Blue hands

After all, who did a dyeing workshop and came home with clean hands?

I've had a wonderful day at the Ock Pop Tok workshop, having the place all to myself and completely individual attention. What more could I ask?

A warm welcome this morning from Mr Morn, the interpreter and guide who greeted me with a mug of bael tea (delicious - hadn't had it before) and who introduced me to the programme for the day. After a bit of background information about sericulture he explained about the natural dyes used in Laos - illustrated by a walk around the garden where most were growing. The view from the workshop was breathtaking and the cool breeze from the river most welcome.

After an introduction to Mr Khum, master dyer, it was straight to work.

First task, chopping tumeric for the yellow colour. That had to be pounded to a pulp before boiling with sappan leaves to achieve the colour I wanted.

Whilst that was cooking, I chopped some fresh indigo leaves and soaked them in cold water for the green dye.

That was a new one for me - I've only ever done the hot fermented indigo dyeing before, so thought this would be something different.

I'd never heard of sappan wood before but clearly it's a useful one, for it can give pink, red or purple depending on the mordant used.

The sappan wood liquor had been fermenting for several days and was at a steady boil at my side ready to accept the skein of silk which I'd soaked with a huge alum crystal in the water to give the gorgeous rich purple colour.

Having squeezed and rinsed and totally admitted defeat in untangling those wet skeins, I handed them to Mr Khum who laughed as he shook them out into perfectly straight hanks to hang in the sun to dry. I guess he's had a fair bit of practice.

Later in the day, he came over bearing three beautifully presented skeins of silk for me - and a small plastic carrier bag.

 

 

What had I left behind in his dye kitchen? Nothing at all - it was his present of a few pieces of sappan wood, some tumeric root, indigo leaves and some annato seeds for me to take home.

 

 

Next on the programme was weaving - as absolute first for me. Far too much to report now though, so that will wait until tomorrow.

 

 

Our last night here in Laos, a beautiful country with the most gracious and delightfully friendly people. What we have seen has been unspoiled and so natural. We have loved every minute of our stay.

Fun weekend

I've had a really fun time this weekend, starting on Friday, when I met Paulene from her train. She'd booked the last two places on a workshop with Dawn Dupree at Cirencester Brewery Arts after Maggie had told us that she'd booked herself on it. Careful what you tell us about - an Artful Dodger or two might just join you to share the fun!




A couple of days ago we sent off black and white images for Dawn to prepare something for us in advance. Though we had suspected she'd do a Thermoscreen or something we were none too sure, so we agonised a little over what to send. I eventually decided to send an image created from a metal installation in the foyer of Alexandria Library - visit Paulene and Maggie's blogs to find out what they chose to work with.

Anyway, when we arrived, there were our screens, ready to go.

The room was a little tight on space but thankfully, bright and airy with open windows and a light breeze. We enjoyed having the chance to spend a day printing and making use of a range of materials, inspired by Dawn's fascinating exhibition just downstairs.

She was generous with her ideas and experience, ready and more than willing to suggest, advise and explain how to create just the effects we were after. We had great fun.

Lunchtime was bright and sunny and sitting outside with a sandwich and sushi was a good chance to catch up with the gossip.

Our screens held up well, from time to time we oohed and aaahed at some effect or other, the more so if the image was a transient one - here the colours on my screen "popped", though of course, that was all to be washed away seconds after the photograph was taken.

Maggie and Paulene both created some wonderful work which they will surely share. I was happy with mine though am unsure where it will go from here - in which cupboard will it end up?

In the evening, we smartened ourselves up a bit and went, together with our Dodger men, to the Wild Duck in Ewen where we ate, drank and talked the night away.

What a great way to spend a weekend. Thanks Maggie for booking the class to start with, Paulene for letting me in on the fun and nabbing the last two places! And thank you too, Mark, Nigel and Robin, for being such good company last night.

on the doorstep

You know how easy it is to make a special journey to see something and then of course, when something equally interesting is happening on the doorstep it somehow gets overlooked? Well, today was a fine example of that.

I was working in Gloucester, somewhere I go regularly and where I park in the WI office, down the road from the City Museum and Library. I knew there was a textile exhibit on there sometime soon, because I had been asked if I planned a visit. But of course, I had forgotten. Not only that, but I must have walked past that museum entrance several times in the last couple of weeks without even noticing it was on.

Until today.

My meeting had finished earlier than anticipated. I was walking back to my car when I spotted the poster for Quilt Art 22, so I headed inside and through the dusty. dreary museum and upstairs to the "temporary exhibitions" gallery.

Oh my, this is not exactly an inviting venue, but nevertheless, how pleased I was to have the exhibition to myself, not a soul in sight. not only that, but I had the time to stand and look as long as I wanted.

I thought the exhibits themselves interesting in that there was colour! Lots of it. Plenty of stitch too. Some exhibits were, in my opinion, rather overdone or a little heavyhanded in places, but others really thrilled me with the attention to detail and fine stitching. I love Sandra Meech's work, not only for the painterly design but for the small, inventive areas - the little red outlines on black and white, the coloured areas which contrast so well with the monochrome background. Amazing.

I was also delighted to see Linda Colsh on the list of contributors as I went up the stairs to the gallery. I "knew" Linda from those good ol' Compuserve days and have swapped samples and done challenges with her from time to time. We shared a class at the European Meeting Point for Quilters at Rolduc a few years back, when it was clear she was in another league from many of us working in that same room. So, when I glanced around the room, spotted a piece of work which immediately grabbed my attention and went over to look more closely at it, I jumped up and down when I spotted it was Linda's!

I gladly bought a copy of the small but fascinating book which accompanies the exhibition and devoured a fair bit of it whilst a few Eastern European chaps cleaned and polished my car on the way home! (the book had far more visual appeal, believe me!) I especially enjoyed reading of how these pieces of work had come about, learning more of each artists design process and method of working and of course, having a good record of who had done what.

Finally, the piece which hung quietly and beautifully by the entrance to the exhibition was by the late Rita Humphry, whose classes for Stroud Embroiderers were always full (Rita's Whirlies) and whose exquisite work is testament to a generous and talented lady. I used her quilt as my picture of the day, today.

Oriental afternoon

I've spent the afternoon at one of the last talks in the programme of this years Stroud Textile Festival in the company of Deirdre McSharry. The title "Sailing to Byzantium" tempted me with its eastern promise and hint of glorious colour and exoticism. Whilst I wouldn't really say that it was quite the concentration of rich pattern and opulence I had in mind, it was nevertheless interesting and it's led me off on a trail of discovery I wouldn't necessarily have followed.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wasn't someone I'd heard of, though what I have read of her since I arrived home tempts me to find out more. In particular, I'll get hold of a copy of her "Turkish Embassy Letters" which seem fascinating, if not quite a holiday paperback!

Another woman who I had certainly heard of but knew little about is Lady Ottoline Morrell. We heard of how D McS is researching the life of Lady Ottoline through her wardrobe, which has been left to the Bath Fashion Museum

I'd like to read more of this lady and her life. Surrounded by members of the Bloomsbury group, days in her London salon and at Garsington Manor can have been anything but dull. We were told of her influence by the Ballet Russes and a spray of Amber and Musk conveyed the audience into that world - how powerful the sense of smell is! Sadly, the visual images were restricted to this picture of costumes for Firebird, but our imagination was prompted by the idea that Lady Ottoline had a box of rather special clothes for visitors. Anyone turning up in normal, everyday attire could transform themselves into a rather more exotic creature for the duration of their stay. Now that sounds like fun!

Next up was Denise Poiret, wife of the fashion designer Paul Poiret whose liberation from wearing a corset allowed her to wear all kinds of wonderful shapes, including the "lampshade tunic". Isn't this a great photograph of her?

Looks like I missed a great exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum last year, but thanks to the internet, there are a whole raft of resources there to explore.

By now, D McS was winding up her talk - even though there was half an hour to go! We were introduced to Lesley Blanch and her "Anti-beige" crusade; another fascinating woman who wrote "The Wilder Shores of Love" about four nineteenth-century women who gravitated eastwards in a time when such travel was a particularly daring thing to do. (Another one for my Amazon wishlist)

And then, to finish, Marina Warner was mentioned, someone who I didn't really associate with the eastern influence at all, but reading her biography, I see that she has connections with Cairo and is working on a novel set in Egypt.

And that was that. No-one asked a question, sadly. It's wrong to say I felt a little shortchanged, for as you can tell, there was enough "meat" in the talk to last me quite a while. But I would have loved more colour, the tales of these people to be more richly embroidered with detail, perhaps more illustration. The pictures I've included here are more or less the same ones used in the talk - mostly from wikipedia - and though there were a couple of others shown, (a particularly lovely painting called "Lady drinking coffee" by an unknown artist, showing her wearing an amazing turban. I also loved the wonderful painting of Denise Poiret wearing her lampshade tunic, which I haven't found online either) there was not a great deal of visual interest during the talk.

D McS had however, brought along a fine Ikat coat with a strikingly lovely lining which she told us about when her talk had ended. Whilst there was a scrum to take a closer look at it, she mentioned an article in this month's "World of Interiors" magazine with some details of these coats in an extract from a new book and CD "Russian Textiles: Printed Cloth from the Bazaars of Central Asia" (the Amazon list gets longer). And, yes, I stopped in Waitrose on the way home to get a copy of the magazine - not one I normally even pick up and browse through - and found it a rich source of all kinds of interesting stuff. I must keep an eye on that one in future.

So, it seems as though the ticket for the talk was money well spent...even if it does look like it's going to cost me a little bit more yet.

Brum with Paulene

Earlier in the week, an email dropped into my inbox with an irresistable invitation - "I'm going to be in Birmingham on Saturday and fancy going to the Art of the Stitch Exhibition - want to come?"

You bet I did.

I met Paulene in New Street Station this morning and we spent a fun day looking at art of all kinds in the warm - no, HOT! - sunshine.

We started as planned, at the City Art Gallery with Art of the Stitch, which kept us occupied until lunchtime. Fascinating to see the trends and what's catching the selection panel's eye this year and all the better to have a like-minded friend to mutter a few thoughts and opinions to! Surprisingly, no wearable art this year with almost all of the exhibits being wall-hung. We found that machine stitched drawing is hot right now (Andrea Cryer's "Kath". Suzanne Gregg's "Vases", Rosie James "Durer Stitching" amongst others), especially with the loose ends dangling. In my (our?) opinion, Shizuko Kimura still had the edge though with her hand stitched sketches executed in the studio ("Studio View. And the cat came too!) Colour was generally subdued and restricted to neutrals (all of the above, plus Ilaria Margutti and Rosalba Pepi's "Mend of Me", Beck Knight's "Drunkard's Path" and Kyoko Nagasawa's "Search for Pouring Down", for example), although there were the exceptions of course (Eleri Mills' "Yr yr ardd" and Zara Merrick's glorious "Queen Berenice's Hair" along with a few others) - those were most noticeable when standing at the far end of the gallery and looking back - could the exhibition hanging panel have done this deliberately to conceal the colour?

Another trend seemed to be that of stitching into a digital image of stitching. It's interesting to see how technological advances create opportunities for artists to explore pathways which open up as a result - and how many similar concepts bubble up at the same time independently of one another.

Just one or two more three dimensional pieces, including one of our favourites, the stunning "Grandmother" by Gintare Pilypaite, gorgeous Ruffs by Jill Flower and the staggering "84 Hours" by Sarah Brown which revealed tenacity beyond belief.

Of course, no photographs, so you'll have to make do with the links and the gorgeous tiles in the lobby.

..and another wall poem. Seems to be quite a trend for those this week.

We headed off towards Brindley Place in search of lunch but were distracted by several large groups of ladies wearing uniforms of some kind - they were heading for the UK Womens Barbershop competition and oh my goodness, some of their uniforms were.....well, striking!

We admired the matching manicures sported by this group and wondered if the Stuart Singers might be tempted by this idea? Jade green nails might be just the thing in Minchinhampton next year!

Lunch was delicious. We sat outside the Ikon Gallery and enjoyed a cool glass of sangria and some tapas nibbles whilst our paella was prepared. The 50 minutes needed for that soon passed since we had plenty to chat about, of course.

A second jug of sangria was called for...

and sadly the paella didn't last long enough to be photographed, but it was delicious!

Inside the gallery, there were exhibitions by Jürgen Partenheimer and Ruth Claxton. I didn't quite "get" Partenheimer's work so was glad to have Fine Art student Paulene with me to discuss it with. I was rather more taken by Ruth Claxton's "Lands End" and enjoyed the dynamism of circles and mirrors, especially the last room which contained a huge number of densely packed spirals, circles and mirrors creating a wondrous view of pattern and shape whichever way one looked at it - great energy and flow and a superb installation with which to finish our visit.

On the way downstairs, we got another view of the IKON gallery window, which I thought rather fun.

A walk along the canal, by the Gas Street Basin and a few photos of reflections inspired by Sue's photographs of Clevedon this week.

Through the Mailbox via another gallery and along a busy road ( amongst traffic for the first time today) to get a glimpse of the new Bullring.

I hadn't noticed these bricks in the wall before.

We ended our afternoon in Selfridges, having ogled the dotty exterior first. Inside, we had time for a quick view of Dale's new E-PC too - though they didn't have pink ones there! As always I looked up in slight dismay, for though I love the exterior of the building, I question some aspects of the interior - the ceiling in particular.

Finally, back to New Street Station, across the road, from where our trains were leaving in ten minutes.

Thanks Paulene, for a great day! We must do it again sometime...