Tuesday, September 27, 2011

September Indigo Dying

Recently we relocated to a much sunnier state with a house and a back patio. A perfect combination for cloth dying. I tied fabric for days with the plan to do more refined shibori techniques first and then dye up looser combinations of patterns and  color depth.
Indigo Dying: Process (on the left) to Product.
I chose to dye some commercially made clothing as well as some pieces of cotton gauze. I overdyed the pink linen blouse by soaking it 3 times. The dress is a cotton commercially-made dress, soaked 3 times. The tank-top is of two grades of cotton providing some nice variation. The cotton gauze pieces are a mix--some are overdyed and some were dyed from white to blue. Days 1 and 2 provided excellent dye color, but Day 3 quickly turned out to be rather weak in color depth.

The scarves managed to come out in various shades of light blue as my dye bath was failing on Day 3.  They will be part of a line that I call, "Atmospheric Perspective", after the "bluing" effect of things seen at a distance. Three cheers for living in a valley surrounded by mountains.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

June 2011 Collaborative Installation

Greetings! The first half of 2011 has been completely absorbed by "i'm thinking of changing my smile,"
 a collaborative installation with Christina Gregor at the Dole Mansion and Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, IL. Our blog can be viewed at: http://collaborateeccg.blogspot.com/

This installation is significant for its size (5 rooms and a large stairwell of an opulent 1860's mansion). The house was built by Charles Dole as an opulent summer home and is currently in great disrepair. As part of an experiment, Christina and I were invited to do a mixed-media installation that dialogues with the age and history of the mansion. And that is exactly what we did. More to come on our other blog.