The First Steps

A dyer is nothing if not a multitasker. It always seems as if a dying project begins with several first steps: the fabric or yarn has to be prepared to dye and the dye bath has to be prepared for the fabric. In class, we started scouring baths to clean the fabrics in large stainless steel pots that were heated on an enormous outdoor gas stove.

While the fabrics simmered on the stove, we began stitching other pieces of fabric in a variety of traditional Japanese patterns. We stitched, pulled the stitching tightly into gathers and tied the gathering threads tightly.

 Stitched lines for mokume pattern, with threads waiting to be pulled.

Threads pulled tight for "karamatsu" pattern, but not yet knotted. The blue stitching lines have been drawn in water soluble marking pen; when dipped into cold water for soaking they will disappear.

The pulled threads have been tied tightly and long ends clipped. The stitched fabrics shown here will be dyed in an indigo vat; the fiber content of the samples is cotton, rayon or bamboo. Before the fabrics are dyed, they are soaked in plain cold water for at least an hour but as much as 24 hours to aid in the production of sharply-defined patterns of dye on fabric.

 These books, along with Vivien Prideaux's A Handbook of Indigo Dyeing, contain diagrams for stitching and clamping a variety of traditional and contemporary patterns. The stitching is time-consuming but very easy for both beginners and experienced dyers to accomplish.

I thought I had purchased all of the shibori books that I needed, but an Arrowmont classmate, Frances Moore, suggested finding this one. Frances is a dye experienced in using natural dyes, and she had been accurate in other observations in class, so I took her at her word. Prideaux's book contains information and dye formulations that do not appear in other references, so I'm glad she suggested that I add it to my (growing) collection.

Annual Mug-Shot

The week-long courses at Arrowmont begin with registration in the main lobby on Sunday afternoon, delivering supplies and materials to the classroom, hauling suitcases to one's assigned room and finding a parking place for one's automobile. The first scheduled activity is dinner in the dining room at 6:00 pm, and our menu included roast beef, salad with a choice of dressings, several vegetables and homemade breads. A vegetarian main course is always available and a selection of beverages is offered at each meal. New students learn quickly that meals are served promptly at  posted times and that it pays not to be late.

At seven PM most students and instructors met in the auditorium for a welcome from the Executive Director, Bill May, with introductions of staff members and resident artists, then we were off to our individual studios for a couple of hours of instruction.

I made a detour, on the way to the fabric classroom, to Resident Artist Shawn O'Connor's studio, high on the wooded ridge of the campus to pick out my annual Arrowmont mug.

I bought one of Shawn's mugs last year for my husband, and have had a serious case of mug envy ever since then. This mug made morning coffee taste wonderful, and at home it reminds me of my week at Arrowmont. Of course, since Shawn had a studio full of his Arrowmont work I couldn't stop at just a mug and just had to pick out a couple of other pieces to take home. The nice thing about pottery is that if you use it before giving it as a gift, the recipient never knows about it.  This is Shawn's last week at Arrowmont before he makes the long trek home to Maine, but you can see more of his work here, and shop his Etsy store as well.

After my shopping adventures, I got to the fabric studio late, but the two hours there were well-spent, introducing ourselves (we had a fairly large class of thirteen students) and inspecting dyed fabric samples that Joan Morris had brought. That evening and on each following day Joan outlined her lesson plans so that we would know what to expect to be working on next.

By the time Joan ended our meeting I was wore slap out, and ready for bed. My room in Teacher's cottage was the very best I've ever stayed in but I didn't have much time to appreciate it before my head hit the pillow and I was sound asleep.

Getting ready to leave for a week

For the past week the temperature has risen into the nineties here and there has been no rain during that time, so my goal for the week has been to set all of my little plants into the ground so that they might survive with a couple of waterings during the week that I'll be at Arrowmont.  By noon today the touch-me-nots, the hardy hibiscus, the catnip and the cleomes were planted in one of several beds, mulched with wheatstraw or pinestraw and watered in.

The next project on my list was to cut the ten-foot-long PVC pipe into several pieces. I had put off this task because, well, I just don't saw very well. My cuts are always crooked or wavy, but with my husband holding the other end of the pipe and turning it, the cuts were fairly straight and were easy to sand smooth. I now have two pieces of 6" diameter pipe ready for shibori dyeing along with a couple of pipes with smaller diameters and a five-gallon plastic bucket.

Finally I checked off all of my other supplies and tools and deposited them into a large plastic storage box ready to load into the car.

I had every item on Joan's list except for kite string or carpet warp for tying fabric to the PVC pipe. My friend Linda Dixon, a weaver from Auburn, Alabama, sent me spools of white cotton carpet warp from her inventory and completed my collection of supplies.

Tomorrow is reserved for packing personal items and making certain that my husband has a few meals in the freezer ready to heat up. And filling the gas tank. And charging camera batteries.

Artists and Philanthropy

It's good to have a favorite non-profit organization, and it's good to give to that organization.  Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is my school, my non-profit. I live, however, on a strict budget, and find that I have to be creative even when I'm planning my annual giving. Actually, the gifts that I have come up with over the past few years have been a lot more fun to make that just writing a check for a donation.

Several years ago I was making some samples of polymer clay techniques and thought that I ought to make the samples into something. Using the shape of a souvenir pin made of Pollard house siding, I first made several tiny brass cookie cutters then cut sheets of patterned clay into arrows. I attached pin backs, baked them, added paint or embossing powder, rebaked the arrows and took a collection with me the next time I took a summer course. They are small, they are inexpensive and pretty soon everyone but the teacher ( "I don't wear jewelry") was sporting an arrow.  Before I left the campus I was able to hand Jennifer Brown a check along with the remaining arrow pins. Since that time I have tried to contribute special pieces to the annual art auctions at Arrowmont because the proceeds from those sales far exceed the amount of cash that I could contribute. In addition, I work much harder on pieces for donation to make certain that each one is as close to perfect as I can make it.

A very generous polymer clay artist is Dr. Ron Lehocky, a Louisville, Kentucky, pediatrician who has made well over 12,000 heart pins to benefit The Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies. As he has honed his artist's skills in polymer clay he has raised over $120,000 for the pediatric center. His hearts for all seasons incorporating every imaginable clay technique have become collectors' items that are unique and affordable. See more about him here and contact Ron for your own hearts.

Last year Arrowmont auction attendees snapped up Bonnie Allen's concrete stepping stones with inlaid stained glass mosaics; she also sold out her stock when she offered them to her church's fundraising auction. Elaine and Stan Fronczek are tireless volunteers for many activities at Arrowmont; the hours and miles that they contribute to the school would be very costly if they were paid as employees.

Each of these artists has turned his or her energy into a contribution that is greater than the investment in materials used. I am not only cheering my artist friends but I am also encouraging those around me to find an organization and contribute more than cash - contribute yourself and your work.

Meanwhile, this weekend I will be mixing and rolling, impressing and cutting and baking little arrows. I'll be texturing most of them with my favorite soft texture sheets from Victoria James.

Victoria seeks out interesting textures in nature and in art and captures them with a medium that can then be rolled or pressed against raw clay to replicate the surface of the original object. If you play with clay you need some of her texture sheets!








 

Joan asked that we prewash our fabrics and I've done that in small loads with warm water and Synthrapol. It was difficult to let the water cover the silk and silk blend fabrics, but I followed the directions that Joan gave us and line (or rack) dried them, and they turned out fine, if a little crisp. I folded the last load this morning just before the UPS man delivered a carton.

Woo-hoo! It was from the lovely Angela-at-Arrowmont, and I just couldn't wait to open it.

The carton contained three pieces of fabric:  a yard each of worsted wool challis, dupioni silk and a blend of hemp and silk. I don't know which is the most beautiful!

This is the wool challis, fine and soft and it doesn't feel like any other wool that I've touched before. I believe I will soak this piece separately from the other two fabrics without agitation so that it doesn't full or felt. I just realized that most people - even fabric people - won't find the photograph of the wool very interesting. Only a fabric geek would post a picture of white wool.

Collecting Fabrics

We'll be dyeing both plant fibers and animal fibers in this class, and Joan suggested bringing fabrics containing a variety of fibers. Since my stash contained only cottons and rayon, I requested a list of available fabrics from Angela Wiemken, who manages the Artists Outfitters Store at Arrowmont. Then I checked Testfabrics' catalog online and pulled up the website of Dharma Trading Company.

Angela had the best price by far on worsted wool challis, and I also ordered silk dupioni and a piece of 60% hemp and 40% silk from her. I ordered bamboo rayon dobbie, raw silk, linen and silk-rayon velvet from Dharma along with a couple of pairs of dyer's gloves and some acid dyes and fiber reactive dyes for other home projects.

 My carton of fabric and dyes from Dharma arrived first; looks like the contents are excited to get out of the cardboard! I unpacked the fabrics which were shipped in labeled plastic bags.

Joan's list included laundry marking pens called "Rub-A-Dub" markers which I searched for on fabric websites. I did find them in the marker aisle in Office Max in Milledgeville.

As I opened plastic bags I used a marker to label each piece of fabric in the selvedge on its four corners. Too many times I have begun a project and thought, "I'll remember which that is," only to be totally confused about it fifteen minutes later!

The fabrics are labeled and piled up, ready to be washed.

Two Weeks to Get Ready

I usually leave preparations for workshops until the last minute, but since I had to gather a number of tools and materials from several sources, I started early this year. The first item from Joan's supply list that I searched for was a North respirator with organic/acid gas cartridges. I had already checked the respirator that I got five or six years ago, but it had been stored in our garage for at least five years and the cartridges were corroded and the mask brittle.

Since I live in a very small town in rural middle Georgia I am accustomed to shopping online, so I checked several safety equipment sites and found that Airgas had the best combined price and shipping rate for the exact items that Joan had specified.  The mask and cartridges arrived within 48 hours and I feel as if I'm prepared for just about anything!

A week or so ago my husband was in Lowe's in Milledgeville, Georgia, the closest town that has a large home improvement store and picked up an eight-foot length of 6" diameter PVC pipe for pole-wrapped shibori. When he unloaded it at home we realized that it was ten feet long rather than eight. I wanted a four-foot length, he wanted three feet of it and, well, there's three feet of pipe left over.

If you are attending Joan's workshop with me and need a three-foot-long piece of 6" PVC, email me or leave a comment at the end of this post and I'll save it for you. It'll be $3.50 for the piece, which is what it cost me.