cast-iron hand-crank machine with gears – the ice sits vice-grip-like in the machine on top of a flat blade. A hand crank turns the blade and the shaved ice falls into the bowl below. We tried it with powdered green Japanese tea and sugar syrup on top; and with home-made blackberry sauce! Yum! I was too absorbed in the experience to take a picture, but found this short video on YouTube that features a similar type of machine.

The hot dry air in Covelo is perfect for working outside, stretching fabric between uprights of the Wisteria arbor.

arbor and yard

placing shinshi

Oh, and I must not forget Nutmeg, the cat.

Nutmeg

Many fine experiences to reflect upon over the clouds of Colorado and beyond!

clouds above Colorado

In less than 24 hours I’ll be on my way to California! I’m taking another workshop with John Marshall and look forward to new learning, and to seeing  Sacramento, Covelo, Eureka, the Pacific and the winding roads! Hopefully this will also mean a break from the heat and humidity 

Last weekend in Loring Park –  90 degrees both days, humidity about the same — very uncomfortable! Here are a few pics:

Friends -- do we look cool? It's still early in the day...

View out the back of my booth, with Basilica in background

I met another fiber artist working with natural dyes — Dawnette Davis of Grand Rapid’s Minnesota (no website yet….). I bought a beautiful silk scarf from her dyed with iron-modified cochineal and imprinted with rusted objects….the iron modifier created a beautiful grayish violet/blue. Here’s a photo. Beautiful work!

naturally dyed (cochineal, iron) silk scarf by Dawnette Davis

I’m busy in the kitchen in between trip preparation tasks trying to put away some of the veggie garden harvest. Yesterday it was two big batches of pesto. Today it’s salsa and cutting up oodles of zucchini for the freezer. My husband planted many Gladiola bulbs and so we have them all over the house as well as garden. Trimming bouquets and deadheading in the garden today it occurred to me to freeze some blossoms and then try India Flint‘s ice flower dyeing technique when I return. Don’t you think freezing flower blossoms for dye is a brilliant idea? I really look forward to seeing what kind of color these yield …

Glad blossoms for freezing

I am not bringing the computer so expect more on the blog after August 23rd when I return!

This week I bought a piece of handmade Japanese Kozo, cut it up into 10 pieces and then made my own momigami, or “strong paper.” This is done by coating the sheets with konnyaku starch, which comes from the Devil’s Tongue root. It’s a powder you mix with water, brush on both sides of the paper and then crumple the paper into a loose ball.

kozo coated with konnyaku and scrunched

While the paper is still damp you crumple it more and work the surfaces together. The more you work with it, the more like cloth it becomes. Then spread each sheet out to dry flat on a table.

kozo wet with konnyaku starch

This treatment makes it receptive to dyes, and easy to stitch. I get my kozo and konnyaku from Wet Paint Art in St. Paul, and they get it from the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto. (Check my Resources Links.)

dry momigami

I wanted it flat (not perfectly) so I could mount my silk pieces to it, so I ironed it. I really like the wrinkled surface and the color of the kozo. And it’s a dream to hand stitch.

katazome dove on silk broadcloth, natural pigments, hand-stitched to momigami

This Saturday and Sunday I’ll be at Loring Park Art Festival.

My grandmother’s voice has been in my mind this week because I have been sitting at the sewing machine almost every day. She was a constant, loving presence in my childhood and may be the reason I continue to work with cloth. Here she is at her 90th birthday party in 1983, waving off the camera.

Nanny at 90

She – we called her Nanny – was from a big farm family with German/Luxembourgian roots that settled in Kandiohi County in western Minnesota (flat, glacial lakes, rich black soil.). (Interesting fact: kandiohi is from the Lakota language meaning “where-the-buffalo-fish-come.” After that lots of Germans, Irish, Swedes and Norwegians came.) She had an 8th grade education and after that went to dressmaking school. Her sister, my great-aunt Mary, also handy with the sewing machine, made her amazing wedding gown. She married my grandpa (“Pop”) in 1917.

Joseph and Kathryn (Theis) Thornton, 1917

I can evoke her presence when I call to mind her kind voice and her hands. During overnight visits, she would set me up with little sewing tasks, worked on mostly by hand, but sometimes using the old cast iron Singer with the knee pedal. There were bound buttonholes, pot holders, doll clothes. (My sisters developed great sewing skills making doll clothes.) I learned about finger-pressing – it works really well on linen!

I can imagine her touching, smoothing, and gently inspecting the runners I finished this week. I think she would like them. She would want one with bright, tomato red in it. I’ll remember that next time I make a batch.

katazome runners, natural pigment dyes on 100% linen

We took a walk last night an hour before sunset. Our longest day here at 45 degrees north latitude gives us roughly 15 – 1/2 hours of daylight. A glance skyward revealed this lovely sight:

Grackles and the moon

One of the babies perched below among the willow branches …

baby Grackle

On the home stretch I found this exquisitely woven American Goldfinch nest at the foot of a small tree. It must have blown down in a light breeze as it is perfectly intact, with no evidence of eggs. I learned that it takes them 6 days to build a nest. Their nests are often lined with the fluff from the seedheads they eat.

Goldfinch nest

This morning during breakfast I was startled by the tremolo call of a common loon as it flew over our house. This is a first — even though we do spot a loon or two on Lake Como each spring, no doubt in transit to the North Woods. It’s one of my favorite sounds and makes me long for quiet coniferous forests and tranquil lakes.

The humid, cool and rainy weather pattern has been lingering over our area for almost a week. The garden is lush and you can almost see it grow.

blossom on the vine

Jenny Dean’s blog post on useful garden trees for dyeing has spurred me on to try cooking my birch bark, which has been soaking for almost a month. This morning I gently simmered the bark for about an hour. The smell was not pleasant at first, but after awhile it had a vague scent of cinnamon — perhaps the tannin? After straining the liquid off I will will see what happens with some well-used linen and a couple of pieces of silk. (I used alum as a pre-mordant.)

birch brew

I am hoping for some pinks.

happy Foxglove

When I heard it was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, I skimmed my scanned family photos to see if I could find one from 1970. Lo and behold, I found this photo of the only family vacation we took after some of my siblings were “adults.” I was 13 going on 14. This was taken in the summer of 1970, shortly after my brother Skip got back from Vietnam (he’s the one in back sporting his Army hat). My dad took us (except #1 son, who was starting his career as a Prof.), to Bayfield, Wisconsin, gateway to the Apostle Islands, for a week. I remember the sailing, the fresh air, and playing (beating) my siblings at Blackjack. An earthy (and watery) crew we were. (I’m the one on the far right with the silly hat.)

Bayfield 1970

This afternoon, 40 years later, I sat on my patio and stripped the windfall branches that fell from my neighbor’s birch tree. Birch is supposed to yield some lovely earthy pinks, according to Jenny Dean’s book, Wild Color. Over the coming weeks I’ll play with this and see what happens. Still too chilly today to revisit my (2nd) vat of freeze-dried indigo.

windfall white birch branches

On Saturday we returned from a brief visit  to Savannah to visit my husband’s brother. We had never been there before. It is absolutely beautiful and so different from St. Paul. I was most impressed with the live oak trees draped with Spanish Moss, the lush vegetation, historic architecture, and of course the Atlantic as seen from Tybee Island.

One of our walks brought us to a fair-trade gallery called Folklorico (no website). Upon entering I was impressed by the display of Haitian metalwork, which I could identify at a glance because of the recent article in HandEye magazine. We bought a lovely small sun. The works are made from recycled oil barrels and carved with a hammer, chisel and wire brush.

The Redwing Blackbirds are singing earlier than usual.

redwing blackbird

Cattails with morning sun…

cattails

Ice shrinking…

ice shrinking

So far, the only minnows I’ve seen are the ones coming out of my studio. This piece approx 24×60. I wanted to try 2-colors (instead of 4). My friend Maddy, who can’t get enough indigo these days, would like to see dark indigo minnows on a lighter indigo background. I think I’ll try that next.

two-color minnow design, with red highlights

To get through the winter we frequently visit the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, which is a 15 minute walk from our home. We savored the humid air and lush green yesterday and here are a few photos. The conservatory opened in 1915, and was one of many features of Como Park, which was born when the City of St. Paul purchased 300 acres of prime land on the shores of Lake Como in 1873. The Conservatory is now on the National Register of Historic places.