NATURAL DYE WORKSHOP IN OAXACA

My recent trip to Oaxaca luckily coincided with a tee-shirt dyeing workshop at the Textile Museum there. Seventeen participants of all ages and languages (spanish and english at least) joined in with teacher Eric Chavez to learn about dyeing with natural indigo, extracted from the anil plant.After a brief, bilingual (thank you Eric) media presentation about indigo, the process and the options for resist dyeing, we set to work tyeing up our shirts with either stitching, rubberbands, or marbles.

After tyeing, we tied a string onto our bundle and gently set them into the garbage can that was half full of indigo dye.

We let them sit in the dye bath for about 5 minutes, then pulled them out to set and hang while the oxygen set the dye to working.

When they first came out of the dye bath, the shirts were a sea green color, but slowly the beautiful blue emerged. We let them hang in the open air for about 15 minutes. (Perfect for viewing some of the beautiful exhibits there.)

Eric explained that the deep indigo color is achieved by multiple dippings, even up to 20! As our time was limited in the workshop, we only had time for two. To set the color, we untied the bundles and put the shirt into a bath of vinegar solution, then hung to dry.

This young participant (the youngest I think) created a great shirt with marbles and rubber bands. And this young woman (who was a part of a group of young volunteers abroad) stitched a lovely diagonal resist line into her shirt.

Thank you, Eric, for an informative and fun introduction to the natural dye process.

INSPIRED OR COPIED?

Here in Mazatlan, there has been a large migration of retirees coming to Mexico, buying houses or condos, doing the decorating thing, etc. Recently a couple from Vancouver stopped by my studio and asked me to make a colorful piece for their new condo. "What do you like?" I asked them. They mentioned a large mural at a local coffee shop, showing a jungly green scene with a woman (and her baby) picking coffee beans. So I took a pic of it (above), printed it out and looked at it for days and days, wondering how I was going to interpret that. I had little experience painting whole cloth, so I decided to try it, thickening my dyes. I wanted to also outline with black and then fill in the color, but didn't know in which order to do it - outline first, or put down swaths of color first with the outlining later. The latter is what worked best for me and I practiced on a few pieces. They were quite "elementary" (I refer to it as my kindergarten art skills) but I liked the composition so decided to continue with the idea of presenting one of these to the Vancouver couple as the foundation of what I would do for them. Then I showed it to a friend and her quick comment was, of course...Rico's coffee shop! I felt I needed to make it my own, rather than a "copy" of the coffee shop scene. So to make a proposal to the Vanc. couple, I showed them 2 things: 1)the practice piece that I wide-bordered with darks and then pulled out elements within the picture to applique in the border,or 2) the same woman (made out of hand-dyes) appliqued onto black.I like them both very much and both are "new" for me. I feel #1 borders on copying, but I truly worked hard to make it my own (inspired!) but #2 is definitely mine.Maybe the fine line between copying and inspiration is a time delay of how long it takes someone to say..."that reminds me of...." I don't know...maybe you have thoughts on this. I titled the pieces "Multi-tasking 1 and 2" as they show a woman and her busy life....carrying her baby, holding a bowl of something, balancing birds and other items on her head...sounds familiar, yes?

DIA DE AMISTAD

Here in Mexico, February 14th is celebrated as El Dia de Amistad (day of friendship). In that light, I send hugs and warm wishes of love to all my fiber-loving friends! Wish we all could be quilting or dyeing or creating together!...Mary

SILK PAINTING 101

I love receiving my monthly online newsletter from Dharma Trading Company, my fabulous supply house for most of what I use in my work. They always have a "featured artist" section which I consistently peruse for new and interesting ideas and connections. February 2008 had one artist by the name of "Silkpainting in Haiti" which caught my attention instantly. Simply put, this is an economic development project in rural Haiti which I believe started out as a silkpainting project about 10 years ago. Visit their site, artmatenwa.org, for an inspirational view of a successful creative endeavor in a third world country.
From that site, I got the idea to try to bring a bit of silk painting to our women of Mujeres Trabajadores, not necessarily to start another offshoot of their already busy sewing industry, but as something to broaden their creative perspectives. But a silk painter I WAS NOT, so I called upon my silk mentor Christine for bits of advice, ordered a dvd by Jill Kennedy, and along with a stack of silk scarves, I dabbled in silk throughout the summer to at least get a bit of a handle on this craft. Before traveling to Mazatlan this November, I ordered 30 habatoi silk scarves and a Dye-na-flow class kit from Dharma to put in my suitcase for a silkpainting class with the women.
That class happened two Mondays ago, as a demo to the group of 12, with plans to then have them sign up in groups of 4 to try their hands at silkpainting. Last Monday saw the first group at work. Here they are, step- by-step demonstrating the fun and simple craft of silkpainting with Dye-na-flow paints.

Step 1- Stretch the silk onto a frame. We used simple PVC frames with rubber bands and pins to hold the silk. Ceci, Mary and Sylvia are working together to secure the silk for painting.

Step 2 -Select your colors. With a design in her mind, Mary is selecting the colors she will use, putting 5 droppers of each into an ice cube tray. The Dye-na-flow paints seem to go a long way.
Step - Paint your silk. Silvia is carefully applying her colors in stripes.
Step 4 - Sprinkle salt or sugar on the wet silk for beautiful texture. Irma is adding silk to hers, with an interested audience looking on.
Step 5-Set the color with a hot dry iron. Ceci shows us how!
Step 6 - Rinse the silk. After ironing, Irma rinses the silk, making sure that any residual color or sugar/salt is removed. Then she ironed again for the final step.
And finally, here are the beautiful silkpainters, modeling their creations:

Irma- she is the bag queen! She makes terrific purses, satchels and bags that are popular in sales. She is a strong member of this group.
Mary is the newest member of the group. I have only known her since December. She seems very focused and organized, coming weekly with her notebook for taking notes, taking measurements for patterns, etc.. Last week, she brought her 12 year old daughter along (no school that day) who then became our helper. Mary makes sure her daughter comes to the community center for extra help in English. I believe she knows the importance of grasping opportunities.

Ceci is a true artist. She is not afraid to try her hand at some type of artistic embellishment on her sewing products. And oh, how she can sing!Sylvia is an energetic, happy sprite of a woman. She is a good sewer and adds much energy to the group. This year she is in charge of scheduling sales venues and organizing the sales staff.

I was so impressed with how quickly they picked up on the process. After the one demo two weeks ago, they jumped in and barely needed any direction.

Plans are to continue with all the women on painting one scarf, then to try another using gutta resist. We'll see how it goes and I'll report in April on the results.

CALENDAR CONTEST

I FINALLY got this sent out to Quilting Arts magazine for their 2010 calendar contest. At least I hope it's going out. Its traveling via a friend of a a friend who is flying back to Walla Walla, Washington, tomorrow and promises me it will be sent out by U.S. Postal Service. Due date is March 6, 2010. It should make it, I hope, I hope.

This project was met by one little problem after the next. That's where the FINALLY comes from.

The theme of the contest is "fresh picked", celebrating the bounty of gardens and growth. I was inspired after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and decided to portray on fabric an image promoting the support of local growers.

After taking Pamela Allen's class in early October, I began using my fabric for more compositional work, and also incorporated more hand stitching. I think it was finished, but without the border, by the end of October. I added it to my suitcase of fabric (not to be confused with my suitcase of clothing and personal items) and brought it to Mexico for finishing.

Once settled in my Mazatlan studio, I found a good purple in my stash and set out to complete the border. Two inches before the final stitching and my foot pedal blows up! That was another month of waiting ... sometime around Christmas I was able to call it finished.

I knew I needed to send in 3 photos so I carefully photographed iy with good lighting, meticulously cropped it by computer, transferred the images to my USB chip (I can't remember the correct name for this wonderful little tool) and set off for the photo store 3 blocks away.

Lo and behold, their cropping is totally different than my cropping and I had to retake the pictures. Then, just before sending off the perfect set of pictures, I decide to re-read the entry rules and realize the photos need to be 8"x10"....damn! Off to the the Kodak store again for bigger prints. (I have a lot of history with not reading directions CAREFULLY!)

And while I was at it, I stopped at the papeleria (stationary, etc.) and bought the perfect size (tamano carta) of envelope (sobre) for my entry. (I love those built-in Spanish lessons1)

From experience, I know that Mexican postal service is very slow, so I asked Tom to stop by the private postal office (similar to Mail Boxes Etc.) to see what they could offer. He returned, sobre in hand, and said they only accept letter sized envelopes for their service from the states (they have a truck that takes mail once a week up to Arizona). Otherwise, my option was Mexican post and they said 3 or 4 weeks...5,6,7,8.....who knows.

So the friend of a friend option is what I chose. I kissed it before handing it over, wishing it well on its journey, visualizing my farmer's market scene on the COVER of the calendar.

I just love the HEART on his tie-dyed shirt!

A TRIP TO THE FABRIC STORE

A trip to the fabric store always holds a new adventure or discovery. The four that I know of in Mazatlan are all located within 2 blocks of each other, and are about a half mile from my house. I am a frequent visitor, usually on a quest for thread, but always on the lookout for new and interesting things.
The thread here is horrible, at the price of about 30 cents a spool, and leaves piles of fluff and lint in the workings of my machine. It didn't take me long to find the Guterman rack, and that now is my thread of choice, at about 50 cents a spool.
Fabric is typically of poor quality, but I always look anyway to see what's available. There are lots of poly options and the cotton is stiff and thin. I use a local linen for making sets of hand-dyed napkins, but the quality varies, and now seems to be hard to find. The linen price ranges from $1.50 to $3.50 per meter (60" wide).
A local seamstress I know says Mazatlan is the city of "no hay"....which is Spanish for "it's not there" or "there isn't any". She says the best option for finding what you want is to leave... Guadalajara or Mexico City, or better yet, traveling to the states will provide you with good options for supplies. Yes, my suitcases are usually packed to the brim with white cotton, Warm and Natural batting, my dyes, and a few miscellaneous notions. For everything else, I take on the challenge of finding it in the land of "no hay".
The whole system in these stores leaves me amazed. First of all, there are two sections - the fabric and the notions. To buy buttons or zippers or any of the other thousands of things in the notions department, you go the counter (which can be jam-packed with women) and wait for a sales person to take your order. If buttons are your desire, you would select them from a book and then the sales girl would carefully count them out for you. The same goes for safety pins. There is very little packaging (which I personally like), but gone are the days of having the freedom to browse through racks of options, picking them up, contemplating, thinking about how this item will work in your next project, etc.. When you go to the notions desk, you know what you want, put in your order, and move on, especially if you are a struggling Spanish speaker like myself. The sales person then meticulously writes up your order, tallies it up (twice!) and sends you off with your bill to pay for it at the "caja" (the cash box) while she takes your items to the pick-up window. Once you have paid, you then present your receipt at another station for your purchases. If you want fabric, a young man or woman will cut your piece and follow the same procedure where you pay first, then pick it up. All of this requires a multitude of personnel, but hey, this is Mexico and there certainly are a lot of people who need work.
There is one of the four fabrics store that holds a special treat. When I meet a fellow fiber lover, I always tell them to take the opportunity to search out this store and head upstairs to the second floor. There, lining the walls, are the best of the best fabrics that are used in the fabulous dresses seen at weddings, quinceneras, and at the upcoming Carnaval festival (mardi gras). The other stores have similar fabrics but definitely not of the same quality, and certainly not of the same price. Some of these fabrics are up to $50 per meter which is quite noteable here.

I have been going to the Guadalajara area on my annual women's trip, so have experienced the fabric stores there. I like to buy a good quality manta (cotton/muslin type) I discovered there and it comes in a variety of solid colors. I also like to pick up a 25 meter bundle of a gauze/cheesecloth type fabric that I have dyed and used as an overhead shadecloth.

Next month, I head to Oaxaca City, where I'll be searching out the fabric options there. It is the land of textiles and weaving and incredible handwork. I am dreaming of the land of "HAY" (in contrast to my current land of "no hay") and hope to be filling my suitcases with new textile treasures.

MAZATLAN BIRD FESTIVAL

I'm a birder.
Up until this moment, I only considered myself a "spotter" as in one who spots objects in the sky with wings, or even as simply as a warm body on bird trips. But I believe I now can honestly say I'm a birder. I have a book, binoculars, and lately I've been getting up very early to catch the morning bird show. And I identified a juvenile ibis! I'm not sure whether it was male or female but the juvenile identification made me feel like I was really something!
It reminds me of when I timidly would call myself a fiber artist. After so many years of introducing myself as a teacher, I not only had to drop one script but take on a new one. It takes awhile for new identities to take hold, at least for me. So just to give myself a little practice, I'll try it again...I'm a birder!
Mazatlan has now participated in two Audubon Bird Counts. In the first one held a year ago, I joined in with some visiting birder friends and thoroughly enjoyed myself. There were 22 of us, and collectively we spotted 105 species. Our group traveled along a local estuary and was led by John Audubon himself- at least it seemed like it. In this year's count (two weeks ago), I signed up without any friends prompting me, still felt like a "spotter" ("there's a yellow bird"), and was one of 16 who spotted 92 species. I loved it! And just last Sunday, my friend, Val and I traveled to the estuary again for another stint. It was then and there I discovered my friend, the juvenile ibis.
Mazatlan is also beginning to develop its eco-tourism and birding is one strong side of this. An offshoot of this is the organization of the first Mazatlan Bird Festival to be held next weekend. There is a full venue of bird events, starring, along with other local birds, the tufted jay. There are workshops and field trips and art exhibits and conferences. I am happy to see this focus on more of the natural side of Mazatlan, rather than the Jimmy Buffetized version of my winter homeland. For more info on the Bird Festival, go to http://www.mazatlanbirdfestival.com/. My new interest in birds has also extended to my fiber work. This summer I did a piece featuring a pajaro carpintero (red-headed sapsucker or woodpecker) and thoroughly enjoyed this new subject matter. Now I've continued on with more birds...a meadowlark, a heron....the possibilities are endless! But I'm seriouosly thinking of the blue footed booby for a future piece...it's those brilliant blue feet I find so intriguing!