Category Archives: indigo

Gifts of cloth and attention

This beautiful shirt (you may have seen on FB or Instagram) was made by my friend Lisa up in Maine. She’s really talented. She knew I wanted to wear indigo to the book reading this weekend and just whipped this shirt up using katazome indigo from a workshop we attended together this past summer (blogged about here).

And that’s not all. She was a beta reader who read the entire manuscript. And that’s not all. She’s driving down from Maine to hear me read at NEWTONVILLE BOOKS this Sunday (Jan 26 at 2:00).

My mother was her art teacher in high school and her father taught me history. We go way back. Our brothers are very close friends.

Some scribbles got typed up yesterday and emailed to Deb. Deb is what’s known as a Critical Reading Partner. Much more involved than a beta reader.

Beta readers read when you are well along. Their responses can range from chapter edits to a general “I liked it.”

In the two years leading up to Deb’s publications (PROPHETS TANGO) and mine, we exchanged chapters with regularity. To do it again with new material feels like getting back in the saddle!

Early today. When it was 5 degrees.

We made only the Oakmont/Maplewood figure eight with Finn today. It wasn’t booger-freezing cold, but almost.

It was the kind of cold you really bundle up for, but it felt normal. Normal winter weather. Something people in Florida and Georgia can’t say right now.

Leverett indigo workshop

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One of my indigo projects started with this beautiful terrarium garbage pick. Yes, people throw objects like this out around here — in fact, this is the second glass terrarium we’ve found on the curb.

Filtered as black and white to see the lines

I decided it would make a good stencil, if a little complicated. I had to practice.

In Leverett, Chinatsu, the workshop leader, had some cool hole punches, so I added those dots on either side. We pressed a thin mesh on top prior to using.

You carefully smear rice paste on and hang to dry before wetting, then dunking in the indigo vat for 90 seconds.

This method is called katazome.

These two days reminded me that keeping time is challenging for me (yes! Even 90 seconds with a giant clock in view) (which BTW is different from the ability to show up to things on time, which I do easily). Also, how I make messes became obnoxiously evident (rice paste smears, anyone?) The big tell regarding challenge-level was how tired I got mid-afternoon — even though I was having fun and otherwise not stressed.

After letting the stenciled and dunked cloth drip back into the indigo vat for a bit, you took it out to a rinse station and used a soft paint brush to wipe off the rice paste.

A library of stencils was available to us.

I carved a little bird which I didn’t think would work but did.

I tried a clamping technique, using two boards and two metal Home-Depot-style clamps. First picture (below) shows the clamped result. Subsequent pic shows the clamped-cloth-result with rice paste design.

You can achieve lovely and subtle results by doing two rice paste applications with a dunk in indigo in between. I only tried it two times. Here’s one example, below.

Dots first, triangles second, with dot paste left on for second dip. For a different effect, you could have rinsed off the dot rice paste after dipping it in dye and then applied the triangle paste. The white dots would have been variations of blue and white.

Born and trained in Japan, Chinatsu also spent two years training in India. She was lovely. Highly skilled. Really knowledgeable. Humble, non-intrusive, funny, and yet still an effective instructor.

Lisa and I stayed in Northampton around the corner from where I last lived in 1979 before graduating from UMass. It all seemed shabbier than I remembered. Fewer trains, though, passing on the tracks across the street.

There’s lots more to say about that, but not now and perhaps not publicly.

Even two short days away and I am inordinately glad to be home. Is that a defect or a blessing?

Sitting on the stoop

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You know you live in an affluent suburban neighborhood when sitting on the stoop (like now), you hear only tree frogs, cars occasionally passing, and one or two jets going overhead and you declare it HEAVEN.

You know you live in 2022 America, when your battered psyche swings between icy panic, disbelief, and both lazy and full-throttled escapism. Oh, and rage. Did I mention rage? Who knew how important wordle, the spelling bee, crossword and jigsaw puzzles would become to one’s mental health?

This week escapism overlapped with current events in the form of a gripping novel full of political intrigue. Such a page-turner, I devoured 500 pages in two and a half days (see escapism, above).

The very week the Washington Post disclosed that among the stolen papers at Mar-a-Lago was a document revealing the nuclear capabilities of another government, I read the thriller that Hillary Clinton co-authored with Louise Penny.

It’s pretty much ripped from the headlines.

Among the things to love is how the protagonist, a female Secretary of State, makes sweeping critical commentary about the former guy. He was called Eric Dunn, or moron, or corrupt bad actor — you get the idea.

And if you’re a fan of the Three Pines mysteries by Louise Penny (I’m looking at you, Jen), the detour to that Quebec town and the appearance of Chief Inspector Gamache are just added kicks.

I won’t spoil anything here by saying the plot turns on the infiltration of the US government at the highest levels by domestic terrorists, features nuclear bombs, and showcases the sharp wits of a few American politicians.

In other news, yesterday I mailed off two quilts to C. in California. Of my two boys, he’s the bigger gamer, hence the wall-hanging based on a first-person shooter game, Lost Planet. I sent him a vertical landscape as well. For some reason, it’s one of my favorites.

In closing, I’ll share a secret. K is soon making his first international trip in more than two years (he used to be gone about a week a month), and I can’t wait to make pancakes for dinner AT FOUR O’CLOCK!

PS I shouldn’t have said anything! A backyard neighbor is having their house power-washed. All our back windows now closed (and it’s still loud).

PPS Below’s the figure quilt is based on. It’s not the exact magazine ad, couldn’t find that. But you can see outline, weapon, garb, etc.

What a psychic said

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We’ve all been victim to the innocuously made comment, bland in endorsement, challenging in ambiguity.

Such as: I see you’ve gotten your hair cut.

Another example said to me years ago by a psychic: “you’re in good shape, considering what you’ve been through.”

Okay… I’m sure she meant to be encouraging but the fact that I’ve never forgotten her words kinda suggests otherwise.

These three scraps of paper, from the top down: 1) an aerial view of a lake in Colorado; 2) antique linens beautifully cared for; 3) a young impoverished girl sunk in a wading pool, somehow managing to look both defiant and defeated.

This is more of a time line than a depiction of ‘above, center and below’ as prompted by Acey* in Prompt #24:

Above/Below/Within — Tell a 3 piece story about who you are in relation to the sacred directions

Reading from bottom to top — the girl represents what I was given (not literally, I grew up comfortably middle class), the linens represent the mediating power of creativity, the clouds and lake, call forth the bigger picture, the place of transformation.

With a birthday on the horizon, it’s an opportunity to think about the archetype of The Water Bearer. To me, the lake and clouds suggest Aquarius. They reference the sign’s reputation for having concerns about humanity generally (as opposed to singular people), and for taking an airy intellectual approach. Sometimes the cool mental ways associated with Aquarius strike me as ‘less than’ — no heart-centered earth mother here!

Without intending to so do, this collage reveals the strength and beauty of such an approach.

The collage below also came together this morning — similar in structure, but more grounded, specific and joyful.

The fact that the points along the linen’s edge form a row of houses is just perfect.

Acey’s Collage Month.

See also my Flickr album, SoulCollage, and the tags for SoulCollage and collage here on the blog.

And from last night, another slide show made, in part, while sleepless last night. We were away this weekend, so I hope to catch up by Wednesday.

Indigo cloth dyed by me at Rebellion Farm, SC during Donna Hardy’s weekend workshop; gateway view from a barracoon on the coast of Africa, photo probably from Smithsonian Magazine; a collage I made ages ago; the cemetery is in Charleston, SC and the magnolias too; Angel Oak from Johns Island, SC; a river scene from Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant, SC and finally, cabins at the fairly recently refurbished McLeod Plantation on James Island near Charleston, SC.

Blue Cross and endings

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These mosaics aren’t about my sister, per se — more about clearing out her apartment. The first four pictures show how she lived. The second four, the clean up.

As of this morning, it’s done. Keys handed over. Inspection performed. Cancellation of lease signed.

There were a lot of people at the housing office. Bundled against the cold. Stacking and restacking all the papers they’d brought. Proof of this. Proof of that.

It wasn’t lost on me that to each and every one of them, my sister’s death represented a boon — a chance to move up a slot on the waiting list. My sister was on that list for eight years. Waiting. Wondering. Whenever she’d trot out her conspiracy theories, I’d push back, “Nah — we’re just waiting for someone to die.”

I’m thinking the blue cross in my new quilt piece (more of a doodle than anything) might represent aid coming from unexpected places (a blue cross being a less recognizable symbol of aid than a Red Cross). The bird and flying insects represent freedom. The underlying thought is that it’s too bad my sister had to die for me to be free. It wasn’t the route I would have chosen. And my problems didn’t set it up that way.

In other fiber news, I added an external pocket to my denim travel bag for my phone. Yeah! Also, the pennant I contributed to Mo‘s project, “I dream of a world where love is the answer” has flown home, along with tokens. In particular, I love the little white star. Thank you, Mo!