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

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.

Gardeners & art lovers enjoyed good weather for last Saturday’s Art and Garden tour. I was situated in a garden in front of an historic (1910) St. Paul home, one of several Peace Garden sites  in the Twin Cities. The gardens and plants were the stars of the tour. This garden was all about the rich textures and colors of leaves, and the structures of plants and shrubs. Here is just one example.

wow! leaf color and variety

I set my runners and hangings on trellises, and placed my pillows on the brick stairs leading to the massive front porch. I really enjoyed them as garden decoration!

Garden view with katazome work in place

I got back to the studio yesterday as I have a couple of weeks left to prepare for the Loring Park Art Festival. This morning I discovered that I accidentally recycled one of my smallest stencils along with the newsprint used to blot and flatten it after use. This is something John Marshall warned us about, and now I have learned the lesson! The stencils are soaked before and after use, blotted with newspaper, and flattened under books before storing them away for the next use. So if you layer a bunch of stencils  between newsprint under a pile of books, tossing one away is a bit of a risk when you are ready to put them away a day or two later. On the up side, it forces you to improvise a little. Instead of pasting my usual minnow symbol on the back of this batch of pillows, I’ll be pasting a little Egret, which has also become one of my symbols!

Here are today’s stencils soaking in a tub of water before pasting.

katazome stencils soaking

July 15th — and I’ve finally set up a way to stretch my work in our little old gazebo. (Both sides of my basement are full of stretched work at the moment, so this is a helpful way to work on more pieces simultaneously.) This evening I’m soy sizing some small pieces (zig-zagged together making a long piece).

stretched, indigo dyed linen

Sailboat cleats screwed into the wood secure the harite (stretchers), but that’s my brush hanging there.

the cleat, the brush (jizomebake)

Many moons ago I painted these vintage linen napkins with some Earthhues natural dye extracts (logwood and madder) thickened with gum tragacanth. I was aiming for some background visual texture. They were disappointing to me so I tucked them away. Then, earlier this summer using some of my small stencils, I pasted-then-dipped, pasted-then-dipped them a few times in indigo. Now I like them. The under layer of dye peeks through in certain places. If you click for the close-up, you might be able to see that a little.

doves, stars, indigo on linen

water, grass, egret, indigo dyed vintage linen

The soy sizing will prevent any crocking. I will probably paint some darker indigo pigment highlights on them.

Inside my studio this morning I pasted some new circle motif stencils on silk broadcloth. Birds (of course) a clematis and a rabbit. These will be painted with natural pigments.

pasted circle motifs -- birds, flower, rabbit

I had a good day at the art fair — Art at St. Kate’s. Before the gates opened, I captured a few views of my booth. One of my customers commissioned a rabbit runner for her meditation room! It will hang on her wall, with all the rabbits ears up (as runners, they change direction in the middle). I will have it ready for the next show (Loring Park Art Festival in Minneapolis). The most interesting comments came from people who are frustrated with the rabbits in their gardens!

Booth view 1, katzome pillows, runners, and descriptive display

Booth view 2, katazome runners

It’s July in Minnesota.  The day started out hot and humid, and ended with two thunderstorms. A great adventure!

Storm clouds

Downpour

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

My birch bark dye experiment didn’t result in pink. I got a rather pale, warm, gold-ish parchment color. (Birchment?) I like it. I’m sure there are so many variables with plant dyeing, not the least of which is my inexperience dyeing with raw plants. The age of the tree (old in this case), soil, mordants, dirt, temperature of the water, time, etc. The silk organza at the top of the photo took on the most color. The linen on the right took on the least. These will ultimately be over-dyed.

top-silk organza, right-old linen damask, left-silk broadcloth

I washed the paste out of my rabbit design yesterday . Here’s a peek.

rabbits, sans paste

There is nothing stretched and waiting in my studio today. I hung up my rabbit-moon-greens work to cure. I really enjoy this breathing space. The soy protein in the fabric does too, and needs this time to oxidize and lock the colors in.

curing the bunnies

I am also soaking the paste off some work that has been curing for several weeks.

soaking off rice paste

I’ve postponed the indigo awhile again, as cooler weather has returned. Meanwhile, I got busy this week pasting my new rabbits-greens-moon stencil on 100% off-white linen from a local fabric outlet, S. R. Harris.  It’s funny how every mammal I depict reminds me of my well-fed cat, Lester (in body if not in ears). I have a tendency to make my paste too thick/dry, and have been making an effort to overcome this. This batch felt just right.

pasted, close up, before removing the stencil from the cloth

These will make lovely runners and hangings! I’m imagining the colors I might use…

after pasting, the cloth is re-stretched to dry the paste

I’ve finished the last bit of cutting and testing of my rabbit-moon-greens repeat. I’ve illustrated the last couple steps in the repeat testing process on my new Facebook page. Stop by for a visit! FB has been a real learning curve for me. My intention is to make the updates there shorter and sweeter. Some people prefer Facebook to blogs. It seems like the online world is forever shifting and adaptability is the key!

Here’s the final stencil. I’m pasting and dyeing other work this week, along with reinforcing the stencil. The rabbits will be ready to paste later in the week. This one will work as a single pictorial image i.e. for a hanging as well as a repeat. The size of the image is 12×16.”

rabbits-moon-greens stencil