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Red cabbage pigment.
It's fugitive, meaning it won't last long, it isn't light fast.
And it's PH sensitive, meaning it's blue or purple when it is neutral, pink when there is an acid present, and yellow or green if it is base.
It's a kind of magic.
This morning's moon in a blue, blue sky.
This afternoon's blue, blue sky and a field, or a meadow.
The pigment strained. It needs just a little more prep work and then it will be ready for mark making...
Farmer's market trip today:
Grown in hoop houses...the last of the local strawberries and probably zucchini and cucumbers.
I also stopped at the local bookstore to pick up a book I'd ordered...Prairie Up. Maybe a bit of a strange thing, but it was on the "recommended reading" list for the ruderal and invasive pigment class. I loved the phrase "pocket prairie" that I found.
The other two books caught my eye... The World Central Kitchen Cookbook has the best chapter names, including "hope" and "joy."
While I was paging through the books I noticed the charcoal ink sitting in the sun...how it sparkles.
Thinking about charcoal as a fertilizer in the garden.
And then the pigment that I made with a rock last week.
A rock that would have eroded to soil eventually.
Even as a pigment, it might grow something...
I have a goal...that my altered photos always look altered. Altered not to "fix" something but rather to tell more of a story or to look at something differently.
The cats continue to be "not helpful" when I am trying to sew clothing.
The boys got locked in the bathroom for 10 minutes so that I could cut out a shirt.
I spent a few hours in the garden today, getting ready for cold weather. This is the first medlar that has been picked off the tree I planted a few years ago. Medlar's ripen off the tree. I will probably use this to make some kind of flavored vodka that can be used as an "extract" for baking.
Probably the last of the dahlias for the year...
Even though it was cloudy, is cloudy, the park was full of people this morning.
I imagine stories as I go past them or they go past me.
Tide was in.
I sat for awhile, but not here...
And I collected a few things:
I came home and finished up the pigments I've been working on this week.
It occurred to me today that the pigments are a form of field note for me.
Information, documentation, about place and time...about what I love.
The brown on the top is from a rock that I found on my birthday, the powdered pigment on the left from a rock found a few weeks ago, the greenish-yellow a lake pigment made from mullein, and the yellow a lake pigment made from willow leaves.
The fabric on the bottom is from the willow leaf dye bath, the next layer is the mullein, and the orange-brown in the very back is buddleia over turmeric stain over brown cotton.
For some reason I have the idea that we are all made of stardust stuck in my head.
Not a bad thing to hold on to.
It's been stormy...
Buddeleia pigment.
An unexpected day off. I cleaned and played with pigments.
Willow in process
Mullein in process. It's made a bit differently than the other lake pigments I've been making. The last thing added was chalk and it was "poof" yellow to brownish. Close to the color of the leaves I am composting.
And my first rock pigments!
The rock on the bottom is similar to the rock I used for the pigment on the left.
It was an "oh wow!" moment when I hit the rock with the pestle and it broke.
More to say about this but later.
Last night's rainbow. It was at it's best as I was driving home but still so pretty that I had to share...
Yesterday I updated my CPR/first aid card, went to the beach and then the farmer's market.
At the beach, I picked up one clam shell, one oyster shell and a piece of brick. I noticed the way that some of the old posts are breaking down; looked at the mix of broken clam and mussel shells, the rocks, glass, and brick.
Wondered about the things I couldn't see...not just the physical but also stories and history.
Thinking about erosion.
I listened to the On Being podcast with Baratunde Thurston for a second time and read the transcript. During the "On Being" conversation he talks about "citizen" as a verb and describes it with four principles: to show up, invest in relationships, to understand power and all the different ways we have it and to value the collective.
It seems so timely with everything that I am thinking about.
I've started listening to some of the episodes of his podcast "How to Citizen." I know that I will be listening to more. One thing that I love is that the episodes include suggestions for reflection and action...participation!
It's hard to push past (edited, what I mean here is to think of anything else other than...) what is happening in our world right now, on so many fronts. Some of the instructions given during the CPR/first aid class: stop for a moment and slow down, assess the situation, start over when you have to.
I am holding this thought close, the one that has been in my side bar for years and is one of my touchstones:
"It's not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It's about healing the world that touches you, that's around you." Rachel Naomi Reman
One thing I can do right now...
The two pots yesterday. The pot with the mullein has been simmered for a few hours. The willow has just been soaking but I will heat the water soon and see if the fabric will absorb more color. The fabric was soaked in a mordant.
Thinking about the act of absorbing.
There is enough fabric to make a top, both pieces are leftover from other projects. I will probably over-dye with indigo to make a green.
Both of these plants (although maybe not this specific willow) are sometimes considered invasive. Both have traditional healing qualities, color to share and their own natural beauty.
Thinking about the definition of ruderal again...
plants that grow where the ground has been disturbed.
Yesterday Jude posted about audience and blogging. Early this morning I wrote a long journal entry about this that went off on all kinds of tangents. That is one of the differences between writing to an audience and something private. The effort to be coherent, to say something meaningful, to be thoughtful. I am still trying to wrap my mind around what I want to say but here is some of it.
Accountability and participation. While we can make goals and live without sharing in such a public way, it is helpful to be able to put what we are doing out into the world: "I have this goal and I am showing up as a way to motivate me to keep trying."
Community. An audience often implies information flowing in one direction, a producer and a consumer. A presentation. A healthy community invites participation and conversation.
Teachers, mentors, facilitators, caregivers. To teach is often someone imparting information to an audience. The others involve a more complex relationship, one where there is a possibility of learning from each other. Participation comes up for me again.
Validation. This is the messy and emotional part about sharing (Alfie Kohn,"Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job"). We all appreciate a "good job" as human beings occasionally. Buying something that someone has made is a form of validation. It's hitting the "like" button. And it can become about popularity... sometimes that is necessary for survival in the society we live in.
When I consider it, I am not very interested in being part of an audience (but I am not judging people who choose that role, it is a way to participate). I want conversation, space to be curious, room to grow and be creative...
Friday, down along the bay.
Mullein and willow.
Powdered buddleia pigment.
Made mostly from the flower heads but a few leaves too.
Late afternoon, probably the last of the grape harvest.
In the recycling.
Another stack.
Not fixed, able to come undone.
This weekend's harvest, along with another big bowl of grapes.
And...a really great poem, "Concerning the Prayer I Cannot Make" by Jane Mead, found in the Poetry Unbound newsletter.
"I must have seen the way/the clouds just slide/under the rusty arch-/without snagging on the bolts,/how they are borne along on the dark water-"
Yesterday I spent a few hours working on the quilt that I named
GOOD enough COVID 19.
The name had a lot to do with letting things be good enough during difficult times.
As I've worked on it another name has come...
Holding Breath.
One of my reactions to stress over the last few years has been holding my breath. It's kind of ironic because at least once a day, while at work, I coach an upset child to take a deep breath.
There are other reasons the name fits, how the cloth used for masks held our breath the most obvious. When I think about the years we lived with Covid as a pandemic, so much of it will be about breath.
Filling the gaps between the squares. What is working the best for me is to:
As I work towards piecing all the squares together, 6 feet by 6 feet, I think a lot about distance, about making things fit.
This is the other memory I will hold on to as I think about the pandemic.
And then I started thinking about bandages.
That was random, but maybe not.
The theme might have been continued by making calendula salve but really it just had been on the to-do list for too long.
I think of this as healing our environment...waste stream, invasive, ruderial.
The golden is buddleia, in process, and the khaki is the bindweed pigment, mulled and with a binder added.
When the bindweed pigment was wet I thought it looked like the color of Gibson and Timber's eyes.
Bindweed, morning glory...coming back to thinking about names.
Does healing start with naming?