Some natural dye stuff

I'm doing my best to do as much as I can in natural dye as possible this semester. Most specifically, I'm using natural dyes in my thesis work, predominately weaving, and the work I am doing for my Surface Resist and Dye class.

This is my studio right before Thanksgiving Break. My natural dye plaid is on the wall, as well as my new set of supplemental weft (tapestry) weavings for an upcoming competition. The blue and green weaving is the second of my sister set (void) weavings.


This is the first of my sister set-- intentionally weaving holes (voids) into the cloth, until the weaving becomes about the construction of voids and how light and color interact due to the holes in the cloth and the cloth's transparency.


This is a detail of the second sister (void) weaving.


Printing and painting with natural dyes:


These two panels of silk are printed exactly the same with the same dyes. Their mordants are different, however, resulting in the differences in color. On the left it is mordanted with alum, on the right oxilic acid (beet leaves).


Natural Dye Painting with a Iron Oxide Mordant




For my next project, I'm using the painting and printing techniques I learned from this last project to do warp painting on bamboo yarn. It's the next sister weaving, thinner yarn, more transparency, distinctive voids like the second weaving. I'm using turmeric, logwood, and henna to paint the warp. I'm planning to use henna, walnut, turmeric, and possibly sandalwood/alkanet (other pale reds and purples) for the weft yarn. I've been adding "static" (inlay) in the form of wool yarn on the other two, but wool may be just too much for this one, so I may just go for 5/2 cotton walnut I've got (or maybe the indigo/turmeric green 10/2 bamboo I've got-- interruption in color rather than in visual regularity or uniformity).

Surprisingly Queer

Really, I didn't know.

Beyonce's Single Ladies by Purple Haze

Elizabeth Stephens- Sculptor and performance artist

The Porn Star Academic Panty Collection

This series of bronzes juxtapose academic and porn star panties. Porn stars and academics are cultural heroes. They are both in the forefront of thought and practice around issues such as sexuality, sexism and identity politics. In the academic world the brightest intellectuals are fetishized in a manner that bears certain similarities to the ways in which porn fans adore their stars. Both are sexy, powerful and compelling. This work is homage and a wink to the bravery and chutzpah of porn stars and adventurous academics who are physically and intellectually stimulating, be it in the classroom or on the silver screen.

I'm not sure what I think about the rest of her work, but if you want to see some it, go here.

Comic book woes?

Disney buys Marvel Comics...

Jon Stewart slams Betsy McCaughey on alleged 'death panels' from page 425 in HR 3200

theExaminer.com

Mini-books

These are Quarter Bound leather hollow-backed books. It's a Coptic structure (sewn on cords) and I've been sewing the headbands by hand. I think they are beautiful and sophisticated and a good challenge to make. The ones I just finished are mini-books (they're only 3" tall!!). I did four, but I've only got pictures of three... The fourth is going to be in the Summer Study Abroad Exhibition, which goes up tomorrow.

loomy loom-- the saga continues

So I said I was going to make a rug to work out the kinks in my loom. WHY THE FUCK DOES IT NOT HAVE A LOCKING MECHANISM AND NOW I HAVE THIS WARP STRETCHED AND AM USING A HAIR TIE TO FREAKIN' HOLD IT IN TENSION!?!?! This totally sucks. Ahhh!!! Enough with that I will figure it out in the morning (ugh so tired).

Other thing (not so disastrous thing) I did today was to begin refinishing the beauteous solid wood oak desk I found at a yard sale for $20. Yay. It's a 1940's writing desk, needs to be completely sanded down and re-oiled, and the drawers need new bottoms cut and fitted and glued, but other than that... And, lucky for me, none of that is a problem at all. I want to get this done before returning to MICA (my intent is for it to be my sewing desk when I'm home from school, and eventually it will travel with me to a more permanent residence somewhere).

Last day of internship tomorrow = Bed now.

Loomy loom

This is my beautiful new table loom!!



I just picked it up today. So awesome. 22" weaving width, 4 lams. Has aprox. a 16 treadle capability, which is more than I've every used at this moment. Came with shuttle, threading hooks, spare parts, a rattle, a warping frame, lee sticks, and a gigantic box of wool yarn. Best part is that it's collapsible and folds flat (yay for storage!) Even though the techs in the Fibers department told me I've probably got a floor loom, it's not 100% so it might come with me this fall. I think I'm going to make some rugs (I know, Appalachian folk arts...) just to figure the thing out and make sure it works beautifully.

And of course, this is timed really well for me as I just made a bulk yarn order for yarn for the school year. I should get my linen yarn just in time to start.

Middle East Geography Quiz

geo quiz

Try it. See how you do. Watch out for the Russian border...

Commission time

I am working on a small book commission for InMyVeganLife of open bound coptics with board covers. I'm very excited to get these finished now that the Venice chaos is mostly over (they should be Beautiful!). I got the commission through Etsy (yay etsy!), so despite the slow start I'm getting with it, it is not a total bust. Pictures when done.

Breif update after Venice

Hello. I am back from Venice. I'll be posting photos and such later this week (I don't even have them on my computer yet!), however until then, this is a great website for an overview of some of the work shown at the Biennale.

Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage Legislatively!

New York Times has a great article on it.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/us/08vermont.html?hp

Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze has decided that "Where the wild things are" should be a movie. Looking at the trailer, I think it should too.

Dueling Boxes Press logo

For letterpress, we are to design a logo for a Private Press name we create for ourselves. Fortunately I came up with one of those during the first letterpress class I took last summer. Of course, with my lack-luster computing skills and all the free time we have at MICA, I haven't touched the idea since (except for wishing I had a small logo to print on the backs of things for identification!) Well now I have a good reason to make something amazing, and the more I think about it, the more I like the name I've chosen.

For the initial branding, I'm going to print up some posters. Not only do I like printing posters, but it allows me to use the pretty new wood type, and it buys me another week to design (read draw) the image for my logo (layout, select type, ect.). I'm working on something that mimics the old boxing match announcement poster from the beginning to the the middle of the 20th Century. The layout I like best will look something like this:



I really like the opposing sides look spatially and the textual layout was about what I was thinking for how my text should be apportioned. Something like this:

Dueling Boxes Press
-----------------------
We challenge you [box]
[box] to challenge us
-----------------------
Letterpress, sculpture, whatever.
We can take it

Student Loan Crisis

On democracynow.org, they discussed the student loan crisis this morning. They said that most students will graduate with $20,000 in debt from 4 years, but I'm going to be honest here, my total is probably going to be twice that.

Rev. Jessie Jackson was on talking about how we, as students and post-students, should use our energy left over from the election to march and protest.

Their other speaker, Alan Collins, began this website: http://www.studentloanjustice.org/ You can get information there and give testimony of your own issues. There's also contact information for people who should know/listen.

I think the Obama campaign needs to make good on their promises for students, community service grants, arts and humanities grants, ect. They need to do it very soon.

Sean Penn at Academy Awards: “We’ve Got to Have Equal Rights for Everyone.”

Last night at the Oscars, Sean Penn won best actor for his role as gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk in the film titled Milk. This is part of Sean Penn’s acceptance speech:

Sean Penn: “For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

Finished Weaving

The front and the back of my weaving look very different from one another. The back gives a much more balanced warp to weft facing than the front, causing it to look a lot like a plaid. The patterning is different as well (not all weaves do this, which makes it even better).






This is the front. Because this weave structure is very weft-based, you get color stripes and not a lot of mixing vertically.







Honestly, I just want a plain white wall with GOOD lighting. I feel like this would make my life very easy. Maybe a white cube out of doors on a very sunny day? Lighting my work is the really the bane of my existence (if that's true, then I must have it fairly easy...).

The Sea Creature Show is On!!

Beth and I are (still tentatively) having a sea creature show off campus next September/October. You'll be informed as I am.

Weaving no.1

My weaving is an "M&O" variation called "Huck-a-Buck." It's not cut off my loom yet (Chrissy has'nt shown us what to do with them yet...). I'll have those once they're done.



This is the back of my weaving (there isn't a proper name for it as far as I know...)


This is the front of my loom.


Another image of my loom. Isn't it pretty?

Thinking quietly in the morning.

I stopped journaling when I got to college. I had realized at some point that everything I seemed to write was the same, over and over, because that is just what life is like in high school. I've since then come to miss the catharsis that comes with writing down what your thinking about and feeling. I'm still not sure what to do with the two other journals I've got sitting, taking up dead space in xanga and livejournal land(s). They're fine where they are for now, protected from prying eyes (like time capsules). I think they'll stay that way. As for this? I'll do as the other artists do and get work up for people to see. I like the idea of cultivating community by any means possible/necessary.