This is something different.
The story starts like this: Back in the spring or so, I was foraging one day in a small shop that sells art and craft production by local people, when I noticed a batik wall-hanging with white flowers on a rich blue ground. It made me feel slightly guilty that I had textiles from many parts of the world, but certainly nothing local. I wondered what else this unknown artist might have produced. If I was going to buy something of theirs, it would be good to see some more work and have a choice. ‘Oh, that’s Hannah’, I was told, ’so and so has her contact details but they’re away today…’ You can guess what’s coming next….
To cut a long story short, time and several attempts to track down the said Hannah led finally one day to a phone call, and to a meeting with the artist, a person with the slightly Asiatic appearance one usually associates with mixed parentage. Hana, it transpired, was half Japanese - so much for eliminating all traces of the ethnic! I had, it seems, stumbled into an artist whose work, one could only assume, bore at least some trace of influences other than English - was that what had unconsciously attracted me in the first place?
I ended up inviting Hana to make five cushion covers for the flat, to replace some unnameable, totally unmatched horrors I had had for a decade or so - from the time when I went out and bought the first four or five £2 cushions I could find in charity and bric-a-brac shops - and for ten years, whilst I built up my collection of antiques and objets d’art, there they stayed, bang in the middle of the living room, insulting all comers. Don’t ever accuse human beings of being logical and consistent! If I glance to my left as I type, the last two still come into focus: the batik cushions arrive from our sewing lady in time for Christmas, God willing. (They’re Hacina’s present to me. Mine to her is ethnic - NO, actually, it’ll be the first piece of ethnic jewellery I’ve ever bought her!)
It turned out, during the fatal encounter at which Hana brought me samples to look at, that she had recently taken the plunge into herbal dyes. That’s how she produced the material for our cushions, and is also the reason why the whole procedure turned out to be highly experimental. Herbal dyes, it seems, have a mind of their own.
The first two pieces of fabric are going to end up as wall-hangings - because they were just too beautiful to fold up into cushions - whilst the remainder are being turned into cushions. I’ll begin by posting the three images, then Hana’s description of the process in each case
Hana:
‘…the first photo is of the blue and white one. They are larkspur flowers ( similar to delphiniums) I think they look like blue butterflies. That was a simple process of drawing the flowers with wax onto white cloth and then dipping it into a natural indigo dye bath. The cloth is then dried and the wax ironed off. The second picture is of the iris flowers. Initially I wanted black iris flowers like they have in the middle east but something went wrong. I waxed the flowers on to yellow cloth which was dyed with gorse flowers from the east hill. Then I put them in logwood dye with iron mordant added to make the purple turn black but somehow it kind of seeped in between the crackle of wax and the cloth came out very black and the irises barely visible. So I had to start again and went to collect more gorse flowers but this time I put the waxed piece into the blue indigo vat. I was pleased with the result ,the image and colours crisp. I thought it looked quite japanese for some reason , maybe like the gold screens in kyoto temples or buddhist sutras written in gold on indigo.The last picture is of wild garlic flowers , that was a simple process of waxing the drawing onto white cloth and then immersing it into logwood which is a purple dye from the logwood tree that grow in south america ,the dye was apparently used alot by the aztecs…… So thats it , its quite a long process and very touch and go .They seem to have a mind of their own and its never the same result really. Anyway I hope they look good as cushions…’
You can see more of Hana’s work at http://www.madeinsussex.org.uk/
Posted in Psyche, art, art-objects, autobiography, batik, countryside, images, japan, life, nature, people, photography, random, self-expression, textiles, vegetable-dyes, wall-hangings, women, writing
