Test run with backdrop

  I've borrowed lighting stands from David Weichelt (thank you David!) and have checked to see if they work in my living room before I head to the creek. The colour shots are taken on my phone and the washed out pics on the near IR converted camera.
I corrected the colour (on Auto) in photoshop, which basically removed the pink colour of the 'IR' and what is left is the tiny amount of visible light that can still get through the exposed film filter. Interesting to see the weedy dyes rendered almost invisible.
Looking forward to the fabric hanging by the creek.

printing mordants, dyeing next...

[above: Les Traveaux de la Manufacture (The Activities of the Factory), 1783–84, designed by Jean-Baptiste Huet - 14 different scenes in this fabric depict the copperplate printing process and the fabric and dyeing preparation and process via the Metropolitan Museum of Art and via designsponge

I've been reading the fabulous book, Toile de Jouy : printed textiles in the classic French style by Melanie Riffel & Sophie Rouart ; photography by Marc Walter. The toile in the image above is probably my favourite. The use of the fabric itself to reveal the engraving, printing and dyeing processes seems to me coming together of process and product in a way that includes and acknowledges all the workers, machines and expertise in and within the production of the fabric. For the sake of design all the workers are shown outside, while in reality much of the work would have occurred indoors, apart from this it is an accurate visual account of the highly skilled and labour intensive process. Other toiles of the time represented great feats of science (such as the hot air balloon) or significant political events. Thus the toiles double as a feast of visual and technical expertise while also revealing events that captured the imagination and spirit of the time.

So I come to the toile and its history for all of these reasons: what could a Merri Creek toile or series of toiles be? What dye-stuff would I use / find at the creek? How can I transfer these printing and dyeing processes to the weeds and plants of the Merri? What events or activities and processes could mark the multitude of interventions and performances along its banks?

Reading between the lines of the Riffel and Rouart book, and scouring the internet for printing with natural dye tips, I have started testing the printing of mordants before dyeing. There are a number of steps necessary, and recommended waiting times between printing and dyeing, to allow the mordant to really bite the fabric.....

First I printed  the mordant onto the fabric. I used Guar as a medium for the mordant.

 The yellow stripes are an iron mordant  (tin can rusted with vinegar and water)

 Here I over printed the iron with alum (also in guar).

 And this is the alum mordant on its own.

 After leaving the printed fabric for four days (one week is recommended) I heated a mixture of chalk and cornflour.

 The mordant printed fabric was dipped in the chalk/cornflour solution (160 F), and then rinsed with water straight away. The chalk/ corn flour mix sets the mordant. In Jouy they used cow dung, which I am sure I could source further north along the creek!

 Some of the dye baths I used were very old and rank, but it was interesting to see what happened. This was (mouldy) periwinkle. The left hand fabric is alum, nothing much happened, so after dyeing I popped it in a cold soda ash solution, still nothing. The iron mordant became a grey, with a hint of green.

 This fabric was the iron mordant over printed with alum (see above image). Then dyed with fragrant saltbush. The salt bush turned the iron an ochre/ yellow, again, not much with the alum.

 The oxalis not only ignored the mordants but also bit into the stainless steel pot. I might have to invest in a glass saucepan for the oxalis, it is so acidic!! The intensity  the dye is not reproduced in this photo.

 The red gum was very old, and I think with fresh leaves the colour would be different. Nevertheless it created the best result with the alum and a warm brown with the iron.

The silver wattle flowers made the darkest grey with the iron, but also stained the cotton most dramatically. The subtle shifts in colour between different dyes are not that easy to see on screen...

There is scope to print with mordants and then post-dye. I think I would have more control over strength of colour in printed areas, even if the palate is limited, and I will waste less 'ink'.  I will get some red gum leaves that are fresh and see what they yield.

In Jouy the dyed fabrics were laid in the sun and sprinkled with water for six days in order to bleach the stained fabric..... I will try this at some stage but wonder if I will prefer the fabric with a tone.

Mapping my weed collecting

While in Canberra I downloaded an app which will provide me with a simple way of tracing my movements along and around the Merri Creek. I have been worrying about my lack of ability to file this sort of information in any sort of meaningful order, and now I think I will be able to do so with the help of my computer and this app.
Today we took a bike ride down the creek, and along the way we collected Bella Donna (Nightshade). I am able to take photos as I go which are then linked to the map. And I can add photos from my NIR (near infra-red camera) which was a bit tricky, but now I have updated the time and date on the camera, should be a breeze!

Here is a screenshot of my first tracked route along the creek. The little black camera icons are where we stopped and took photos.

Below are some of the shots, both from my smart phone, and from the converted NRI camera. **

**A special thanks to Graham Nash for giving me his old camera, and even more incredibly for pulling it to pieces, removing the UV filter, and replacing it with a piece of developed colour film. The colour film 'filter' blocks a large proportion of visible light while allowing infra-red rays to pass through.

While these are clearly not stereo images, I wonder if I could get 'almost' stereo images if I took them at the same time, holding the phone and camera side by side? Worth a try.

Fashion and Restoration

I'm just back from two lovely weeks in Canberra.
I had the feeling of being slightly 'out of place',  making and printing with the dyes made from Merri Creek weeds, transported all the way to the ACT hundreds of km's from its gathering. Many of the same plants were growing all over ANU (periwinkle, willow, soursobs); a reminder that introduced species (and indigenous species) have vast geographical overlaps across the country.

 Hemp, pre-mordanted with soda ash and alum. Orange = soursob, pink = willow bark, green = periwinkle flowers, yellow = cape broom or gorse flowers or thistle leaves

Wool, pre-dyed with wattle flowers. As above, but the periwinkle = purple

These three fabrics have all been printed with the same dyes. The colour changes reflect the mordants and fabric types. It was unexpected that the woolen fabric made the periwinkle purple and the hemp (premordanted in alum and soda ash) created a periwinkle green.
Sadly the steaming process made much of the colour disappear. I will conduct further tests to see if this was a result of not enough steaming, or if the periwinkle needs something else to make sure it holds fast to the fabric.

 Mid 18th Century pockets
Reconstructed with wool and cotton printed with soursob (oxalis) and gorse flowers.
These pockets would have originally been work under a dress where openings in the side seams allowed access to the pockets. My version can be worn as an external garment, similar to an apron.

Raquel directed me to the Tailor's Apprentice. A Jane Austen enthusiast, and wonderful tailor/ seamstress. Her facebook page is an exciting and entertaining resource for people interested in fashion from bygone eras (in particular Austen's era). Reading through various links to blogs and articles I was struck by the dedication of these artisans. Their eye for detail and obsession with doing things authentically is something to behold. No sewing machines, just an historic equivalent of haute couture.
My art practice is not about this level of replication or imitation, much as the restoration work along the Merri Creek is not striving for a perfect moment of yesteryear. However, the intersection of historic garment, its history and mode of (re)production, and the wear and tear on urban waterways such as the Merri speak to each other. Something can be learnt from the the care and time involved in recreating a garment to its historic specifications. While ecological restoration necessarily uses contemporary science to guide its direction, in the end, the work cannot be achieved via shortcuts. It is a practice of repetition and persistence, weeding, planting, waiting and watching.

Infrared conversion

Black Mountain, Northern descent. 1 Oct 2012

Lizard, CSIRO Black Mountain. 1 Oct 2012

I have been reading about near infrared cameras on the Public Lab website. It seems exciting and has interesting possibilities, or at least is worth a go.
I tried to convert an old camera of my own and totally wrecked it, which is painful, but to be expected. Since that debacle Graham next door (in Turner) has taken the bull by the horns and here are the first shots with his 2MP camera. Video is also possible.
We think that some visible spectrum is still getting through the film, so it is not anywhere near being able to simulate night vision. But it is interesting that the lizard sunning himself is not emitting any IR, his body is dark, he is keeping the heat within.
I wanted to try and convert a camera myself, but since Graham had his breakthrough at 3am this morning I have decided to forgo this pleasure and he now has an old camera of my dad's and a piece of 'black' slide film should he successfully get inside.

On another note, I am looking forward to a big day of weedy tartan printing, and fingers crossed Aphra and Romola like the holiday program as much as me!!!!

Hair ties / Rubber bands

 The collection of hair ties and rubber bands gathered as I move through the catchment is slowly but surely growing.

Black Saturday wristband....

This book is fantastic, mostly for the gorgeous photographs which make identification for the layperson easy, but also because everything in there is local to this area... limiting confusion. It is a nice adjunct to the Victorian Indigenous Nurseries Co-operative, where I spent an hour in the rain yesterday. (see Back-yard reveg post) on this blog.