Isabella Whitworth

probably more than natural and synthetic dyes, wax, resists, and history

Category Archives: West Dean


by Leave a comment

Looking at AI: an essay in inaccuracy

A friend of mine has been experimenting with AI. He created the following ‘essay’ about me by accessing Microsoft Bing. For this essay the app offered three types of compositional option: ‘precise’, ‘balanced’, and ‘creative’. The ‘balanced’ and ‘precise’ versions were accurate factually but the writing was dull and prosaic, collated from text I recognised from websites I had supplied with bios or information.

The ‘creative’ option was a brew-up of fact, spiced with bold and puzzlingly inaccurate statements and claims certainly not based on any text I had supplied online.

I reproduce the essay below, with embarrassingly serious factual inaccuracies underlined. The piece claims I was born in London when in fact I was born in Cheshire, and that I attended West Surrey College of Art and Design to study textiles when I studied Graphic Design at Canterbury College of Art – etc. I have chosen not to draw attention to inaccuracies about my outstanding achievements and genius.

Ultimately, this exercise was a piece of fun, but I am wondering where this software will take us, with the possibility of proliferating inaccuracies each time a newly-published and AI generated ‘creative’ source is re-accessed by AI.

Isabella Whitworth is a textile artist and tutor who lives and works in Devon, England. She has a background in graphic design and a passion for natural dyes and resist-dyeing techniques. She is also a researcher and writer who has contributed to the knowledge and conservation of natural dye history and practice. This essay will explore her career, achievements and influences, as well as some examples of her work.

Isabella Whitworth was born in 1949 and grew up in London. She trained as a graphic designer at the London College of Printing in the late 1960s, and worked in industry for several years as a designer, editor and copywriter. She was influenced by the Bauhaus movement and the Swiss style of typography, as well as by artists such as Paul Klee and Henri Matisse. She also developed an interest in drawing and painting, especially botanical subjects.

In the 1980s, Whitworth travelled extensively in India and Indonesia, where she encountered various textile traditions and techniques. She was fascinated by the colours, patterns and textures of fabrics such as batik, ikat and shibori. She decided to pursue a career in textiles and enrolled in a course at the West Surrey College of Art and Design, where she learned about silk painting, dyeing and printing.

Whitworth started to make her own textiles using synthetic dyes on silk, mainly scarves and shawls. She used resist techniques such as gutta (a rubbery substance that blocks dye) and wax to create intricate designs on the fabric. She also experimented with folding, tying and clamping methods to produce shibori effects. Her work was inspired by nature, especially flowers, leaves and landscapes. She exhibited her work at various venues and events, such as the Chelsea Craft Fair, the British Craft Centre and the Devon Guild of Craftsmen.

In the early 1990s, Whitworth attended a lecture on indigo given by Jenny Balfour Paul, a leading authority on natural dyes. She was intrigued by the history and culture of indigo, as well as by its unique properties and effects. She decided to explore natural dyes further and began to use them alongside synthetic dyes on her textiles. She also started to grow her own dye plants, such as woad, madder and weld.

Whitworth became particularly interested in orchil, a purple dye obtained from lichens. In 2008, she discovered an industrial archive in her small Devon town that contained documents and samples related to the orchil trade in the 19th century. She realised that this was a rare and valuable source of information that had been largely overlooked by historians and scholars. She embarked on a research project to investigate the history and practice of orchil dyeing, as well as its scientific and cultural aspects.

Whitworth’s research led her to collaborate with many international experts and institutions working in conservation and science. She published several papers on her findings in journals such as Textile History, The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, The Journal of Natural Dyes Research Society (India) and The Journal of Natural Dyes (Korea). She also contributed to some major conservation projects involving orchil-dyed textiles, such as the restoration of the 16th century tapestries at Hardwick Hall (UK) and the analysis of the 14th century cope at Sens Cathedral (France).

Whitworth continues to combine studio work, teaching and research. She produces textiles using both synthetic and natural dyes on silk, often blending them to create subtle shades and contrasts. She also experiments with different fibres, such as wool, cotton and linen. Her work is still influenced by nature, but also by historical sources and contemporary issues. Some of her recent themes include climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice.

Whitworth teaches short courses at West Dean College (UK) and at various venues in the UK. She shares her knowledge and skills with students of all levels and backgrounds. She also gives lectures and demonstrations on natural dyes and resist-dyeing techniques at various events and organisations.

Whitworth is an elected member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen (UK), where she exhibits her work regularly. She has also shown her work at other galleries and museums in the UK and abroad, such as the Fashion Museum (Bath), the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Exeter), the Museum of East Asian Art (Bath), the National Museum of Korea (Seoul) and the International Shibori Symposium (Japan).

Whitworth is a textile artist who has made a significant contribution to the field of natural dyes and resist-dyeing techniques. She has created original and beautiful textiles that reflect her artistic vision and values. She has also conducted rigorous research that has enhanced the understanding and appreciation of natural dye history and practice. She is an inspiring teacher who has shared her expertise with many students and audiences. She is a respected member of the textile community who has collaborated with many professionals across disciplines.

Isabella Whitworth is an example of a textile artist who has combined creativity, curiosity
and commitment throughout her career.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 30/05/2023
(1) Isabella Whitworth – The Loom Shed. https://theloomshed.com/meet-the-team/isabella-whitworth/.
(2) Our Makers | Isabella Whitworth — MAKE Southwest. https://makesouthwest.org.uk/textiles/isabella-whitworth.
(3) Isabella Whitworth – West Dean College of Arts and Conservation. https://www.westdean.org.uk/study/tutors/isabella-whitworth.


by 5 Comments

New book: dye lakes and recipes

Since I started teaching natural dyes at West Dean College, I have had a problem. How could I save, transport and use litres of expensive dye not fully exhausted on the course? I travel with two large beer-making flagons containing indigo, but transporting additional containers of weld, madder and cochineal isn’t feasible – and I hate waste.

For some years I have been working with my friend and colleague Yuli Sømme, who commissions me to dye different shades of wool felt for her company Bellacouche, in Moretonhampstead (see link below). If I have pieces of mordanted and wetted-out felt ready, I can dunk it into the vats on the final night at the College, and by the next morning much of the used dye is exhausted and the felts dyed. I can rinse out the felts and take them home in empty buckets. The exhausted dye can be discarded.

But if students need the vats on the final day, or I am travelling home the day I finish teaching, I don’t have the option of using Yuli’s felt and the leftover dyes.

The Art and Science of Natural Dyes: by Catharine Ellis and Joy Boutrop

A newly-published book by Catharine Ellis and Joy Boutrop has encouraged me to experiment with making lake pigments from the leftover dyes at West Dean. Their suggested process greatly reduces the volume to be transported and involves binding the leftover dye to the alum mordant, thus turning it into a concentrated lake pigment. The pigment is precipitated using alum and soda ash and sinks to the bottom of the vessel, leaving the water on the surface, which can be poured off.

Madderlake2

Making a madder lake. You can see the dye beginning to precipitate and separate from the water

The resulting substance is strained through cloth and when this process is complete, a gooey, paste-y mixture like thick custard remains.

filtering

Straining the madder pigment through a cloth

By reversing the chemical process at home, again using the instructions in the book,  I can dye pieces of wetted-out felted wool – which do not require a mordant.

It is typical of this book, which in its entirety covers a very wide range of natural dye processes, that methods are well-explained, options or alternatives outlined, and reasons given for certain instructions. Recipes are clear and easy to follow and I would have greatly valued the book in my library when I started natural dyeing because of its comprehensive treatment of the subject and a thoroughly researched, straightforward approach. I will write more in future posts because I am still learning so much from the work of these two authors.

Since my West Dean course last month I have made pigments from madder and weld lakes, and tried mixing them with indigo and earth pigments.

pigments

Madder and weld pigments (pink and yellow) and overpaints of earth pigments sienna and ochre (rusts and red-brown) from Roussillon in France. Painted on soya-sized cotton

Links

The Art and Science of Natural Dyes: Principles, Experiments and Results

At time of writing, this book isn’t readily available in the UK. Check this link on the Blackwell’s site to see if it is in stock.

Bellacouche

Yuli Sømme’s company in Moretonhampstead, Devon

West Dean College Short Courses

My next natural dye course at West Dean is March 27 – 29th 2020.

 


by 9 Comments

A treasured textile tool

tool

My textile treasure from The Gambia, the gift of a former student. 

When unpacking after teaching at West Dean this week, I noticed one of my favourite tools hadn’t re-appeared from the boxes.  I began to realise how precious the tool was, and kicked myself for being sufficiently stupid to take it out of the studio and risk losing it. The tool is no bigger than a long paintbrush, it’s clearly home-made and would look insignificant to anyone finding it but not ‘in the know’ about what it was. It could have been binned, or slipped beneath a workbench. It might never re-appear.

The tool, used for applying wax, was given to me nearly ten years ago by an inspiring and enterprising young student who left us with very special memories of her. She was on a scholarship studying batik world-wide and she stayed with us for a few days while I showed her how I worked.  She later travelled to The Gambia, and sent me the tool on her return. It has a simply-shaped, graceful wooden handle around the tip of which is wound a casual-looking thick spiral of copper wire. The spiral forms into a tightly-twisted, spout-shaped ‘nib’.

The copper tool can be dipped into hot wax, and because copper is a good conductor of heat the entire wire quickly reaches equal temperature. The coils of the spiral hold a considerable cargo of hot wax, which flows down into the ‘nib’ allowing a controlled drawing to be made in hot wax. Experience has taught me not to start drawing until drip frequency is slow, or wax flows too fast and floods the fabric. The tool looks as though it shouldn’t work, but in fact it’s remarkably effective and one of my studio favourites.

Some time ago I tried to replicate the tool for students in my classes, using copper wire and a substantial twig, or an old paintbrush, for a handle. I have had surprising success with them and I’ve found, for instance, that a narrower gauge wire can form a finer nib. But none of my versions has the grace and integrity of the original, or carries its history. I instinctively choose the Gambia tool when working, even though my replicas work just as well.

The tool was created by people who own little and must labour extremely hard to produce their batik work: they have no electricity, gather wax from bee-hives, heat wax on a fire and carry all their water by hand. Only when I unpacked my boxes and contemplated the possible loss of my student’s gift did I acknowledge (for the first time) that the tool’s story was as important as its function.

Happily, I found it.

 

Link: This remarkable little book tells the story of Rushyan’s batik journey

Paths of Molten Wax: A Textile Odyssey

 

 

 

 


by 4 Comments

Teaching News

raindrops

Wax resist and steam-fixed dyed scarf. Silk crêpe de Chine. Isabella Whitworth, 2016

I’ve just unpacked after teaching three one-day courses in Oxfordshire. This completes my teaching programme for the year. I teach regularly at only two venues: Ardington, south of Oxford, and West Dean, just north of Chichester.

Ardington School of Crafts is non-residential. My courses there are always one-day, although sometimes linked so that students studying, say, natural dyes can take a further course focusing on indigo. They are suitable for complete beginners. Ardington’s 2017 programme will shortly go ‘live’, and the six dates are on my teaching page here. There will be a variety of courses, all of them repeating popular subjects.

West Dean College is residential, although some students make their own accommodation arrangements. Courses stretch across a few days, have up to now taught resist techniques using synthetic dyes on silk, and have been for beginners and intermediate students.

Many students have attended several of my courses and have progressed very well. After discussions with the Short Course Organiser at West Dean, we have added a new course which will take place from July 20th – 23rd 2017*. Its title will be Handpainted Silk Scarves: Developing Design, Building Technique. This course is designed for those who have relevant experience gained with me or other tutors, but would like to study or practise techniques and ideas not viable on beginner / intermediate courses. Some of the focus will be on design and planning. The idea is to offer more experienced students a course of their own.

However, all students, of whatever experience or ability, continue to be welcome on my beginner / intermediate courses. Although I may be instructing beginners too, more experienced students know they can progress at their own pace within the structure of the course and I can assist them in new directions.

  • My apologies if you read this some weeks ago because I had entered the Advanced Course date in error. The April dates 24th – 27th  are for the Beginners’ Course. The more Advanced / experienced course will be in July, as above.

vat

Inside a vat made from Japanese indigo (Persicaria tinctoria)

West Dean Summer School takes place over three weeks with a separate set of courses each week. I will be teaching a six-day Summer School course from August 5th – 12th 2017 titled Creative Dyeing for Scarves and Fabric. This course will be suitable for beginners, intermediate students and anyone who has studied with me before. My idea for Summer School is to broaden understanding of resist techniques, such as shibori and wax resist, by exploring some relationships between traditional and contemporary dyeing. The course will feature a natural indigo vat which can be used as well as (but not together with!) synthetic dyes. Indigo has a unique and beautiful affinity with resist techniques, and many contemporary resist processes are based on its traditional use. There will also be opportunities to discuss and develop designs for wax resist work. More details will appear on the West Dean website.

Teachers and technicians can apply for a 50% discount on a Summer School. Contact West Dean on 01243 818300 to register your interest, with the name of your school, college or university, and a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice of Summer School course. 

Booking for 2017 is now open via West Dean (link below). 

My February 2017 course is full.

Links:

Ardington School of Crafts

West Dean College


by 4 Comments

Thinking Positive

If you signed up to my blog solely on the basis of posts on natural dyes and history, I offer apologies. This is about neither.  As well as researching the history of natural dyes (in particular, orchil), I still produce work as a textile artist. Some of this uses natural dyes, but I also work with synthetic dyes on silk for resist techniques such as wax and shibori.

The Devon Guild of Craftsmen is holding an exhibition called Life Illustrated from 2nd October – 15th November 2015. Sketchbooks are the theme of Life Illustrated, showing them both as source material and as part of the creative process. A number of Devon Guild members are contributing new work, plus their precious books.

My training as an illustrator in the late 1960s was drawing-based, and I have used sketchbooks as source material for over 50 years. For Life Illustrated I decided to revisit an ‘old’ design and see how it adapted to current techniques and materials.  Back then I was using a simple gutta outliner to draw the design and control the dye. Now I prefer to use wax. The design was based on drawings I made of fritillary butterfly wings. Here are sketchbook studies from 17 years ago:

Drawing from image of butterfly: pencil and watercolour
Starting to work out a design in my sketchook. Second from top shows sections cut by a sinuous line. Shapes are either positive or negative either side

The design formula divided the scarf into about nine sections. A sinuous line bisected all sections, running down on the scarf’s vertical. You can see this drawn out in the sketchbook images above although the scarf is imagined from the side. Shapes either side of the sinuous line are either ‘positive’ (dark on a light ground) or ‘negative’ (light out of a dark ground). This polarity swapped from side to side and line to line. It was logical to look at, but entirely silly to explain. Below, you’ll find a sketch showing the basic structure.

Although I sometimes archive samples, I don’t have any of Fritillary. They were large, on very good quality silk and they sold well. So I was probably too money-grabbing to keep one, which I now regret. All I have left are sketches and a rather poor image rescued from my old website.

The only image I can find of the ‘Fritillary’ design. From 1997
The top pencil scribble shows the skeleton of the design

For the exhibition Life Illustrated I made new sketches to remind myself of what had inspired me. Then I stretched a scarf, dyed the background and outlined the design with wax – in much the same way as I remembered doing with gutta. I found I was able to reproduce the old design pretty well, although the quality of the outlining wax marks is looser than with gutta. That’s not a problem with this design. So I went ahead and made two or three scarves.

One of the reasons I became tired of gutta is that it is an outlining process. All design elements are drawn carefully with the gutta pen, and dye is filled in up to the gutta line. It’s a tight technique – even a bit tedious at times because one is often reproducing a pre-planned scheme. The reason I love wax is that spontaneous brush marks can create the shapes in a design (by instantly blocking out further application of dye). Of course, one can use wax tools such as tjantings or kystkas to draw outlines, just like gutta. But I find larger waxed marks more expressive and the design evolves in a more fluid way. So my next step was to try to adapt the old design to this preferred use of waxed marks instead of outlines.

I soon realised that ‘block-out’ marks needed more space around them than the simpler outlined shapes I used years ago. Large brush marks are often textured, oddly shaped and  ‘whiskery’ at the edges. In the same nine-section format, my next waxed scarf looked crammed and overcrowded. I reduced the number of horizontal divisions to five and it works better, but that’s as far as I’ve got. I’m not done with it yet.

Large waxed marks create shapes by blocking further applications of dye
The dark purple and crimson shapes are created by surrounding wax marks holding in the dye

Positive and negative: To make the ‘negative’ marks (lighter on a dark ground) I make a large waxed shape with a brush that blocks out the background. Then the background is dyed around that mark.  To make ‘positive’ marks (darker on a light ground) I create an island of unwaxed silk surrounded by a sea of freely waxed marks.

Teaching: On Sunday I’m off to Warwickshire to teach at the Summer School of the Association of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. I’ll be running two courses back-to-back introducing wax resist on silk.

I will be teaching three times at West Dean next year (March, May and July) but if you want a place, please book early. The March course already has a waiting list.

I’m also running a one-day introduction to wax resist on silk at Ardington School of Crafts next month (September). Please contact these venues for information (links below) and see my courses page.

Links

Devon Guild of Craftsmen

West Dean College

Ardington School of Crafts

Association of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers


by 5 Comments

A Scottish Post

I’m just home after a fortnight in Scotland, which started at the annual DHA (Dyes in History and Archaeology) conference at the University of Glasgow. I tend to know people by their research – and that’s how they know me. Someone at DHA greeted me as Mrs Orchil: she could also have hailed a Dr Indigo, a Ms Madder and Professor Purple. It’s a friendly conference attended by many world experts in the fields of dyes and pigments, but it welcomes independent scholars like me as well as dyers and textile makers.

I wasn’t giving a paper this year so it was an entirely stress-free conference and I sat back and enjoyed it, or at least, all the bits I understood. There are always some technical papers at DHA concerning dye analysis; the ones packed with acronyms, graphs and molecular structures streak comet-like above my head. But factual gems can lurk amongst figures and statistics, so it’s worth not totally tuning out.

I took a small ‘suitcase’ exhibition with me about orchil and my research studies; most delegates came to look at it and talk to me, and as a result I learned new things about orchil from new perspectives.

The conference tour, after two packed days of papers, took us to Glengoyne Distillery for a fortifying wee dram preceding a tour of the plant, and thence to Stirling Castle where we visited the Tapestry Studios to see the final piece in the Unicorn Series nearing completion.

Sherry and tannins

The Glengoyne tour outlined the lengthy procedure for ageing whisky in casks. Casks are made from different types of oak, but have once held sherry (and some, if I remember correctly, Bourbon). The ageing whisky gradually absorbs colour and flavour from the sherry, and the tannins in the oak cask. The two images above illustrate ageing over thirty years in two different types of cask, with coloration intensifying every year. Evaporation is also evident, with around half the liquid being lost over the period. This lost alcohol is called ‘The Angels’ Share’.

Textile Tweets

Lobaria pulmonaria, or lungwort. This lichen is endangered and should not be used for dyeing
Workers’ cottages at Alexandria, Levenside, near old Turkey Red works
Explanation of ‘crotal’ from Dwelly’s Gaelic dictionary. Note the old name for lungwort ‘Stricta pulmonacea’
The Plaiden Ell at Dornoch. Two metal pegs set apart in the slab created the standard measurement for cloth
Ochrolechia tartarea, or the cudbear lichen, on the banks of Loch Ewe
Visit to Stirling Castle on DHA tour to see the last of the Unicorn tapestry series being woven
Explanation of ‘corcur’ from Dwelly’s Gaelic Dictionary

About the pictures

Above is a small selection of textile-related images from Scotland, most of which I tweeted during our trip. My obsession with dye lichens was rewarded by finding Ochrolechia tartarea alongside Loch Ewe, and Lobaria pulmonaria  at Oban; Parmelia saxatilis and P. omphalodes were growing at many locations.  Note: I was looking, not collecting. A Gaelic-English Dictionary in a hotel room confirmed that in Gaelic crotal refers to boiling water method lichens, but corcur to orchil lichens. If you want to know what orchil is, or read more about my research and views on dyeing with lichens, please visit this page.

Turkey Red

I spent a week with Deb Bamford (aka The Mulberry Dyer) learning how to dye Turkey Red at a Summer School in 2013. Read about it from this blog post forwards. In Scotland I found remnants of the Turkey Red industry buildings at Alexandria, on Levenside. There is a great website about the Turkey Red industry here. And read this wonderful book:

Colouring the Nation: The Turkey Red Printed Cotton Industry in Scotland c1840-1940 by Stana Nenadic and Sally Tuckett. Published by National Museums Scotland. From Amazon here.

Unicorn Series: Stirling Castle and West Dean Tapestries

For more on the Unicorn Series, go here for the Stirling Castle story, and here for West Dean’s version.

 Glengoyne Distillery, Dumgoyne Glengoyne Distillery


by 7 Comments

Fit – for some kind of purpose

There can’t be many households in agricultural areas which don’t have some baler twine in their house.  It’s used by farmers principally for the binding of hay or straw bales. Wikipedia states: Baling twine or baler twine is a small diameter sisal or synthetic twine used to bind a quantity of fibrous material (notably hay or straw) into a more compact and easily stacked form. Tensile strengths of single-ply baling twine range from 95 psi (0.66 MPa) to 325 psi (2.24 MPa).

IMG_6275

Synthetic baler twine: dropped by roadside ready-wound into a length to be used for an as yet unknown task

Down here you can find useful discarded lengths of it in the hedgerows, on the moors and in the fields. I’ve seen the multitude of uses to which it is put: holding a fence together; as a temporary gate-hinge; keeping a car-boot lid closed; as an improvised dog-lead; in birds’ nests and more crucially, holding up a farmer’s trousers. People collect it where it drops, saving it for a multitude of future unknown tasks. There is a kind of simple human optimism in this.

Here in Devon, local farmers have been completing the harvest, which includes baling and the generous distribution of baler twine to keep errant boot-lids down and trousers up. Recently they have been cutting moor grassland to use for animal bedding. The grass is cut and allowed to dry before being baled into cylinders for storage and I recently noticed a group of these, bound up in what looked like black and white stripes of baler twine. Only they weren’t, and it wasn’t.

I had a look up close to discover the ‘twine’ was actually a wide plastic mesh. It contracts widthwise when wound onto the bales under tension. I was intrigued by its structure and complexity, wondered who sat and designed it, where it is made, and whether its structure was solely suited to this one baling process. I started to research it online – and found it’s called bale netwrap and is sold by suppliers of agricultural bindings, such as good old baler twine. Not so useful in the trouser department, I suspect, and might be hazardous for birds that become caught up in it.

Close-up of binding
The cylindrical bale
Bales on the moor
The mesh itself

I have been moderately unfit for purpose myself recently, hence my lack of posts. Now I’m better and I have just completed teaching my final course of the year at West Dean, only to return with a heavy cold. Unfortunately I can think of no way in which baler twine will alleviate the symptoms.

My March 27th – 30th  2015  course Rhythm and Pattern is nearly full so if you want a place, contact West Dean as soon as possible. I will be teaching a further course from 17th – 19th July 2015.

 


by Leave a comment

Summer schools…

No posting recently because I’ve had a month of intensive teaching followed by intensive feet-putting-up. I ran three courses at Ardington in Oxfordshire and then four days in Nether Stowey at the studio of Janet Phillips.

Several vats on the go
Cochineal and indigo
Cochineal and indigo

At Ardington School of Crafts I taught my synthetic dyes shibori day, plus two one-day (repeated) courses on natural dyes. The natural dye course is a taster to a fascinating subject with some practical work at the dyepots, but also intended as an eye-opener to textiles seen at a stately home, museum etc. It’s even relevant to looking at paintings: I often wonder what dyestuffs were used on garments represented (with pigments) in a historic portrait. We had to move fast, with all fibre and fabric pre-mordanted, and an indigo vat ready to go. Most students dyed a scarf using simple immersion methods. We used madder, weld, cochineal and two indigo vats (one weak, one strong).

At Nether Stowey, I taught a three-day-dye course to several of Janet’s graduates from her Masterclass.  On day one they learned some shibori folds using steam-fixed dyes; day two gave them a taster of wax resist, and day three was a full day with indigo. At the same time as I taught dyes, Janet was teaching ‘shibori on the loom’ to students from the London Guild. In this technique, removable weft threads are incorporated into the weaving. They are later used to draw up the cloth tight. According to how the shibori threads are woven, patterns emerge after the piece is dyed, then opened up.

Students used coloured and plain warps, on different pieces. Some of this shibori work was put into my indigo vat on day four; others used Janet’s fibre-reactive dyes which were applied by placing woven pieces into a short length of gutter (brilliant idea) and painting by hand.  I am used to folding, tying and clamping for indigo work and although I have seen loom shibori before, I haven’t watched the whole process from start to finish. A combination of enthusiastic and knowledgeable students,  Janet’s teaching and the imaginative arrangements made by Janet and Nigel made for a very enjoyable week. Did I mention glorious weather?

 

Loom shibori gathered up for dyeing
Undyed loom shibori being opened
Indigo-dyed loom shibori
Fibre-reactive dyes applied to loom shibori
Indigo-dyed loom shibori

Many thanks to students at Ardington and Nether Stowey for permission to use images of their work.

Teaching in 2015

Dates of next years’ courses are accumulating. I will be tutoring two courses at the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Summer School in August 2015 at Moreton Morrell. Details of the entire event can be seen here and there are details on this page.

I am teaching a new one-day introductory course in wax-resist at Ardington School of Crafts in 2015 as well as days on shibori scarves, indigo dyeing.  The Vibrant World of Natural Dyes proved very popular this year and I will be teaching it again in 2015: I have one course at West Dean scheduled for March. If you want to sign in, do so soon because my October course has been full since April.


by Leave a comment

All in the Background

I’ve been working on a set of scarves in which the first layer of dye is more than usually vital. In layered wax-resist one works by blocking out, or outlining, existing dyed areas. This effectively ‘leaves them out’. One then adds more dye for the next layer of the design. This sequence of dye – wax – dye – wax can go on more or less indefinitely until there is no room left on the fabric, or the silk is saturated with dye and will take no more.

In this way the first layer of dye, if applied in a lively and varied way, can still work its magic when the silk is covered with several more layers. If wax outlines are used in a design, these, or the areas they define, will appear as interesting as the layer of dye they cover or isolate. This new design, which I’m calling Fish and Fowl, relies on lines, outlines and areas of lighter and dark tone.

Two frames with first-layer dye plus finished scarf
First layer wax on first layer dye
Work in progress: second layer dye
Detail, finished work

I was teaching the principle last week at West Dean on my Brilliant with Pattern course: it’s hard to explain to students verbally and far easier by means of examples, demonstration and encouraging them to ‘have a go’ on experimental sample silk pieces.

Student’s work, showing colour shift of under-dye from pink to yellow.
Student’s work showing build up of dye and wax

My October course at West Dean is already full, but if you would like to learn the wax and dye technique along with some basic shibori, it’s worth adding your name to the waiting list. A further course is sometimes arranged if there are several people waiting.

Otherwise, I will be teaching Brilliant with Pattern at West Dean again at the end of March 2015.

If you want to book, look out for the Winter short courses programme which will be available from the West Dean website.

 


by 4 Comments

Brilliant with Pattern

Brilliant with Pattern is the title of a course I teach at West Dean College, and I’m off again tomorrow. The course always runs under this title, but I never tutor it the same way. It’s partly because I’d get bored teaching an identical course and so I take different ideas along, but also because the creativity of individual students infuses the group, making each outcome entirely different.

Preparation for these intense weekends is extensive, in terms of assembling boxes and general ‘stuff’, but also in the thinking about how I will approach them. This week I completed two days’ teaching at Ardington School of Crafts (see some images on Facebook here) and finished up with a visit to a friend in Oxford. She took me to see the recently completed courtyard of the Mathematical Institute.

There I saw the work of someone truly ‘brilliant with pattern’. Professor Sir Roger Penrose, mathematician and physicist, works at the Mathematical Institute and his brilliance shines on fields beyond my understanding. But his work on non-periodic tiling  (yes, I had to look it up too: try here for some assistance) is exhibited in the form of a pavement outside the entrance to the Mathematical Institute. It’s pattern: constructed, mathematical, non repeating, and compellingly beautiful. The steel, mirrored sections work especially well, reflecting sky, birds, or passers by.

Penrose tiling, Mathematical Institute, Oxford
Entrance to Mathematical Institute, Oxford
View of the Natural History Museum, Oxford
Resist-dyed egg, Pitt Rivers Museum. Galicia (Poland /Ukraine)

 

On the same day I was able to spend a short time in the Pitt Rivers Museum, perhaps my favourite museum in the world. The newly-cleaned and restored glass roof of the Natural History Museum lit a path to the Pitt Rivers, which has no external public entrance. I know I will always discover something new in the Pitt Rivers: going there is like Christmas. This time it was a collection of resist-dyed eggs, the kind I wrote about in my previous post. The Pitt Rivers collection of these eggs was made at the turn of the 20th century in Galicia – not Spanish Galicia, but the one that is now part of  Poland and Ukraine.