Forays into Natural Dyeing

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Naturally dyed cloth

Cotton and linen dyed with madder, cutch, osage orange, black walnut and birch – some have shibori stitched designs and in the foreground cotton with eco-printed rhododendron leaves and madder root.

About three weeks ago I decided to give myself one day off a week, free from distractions like technology, the radio and even my regular production work in my studio. Freedom to explore new directions in my art. It led me to natural dyes, something which I had first experienced a number of years ago at one of the workshops I have taken over the years at Maiwa Handprints in Vancouver. I had the great pleasure of taking a natural dye and mudcloth workshop with Michele Wipplinger of EarthHues. At the time I came home with packages of natural dyes and earth pigments but never seemed to have the time to come back to them. I have been using the dyestuffs I purchased as well as some I’ve managed to forage for locally.

I have become utterly addicted to this amazing process of natural chemistry. For the last few weeks I have been reading and learning about the process of dyeing cloth with plant , and sometimes insect, dyes. I have been scouring, mordanting and dyeing fabrics and carefully tagging each piece of cloth with the types and quantities of mordants, dyes and processes. (mordants are needed to bond the dyestuff to the cloth and are also used to influence colour) I’ve been using mostly cotton and linen, but I have some wool fabric sitting in a madder dye bath right now turning the most glorious earthly red! My first piece of silk is being mordanted in alum today.

A pile of natural dyed clothEach piece of cloth, no matter how small, is labeled with a record of mordants, dyes and processes.

Freshly scoured and stackedAn assortment of bits of cloth freshly scoured and bundled, ready to be mordanted.

I have also begun to experiment with eco-prints, a process of steam dyeing with leaves and plant material presented by Australian botanical alchemist India Flint in her book Eco Colour.  Being winter, there is minimal foraging to be done until the blooming of summer, but there is still tree bark around as well as some still green rhododendron leaves. I also found a bag of local black walnuts which, when I removed the husks for dye colour, I noticed the amount of colour still remaining on the nutshells. They were promptly bound in linen and steamed:

walnut shibori

Not quite as much colour as I had hoped for but can be worked over later. They have a kind of mushroomy colour and patterning left by the bindings.

Rhodendron, madder root and black walnutIn the foreground cotton muslin eco-printed with bits of left over madder root and rhododendron leaves. My first attempt at this technique sure charmed me.

wool in madderWool fabric turning a glorious earthly red in the left over madder dyed from last week’s dyebath.

So I’m hooked!

Next for me is to figure out how to screen print with these dyes and earth pigments because I do like working with images. Another goal is to grow a few plants this summer that can be used for extracting dye. I know I have some already – can’t wait to lay my hands on that St John’s Wort and Mullein!

 

 

Poppyhead and Seedpod fiber necklaces in Garnish

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“Seedpods and Flowers”, my new collection of soft fiber necklaces are now available in Garnish. Right in the heart of Revelstoke, Garnish is an artist owned boutique with a full working studio. The boutique features all Canadian jewelers, three of which work out of the studio space in the back of the store. I am excited to have my fiber art jewelry featured amongst these talented jewelers.

Poppyhead in metallic blue on natural linen with hemp silk cord – hand dyed, screenprinted, mother of pearl button fastening.

Three copper seedpods on cotton and linen with a hemp silk textured edge cord, mother of pearl buttons, hand dyed and screenprinted.

This soft fiber necklace features two pods with a design hidden underneath – copper seedpod on hand dyed linen rayon, hand dyed and painted hemp, hand dyed hemp silk cord with MOP button

Metallic green poppyhead fiber necklace with screenprinted cotton border and hand dyed copper hemp silk cord.

Copper seedpods with Autumn leaf hidden pod – cotton linen, cotton, hemp silk, hand dyed, screenprinted, mother of pearl button fastener

Copper Poppyhead fiber necklace – cotton, hempsilk cord, shibori dyed textured frame, MOP button fastener

Purple and red screenprinted metallic blue seedpod with hidden Bee on second pod.

Seedpod Necklaces – new designs for the Fall

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The first of my Seedpod collection of soft fibre necklaces are ready to share with the world. They feature the first of my six new pod and blossom screenprint designs. All are hand dyed, screenprinted and stitching is done by hand and machine. Fastenings are made with handmade loops and beautiful mother of pearl buttons.

Screenprinted cotton necklace with textured selvedge edge and three linen seedpods

Hemp silk with black linen in copper and metallic green linen pendants

Hemp silk and linen with metallic copper seedpod pendant

Hemp silk cord with natural linen – Seedpod over copper anemone flower

Hemp silk, natural linen and hemp Seedpod over Coral cotton pendant

Shibori dyed hemp silk with Coiled Spiral and Seedpod on linen pendant

Hemp silk and linen necklace with single seedpod pendant

More designs are in the making featuring poppy pods and other seedpods. I wrote about my inspiration for these designs here: Autumn’s Inspiration for Design.

Autumn’s inspiration for design – poppies and anemones

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Nature my muse has offered me some little wonders today. Summer poppies have dried out leaving the beautiful forms of their seed pods and are poised to disperse their tiny little seeds far and wide. Meanwhile the Japanese anemones are in full bloom, waving their little faces in the chilly fall breeze.

My pen and ink drawings of anemones and dried poppy pods.

I am in the process of designing tiny images for screen printing onto fiber art necklaces I am designing and making for Garnish, an artist owned boutique and studio featuring Canadian jewelers. I am very excited to have the opportunity to have my work in this stylish jewelry and accessory shop in downtown Revelstoke. Below is an example of the kind of pieces I am working on. Expect to see some new and surprising work from me in the next month.

Surface designed  fiber art clover leaf necklace with mother of pearl buttons and African ‘lucky bean’.

 

Arts by the Lake in the Kohan Reflection Garden

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On Saturday, September 1st, 2012, I participated in one of my favourite community art events. Arts by the Lake has become a much anticipated annual event held in the exquisite Kohan Gardens in New Denver, BC. Visitors are delighted by artists, music, workshops and garden tours as they meander through  this beautiful and inspiring landscaped garden. This Japanese style garden was designed and is maintained by a group of volunteers in honour of the Japanese Canadians who were interned in New Denver, BC during World War II. It is one of the most special places to visit any time of the year in the village as the garden is designed to change with the seasons.

Dianne Carter spinning wool which she weaves into rugs and blankets

Arts by the Lake in the Kohan Garden, New Denver, BC with my booth in the foreground

Orea Brown-Dahl is a young painter inspired by the beautiful environment we live in and her love for the mountains.

Tsuneko Kokobo – ‘Koko’ – painting joyfully

My booth – Morgen Bardati at Art by the Lake in the Kohan Garden

Art by the Lake in the Kohan Garden with Andrea, one of the event co-ordinators.

Artist Barbara Maye with her paintings

Donna Hicks presenting her watercolour workshop to a captivated audience.

Arts by the Lake was presented by The Slocan Lake Gallery and Garden Societies.

Vat dyed cloth fresh from the dye pot

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Vat dyes are dyes which discharge colour from previously dyed cloth and replace it with a background of new colour. Shibori stitched, bound, twisted or clamped resist techniques can be used to create beautiful vibrant patterns with this dye method. A phenomenon called the ‘halo effect’ adds another dimension of detail around the resisted areas.

I mixed olive, yellow and a bit of black to create this forest green vat dye colour. On the right of this image is a three metre length of  purple dyed cotton cloth I have been working on for months using a stitched shibori pattern called mokume, a traditional Japanese woodgrain pattern(notice the light ‘halo’ around the patterns) I wrote about it here with images of stitched pattern in process.  I used this same straight stitch pattern in a single line to make patterns on selvedged edges which I then use as edging for skirts or cuffs.  Peeking through are bold raspberry coloured shapes which were created with a technique called itajime, and uses clamped blocks to leave patterns on the fabric.

After dyeing and a light rinsing the fabric must be exposed to oxygen in the air for about 10 minutes before rinsing thoroughly in soapy water. Clamps, stitching and binding can be removed at this stage but longer pieces will wait until later. I usually snip a few threads on the big shibori pieces to check on the pattern.

A glimpse inside my studio

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My sewing table has a window where I can watch village life go by as I sew. My studio is in the top floor of our heritage home which was built in 1909 and has two of these original old single pane windows. The other one is filled with the branches and leaves of a big maple tree.

‘Handscape’ shibori dyed and printed wall hanging with my newest garments ready for summer art fairs and markets.

ABC of Community Arts Project

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             ArtStarts ABC Arts Project with Home School students

Last week I completed an arts project I have been facilitating over a period of a few months with a small group of home school students in my community.  We held an exhibit at The Hidden Garden Gallery, our local gallery here in New Denver. The show of work included examples of workshops we did as well as our final group project. The ABCs of Community Arts Project provided an opportunity for a small group of Distributed Learning students from kindergarten through Grade 5 to explore their community and environment through art and the alphabet. This project was funded by ArtStarts in Schools and Arrow Lakes Distributed Learning School.

Through facilitating a range of visual art experiences and local field trips I was able to guide  children to represent key aspects of this place we share as home. DL students are home learners so parent participation was a vital component of this project. This ABC art project consisted of a series of full days, each day made up of art exercises, field trips and an art workshop which focused on a variety of arts media.

We began each day exploring with brush and ink key art elements such as texture charts of natural found objects, line used to express different kinds of weather and experimenting with freestyle lettering. Each student received an art journal which they used for recording visual observations as well as words and letters associated with places we visited on field trips.

 Afternoon art workshops:

Gelatin plate prints of found natural objects collected on our field trip along Carpenter Creek to the Slocan Lake.

Block printing small motifs onto fabric which was then sewn into sachets – designs were inspired by African ‘Adinkra’ stamps and by metalwork seen on our field trip to Sandon.

Paintings of heritage buildings around New Denver

Three dimensional constructions of letters of the alphabet after a visit to the mining museum in Silverton.

Shibori dyed textiles – shibori is a Japanese technique in which fabric is stitched or bound before dyeing so that when the bindings are released a pattern emerges. The field trip on this day was to the Nikkei Centre to learn about the internment of the Japanese people to this area.

Our main project was a culmination of all of their experiences and new skills learned. Working as a group, the children and some of their parents contributed letters of the alphabet in the form of block print designs. Each letter of the alphabet was used to represent elements of our community and natural environment. If you look carefully at each piece you will recognize many small but important details that add perspective when seen as a whole.

We showed all of our blockprints which were cut from Safety Kut blockprinting material.

The Hidden Garden Gallery provided a beautiful intimate space for our show which we held over the busy May day week-end – May 19th to 21st,2012.

I am most grateful to the parents and teachers  who gave me the opportunity to work with these amazing young students, to Arts Starts and Arrow Lakes Distributed Learning School for the funding, to Lucerne School for providing us with classroom space, to The Hidden Garden Gallery for their beautiful gallery space and most of all to the awesome group of children I have had the pleasure of working with.

A short list of commonly used arts and crafts terminology and abbreviations

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I was having a discussion on my Inkyspider Facebook page the other day about OOAK. A friend and very talented jeweler had no idea what OOAK meant. I realized that some terms which we use to describe art and handmade items were not necessarily clear to buyers and even artists and makers. I decided to compile this list of commonly used terminology and abbreviations which artists and makers may use to describe their work. I chose words which were used fairly broadly and have not covered techniques and terms used for specific media. This may come in useful if you are one of those people who like to peruse the beautiful handmade world of online venues such as Etsy.com . Any of these words or terms may be used to make your searches on these sites more relevant.

'Undersea Garden" - An original OOAK fiber art ACEO by Morgen Bardati

   THE LIST OF ARTS AND CRAFT TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS  

  • Artwear (Art to Wear) – Meaning wearable art – defined as an original garment, jewelry piece or accessory which has been individually designed with the intention to be viewed as a functional/wearable art piece.
  • Archival - The ability of paper (and sometimes other items) to withstand the effects of time, especially useful to know when buying photographs, prints or art made on paper.
  • ACEO – An ACEO is a 2.5 by 3.5 inch miniature artwork. Originally ATC’s (artist trading cards) were exchanged amongst artists but the relatively new idea of ACEO’s means that anyone can make a treasured and affordable collection of these inspired little works. ACEO’s fit into standard card collector’s sleeves but may also be framed.
  • ATC – Artist Trading Cards are miniature artworks traded between artists. Just like ACEO’s they measure 2.5 by 3.5 inches and fit into standard collector’s cards.
  • Commission – Hiring someone to make a specific art piece usually for a group or public venue but is a term sometimes used by a person placing a personal custom order.
  • Custom order – ‘Made to order’ – Something which is made to specific requirements by the buyer. A special order made for an individual.
  • Limited Edition - A limited amount of signed identical prints (could be photographs or screenprinted, blockprinted or lithograph) that an artist would produce. This could also apply to designers of garments, jewelry and accessories.
  • Handmade (handcrafted) – Made by hand, not by machine, although machine stitched items made by one maker is still considered to be handmade. It would usually suggest a certain amount of personable craftsmanship was involved.
  • Indie – A term applied to independent artists and designers who are not represented by big studios, companies or fashion houses.
  • OOAK – Means  ‘One of a Kind’, not two or three, but the only one made, making it truly unique and original. This term has become overused and it’s definition blurred by websites like Etsy and eBay. If you are looking for a genuine OOAK item make sure that you ask sellers directly if the item is the only one like it they have made or will be making in the future.
  • Open Edition – An unlimited amount of prints or copies are available.
  • Original – A one of a kind artwork or handmade item in which has been entirely designed and created by the artist.
  •  Reproduction – A copy, more than one. When applied to an artwork it would mean that it is not an original but a print or copy of the original.
  • Reconstructed – Something which has been made from an preexisting item. This term is used especially by garment designers to describe garments which have been redesigned from used garments. Reconstruction would imply that the garment/object was first deconstructed. The new creation usually retains some feature of the original item or garment.
  • Repurposed - An item or garment which has been altered or added to in some way to be turned into something else – not necessarily deconstructed.
  • Unique – Means only one, one of a kind but is more often used broadly to describe something that is unusual. If you’re looking for something that is totally unique and truly the only one made then use the term OOAK instead.

Japanese Barberry inspires my textile design

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“Berberis Thunbergi” Don’t you love the sound of Latin names? I always enjoy discovering them when looking up names of plants and shrubs in my garden. Otherwise know as Japanese Barberry, this striking little shrub with it’s red berries and dark thorny branches in winter, was the inspiration for one of my latest textile prints.

Detail of wrap style skirt with Japanese Barberry design by textile artist Morgen Bardati

I discovered the simple beauty of this shrub when I used it in an arrangement for my booth at a Christmas Fair. I was so struck by it’s dramatic dark branches and thorns contrasting the bright red berries that I made a pen and ink drawing of it and transferred that to a silkscreen. I’ve since used it as a layered design in skirts, tunics, table runners and napkins. I constructed this skirt of hand dyed linen rayon with a hemp silk satin finish on the hemline, waistband and tie. I discharge screen printed the first layer and then screenprinted a second layer in black textile paint.

Japanese Barberry skirt by Morgen Bardati

My inspiration: