Parallels and Intersections

On March 8th I had the pleasure of giving an artist talk on International Women's Day at my solo exhibition 'The Hidden Sex' at Craft ACT. I highlighted the role of women in the discovery and collection of Australian macroalgae, and the way many women's careers had been submerged due to their gender. That very afternoon I was winging my way to Brisbane to attend the opening of 'Parallel', a weaving and natural dye exhibition by Australian weaver, Kay Faulkner and US weaver and my natural dye teacher and mentor, Catharine Ellis at the Redlands Art Gallery, Cleveland.

Kay Faulkner and Catharine Ellis at 'Parallel' opening

Kay and Catharine have been working independently on dyeing woven cloth using shibori techniques for many years.  In 1998 they both presented at a Convergence conference - Kay with her "Controlled Loom Weaving" and Catharine with "Woven Shibori". They were astounded to find that they had each been interested in exploring the same technique on opposite sides of the world, and hence a true professional and personal friendship was born. I will be writing a review of 'Parallel' for the Textile Fibre Forum magazine in the coming months.

 

Catharine Ellis - Woven shibori in Weld dyebath

Kay Faulkner - detail of "Give them Voice"

I first met Catharine in 2012, when I undertook an intensive workshop with her and Joy Boutrup at Penland in North Carolina on 'The Art and Science of Natural Dyes'. What I was most interested in was the application of mordants and natural dyeing for direct printing, and since 2012 this is what I have based my dye and print practice on in order to produce work for exhibition and teaching what I have discovered along the way. I owe my deeper understanding of the chemistry and its application to natural dyeing to both Catharine and Joy, and, as many of my students will testify, I have always encouraged others to seek this dynamic duo out if they ever get the chance to attend one of their workshops. Catharine and Joy have now published a technical book through Schiffer, and this is now my new 'bible'. What I love about this book is it is not a 'pretty coffee table book' like so many others on the market at the moment- it is truly something you can turn to to get the answers and recipes you need for natural dyes and mordants.

So, with my personally delivered copy of the book from Catharine under my arm, I set forth to teach at Grampians Texture in hall's Gap, Victoria.  This was my first time teaching here and it does not follow the usual format of the other residential workshops I am known to teach in.  Students and tutors do not live in the one place, and instead are scattered throughout the picturesque and magnificent towering cliffs of the Grampians. Classrooms are also similarly dispersed, but we all manage to get together at some point during the artist slide nights, or a casual (yet competitive) game of petanque!!

View of the Grampians from the Information Centre

Staying in one of the many caravan park resorts we were surrounded by all manner of flora and fauna.  Many a night I was woken by the cough coughing of a huge kangaroo outside my hut window, or the surprise of seeing a deer with her faun as we drove into the resort at dusk.

Birds of all descriptions made themselves at home on our verandah, which amused our international tutors no end. Of course, the down side was the need to be vigilant and drive really slowly at all times because the kangaroos rule around here, and when they decide they want to cross the road, you just have to be prepared to stop.

My class was full very early on in the registration period, and I got used to other students coming up to me saying they tried to enrol but missed out.  I had a wonderful group of women and we were lucky to each have a table to ourselves to work on in a huge hall with kitchen.  The first two days are often the hardest for students new to the concepts of mordant printing, mordant strengths and natural dyes, but once we started the dyeing process, the lights go on and they are all hooked!

Naturally dyed and mordant printed by Althea H.

Naturally dyed and mordant printed by Christine McR (left - weld) and Lodi L (right - madder).

Scarves by Carole M (left -weld), Cheryl C (centre - onion skins) and Diane M (right - logwood)

My photos don't do justice to the wonderful work the students managed to achieve but I was very proud of them all, and I hope to see more of their work in the future.

My next upcoming workshop will be a Textile Printing using Photographic Stencils workshop in Ballarat in late June. For more details click here, and an Indigo Resist and Shibori workshop in Mittagong for the Sturt Winter School, click here

All upcoming events and workshops are also listed on my Website

The Hidden Sex

I have been extremely quiet on this blog since October, when I put my head down and started working my fingers to the bone to get my work ready for my solo exhibition, 'The Hidden Sex', which opened last Thursday at Craft ACT in Canberra. As it was the first exhibition for the year, it was a crowded opening, so thanks to all of you who braved the heat to come and see the work. The exhibition is on until 16 March 2019, and I will be giving a floor talk at 12pm sharp on International Women's Day, 8th March.

'Collecting Ladies I-III' series, 2018-9
Watercolour, marine algae on Arches 300gsm

'The Hidden Sex' is an exhibition that was inspired by my 2016 arts residency at the National Museum of Australia. My original project was to look at their botanical holdings but I quickly became inspired (obsessed!) by their two unprovenanced seaweed albums.  I have posted about these previously so will not go through my findings again here. The exhibition concept was to highlight the  invisibility of women in both society and science in the 19th century. Women were not allowed to attend university, and were hardly ever acknowledged for their contribution to our knowledge of our Australian flora.  All the kudos usually went to men, such as Government Botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller; William Henry Harvey, the great Irish phycologist; Joseph Hooker, of Kew; and Carl Agardh of Sweden.  However, not many know that Mueller conscripted over 225 women and children to collect for him, and some of these women sent their collections directly overseas to other scientists.  Hence the collections by some of our most noted women collectors, such as Jessie Hussey of Encounter Bay, SA; Louisa Ann Meredith, from Orford in Tasmania, and others are also in overseas herbaria.

'From Land and Sea: Rhodospermae, Melanospermae & Chlorospermae'
Three pairs of vintage kid leather gloves, embroidered with silk

Thinking about women collecting algae and vascular plants in challenging conditions wearing their heavy garments, skirts, boots and gloves inspired me to embroider some vintage leather gloves myself. Gloves were made in supple yet tight-fitting leather so that they could mould the hand into the proscribed shape - dainty, with long tapering fingers; not flaccid yet not too muscular. They also kept the skin unblemished from the sun. Indeed, I had trouble finding a 'glove model' for my photo shoot, as even the largest glove would not fit today's narrow hand! These gloves could not get wet, so there is a paradox between the gloves and the act of collecting. The three sets of gloves represent the three classes of seaweed, but the scientific name for them has altered slightly.  I have chosen to use the classifications instigated by Harvey in the 19th century - Rhodospermae (red); Chlorospermae (green) and Melanospermae (brown).

Women of the 19th century had proscribed pastimes to help them while away the hours - botanical painting and collection, needlework, music and languages. In the mid 19th century, a craze for collecting seaweed was at its height, having taken over from fern collecting, or pteridomania.  Botanical collections were pressed in special albums, on cards and in books, and became the subject of watercolours and dioramas. The series 'Collecting Ladies' references the etiquette of dress (handkerchiefs and gloves!) and the pastimes of lace-making, embroidery and botanical collecting.

Installation view, The Hidden Sex, Julie Ryder.

On the left of the installation photo are a series of large cyanotypes, made with seaweed I have collected on my travels.  The cyanotype process was the first photographic process invented by Sir John Herschel, but it was pioneered by Anna Atkins in the 19th century, who used this new technique to produce handmade volumes of photographs of British Seaweed that she had collected. The New York Public Library are currently holding an exhibition of these images from the two editions they have acquired, but they are only on for another week. My work references the life-sized work made by Anna, but I have enlarged them to make a bolder statement.

'Submerged' 2018-9, Julie Ryder
Vintage handkerchiefs, cyanotype, seaweed

In 'Submerged', a series of 42 vintage handkerchiefs, I have used the cyanotype process again to reference women's work.  The title refers to both the seaweed being submerged beneath the waves as well as the plight of women in academia and society.

My interest in Victorian Glass Microscope slides has also been described in previous posts, but for this exhibition I had always wanted to produce a series that contained real seaweed and referenced the lace making done by women that appeared on handkerchiefs and clothing. 

'Flowers of the Sea, I-VI', 2019
Glass, seaweed, hand engraving.

Each of the six large (25x70cm) glass microscope slides have been engraved with the place of the collection (Orford, Encounter Bay, Ballinskelligs, Frank's Beach, Macmaster's Beach and Bicheno). Some of these related directly to our past women seaweed collectors, whilst others are favourite places that have personal resonance with my seaweed collection obsession. I will show some details in a later post.

Lastly, as an avid collector of anything that the waves throw up, I have made a large wall installation 'Hortus conclusus' (which literally means hidden or secret or walled garden}.  Made entirely from cuttlebones, these have been collected over a period of years and reference the aggressive passion for collecting multiples of everything by scientists and amateur scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries - even to the detriment of the species, and many species did go extinct, as did many ferns and other botanicals.

'Hortus conclusus' 2019 Julie Ryder
Cuttlebone, carving.

In my collection there are two 'types' of cuttlebones that can be found - smooth ones, and furrowed ones, which are very labial in appearance.  These are not known to be 'male' and 'female' types, in fact conversations with marine biologists have not shed any light as to why there are two sorts. As they are NOT seaweeds I was wondering whether they belonged in the exhibition at all, despite my initial intuition and strong intention that they should be.  Whilst researching I came across an unusual feature of the Australian cuttlefish that not many people know about that clinched it's addition to the exhibition.  During mating times, once a year, all the cuttlefish gather en masse in Whyalla, SA, for an orgy.  Well, not really an orgy, because males only mate once, and then they die.  As there are more males than females, competition to hand her their 'sperm sac' (yes literally, with their tentacles!) is fierce, with the larger, more dominant males guarding the females from other weaker males.  However, these 'inferior' males have come up with a unique and very sneaky strategy to sidle up to the females in order to hand over their genes.  They camouflage themselves as females, even to the point of having a fake egg sac, so that they can mingle with them and avoid fighting with the stronger male. Ingenious. Hidden Sex..... 

There is an amazing podcast out at the moment which gives further insight into this gender swapping hosted by Benjamin Law, called Look at Me.  Click here , and listen to the end where a very poignant story is told by underwater photographer, PT Hirschfield (IG: @pinktankscuba)

I do hope you will get to see my exhibition at Craft and if you are on Instagram, you can follow my whole journey with the making of work for the exhibition @julierydertextiles

I love hearing your comments, critiques and thoughts about my work, so please don't be shy! And if you have enjoyed this post, or my work, please pass on my blog and Instagram details to others 💚

Cheers

Julie

Glasnevin Botanic Gardens

Summer has hit Dublin with a vengeance and I am really enjoying the sunshine and long nights.....it doesn't get dark till around 9.30 or 10pm, so you can manage to fit so much more into a day.
On Monday I had an appointment to view items in the Glasnevin Botanic Gardens Herbarium which I had already identified months ago. Many herbaria simply do not have the manpower or resources to accommodate random requests to view their collections, so one has to have both the knowledge of the collection itself and the ability to work independently within that environment to gain access. Lucky for me I have some cred...haha....after this I will call myself "the seaweed whisperer" ...all will be revealed....

Glasnevin Botanic Gardens, Dublin

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View of the Palm House

Like the Herbarium at TCD, Glasnevin Herbarium was furnished with gorgeous old wooden cabinets and drawers, although most of the collection itself is kept in a steel compactus. Items I had requested were waiting for me, but I was also given free range to the unincorporated material which, to my mind, holds the greater interest because it is material that is not broken up into taxa and distributed within the scientific working collection. For me, this is where I can find untold stories, mysteries and give rein to my inner supersleuth.

The Herbarium

My primary object of interest was a 19th century album of Irish seaweeds collected by William Sawers, a collecting companion of my focal collector, Charles Morrison. I have documented approximately 15 Morrison albums now, and this album would enable me to pinpoint specific collection locations and times that they collected together. Comparison of handwriting on duplicate specimens will enable me to accurately interpret an album I will be viewing during my residency at the Ulster Museum Herbarium in a few weeks time. I have planned everything down to the nth degree for this trip as it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the final clues needed for me to finish writing  a paper and focus on new artistic work for an exhibition next January.

Sawers Seaweed Album

Here are a few examples of Sawer's album. Incredibly, there was also a letter attached from a botanist written  in 1952 who was also trying to determine the same things I was - the differentiation between Sawers and Morrison collections! Unfortunately she has passed, but I wish I could go back in time to discuss my findings with her.

Looking familiar, same but different!

The wonderful thing about life is it always throws you up something you don't expect, and on this trip so far there have been two collections which have not had information about them on file, but which I have managed to find provenance for, or add substantially to that knowledge. One collection was at TCD, and the other here at Glasnevin.

Encounter Bay Seaweed folio

In a listing of holdings there was an item called "Encounter Bay seaweeds" - no other information.
I had asked to view it but initially thought it must be a Jessie Hussey collection. Jessie Hussey was an Australian seaweed collector of some regard in the 19th century who lived at Port Elliot in SA and collected in Encounter Bay. She was a respected collector for Von Mueller and Agardh, the Swedish phycologist.  I followed her footsteps last year, collecting at Encounter Bay, and introducing my husband's young nephew to the joys of mounting seaweeds and beach fossicking.

One of the many Plocamium specimens from Encounter Bay

This huge folio of over 90 mounted specimens was definitely not her style - there were no collection locations or dates and the specimens were very repetitive - very much an amateur collection, yet impressive in its size ( each sheet was 75cm in length)  and expensively bound. I carefully sorted through each fragile specimen. This was no easy task as many of these collections are either covered in soot or dust or, even more insidious, chemicals for preservation. This means that it is necessary to keep washing your hands at regular intervals....tiresome, time-consuming, but not negotiable. As I was sorting through the specimens, one of the pages had a name on it - the only one in the whole folio. It was Hon. G. Hawker....wow...who was that??? The Keeper and I had no idea but a quick internet search by me found that the Honorable G. Hawker had been  a prominant and well-loved politician in the SA Assembly from 1858. He arrived from the UK in 1840 with a Bachelor of Arts from Trinity College, Cambridge, and went into sheep farming. At the time of his death he was one of the oldest JP's of the district, and was one of the longest serving member of the SA Parliament in history. I didn't find any direct refernce to seaweed collecting as a hobby, but it's early days yet and I haven't finished with the Hon. Hawker yet! More sleuthing abounds........

Hello from Ireland

My blogging has been suffering ever since I started posting on Instagram, but I am about to make up for lost time during my 6 weeks in Ireland. Many of my readers will already know of my interest in seaweed, or more particularly, seaweed albums of the 19th century. This obsession started in 2016 when I had an arts residency at the NMA in Canberra, and fell in love with an anonymous seaweed album.

The Port Philip seaweed album, NMA

This obsession lead to the discovery of many more albums by the same collector and I am now in Ireland to undertake further research on him as artist in residence at the Ulster Museum Herbarium in Belfast. I will also be doing an arts residency at Cill Rialaig near Ballinskelligs on the south west coast of Ireland, which starts at the end of this week. A big thankyou at this point to artsACT for supporting my travel to Ireland to undertake this residency.

I touched down in Dublin two days ago and have been walking around getting a feel for the city and its ambience. The predominant matter to hand has been the vote yesterday on the referendum to repeal the 8th Ammendment of the Constitution which bans abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother. This is a vote to repeal, not a vote on abortion as such, and counting the votes starts today, but watching the news last night there were many counties with 50-75% turnout to vote, although voting was still open till 10pm, long after I had crashed!

Trinity College Botany Bulding

My first full day yesterday was spent in the Trinity College Herbarium where I had organised to view their seaweed albums. This was a rare and wonderful opportunity, and although my collector was not represented there were several other intriguing albums to compare and contrast with our Australian ones.

Trinity College Herbarium

Several of the 19th Century Seaweed albums in the collection

A page showing some beautiful red seaweed

Trinity College Herbarium was the academic home of the eminent Irish phycologist William Henry Harvey. Harvey notably wrote the 5 volume Phycologia Australica, after spending two years from 1854-6 collecting over 20,000 Australian seaweeds. And yesterday I was privileged to handle his handwritten letters and his Traveling Set of Australian seaweeds. This has to be a 12 on a scale of 1-10 in amazing experiences, to know that my hands were touching the seaweeds he picked up from our shores all those years ago. I am so grateful to Staff at TCD for allowing me access entrusting me with these historical documents and objects. And don't worry, I will be going back on Tuesday to see the Book of Kells!

The Herbarium Library also contained the volumes of “The Nature-Printed British Sea-Weeds” by Bradbury and Evans, published in 1859. These intricate prints were created using the unique “nature-printed” process whereby a plant is pressed into a plate of soft lead, leaving an impression from which an electrotype is made. The resultant prints are incredibly detailed and realistic, capturing the fine detail of each seaweed, and it is possible to see and feel the raised surface of the printed inks on the paper.

Front page of one of the Bradbury Nature Printed Seaweed books

A gorgeous Delesseria sinuosa.

Punctaria latifolia

Sphacearia scoparia

Its been a great first couple of days here sightseeing, walking, walking and trying to decide whether the national pastime is smoking or drinking....! Off to the National Botanic Gardens tomorrow to see more suprises in their herbarium.

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Indigo reflections

I have been doing a lot of indigo dyeing now the weather has warmed up, and it has been really satisfying to wake up my three vats, warm them up and attend to their individual needs. These vats are all natural vats mostly using henna as the antioxidant, although one of the vats which I have had for a few years now, got a dose of over-ripe bananas last summer after my indigo workshop at Sturt Summer School.

This year I will be teaching Introduction to Natural Dyes and Mordant Printing, and there is only one place left, so if you are interested, go to the Sturt website and enrol!

Two weekends ago I ran an Indigo intensive Workshop from my home, where I am in the process of planning a purpose built studio. I wanted to test out how everything would work running classes from the downstairs space, and I had 8 eager students as my innaugural students.

Unfortunately our hot summery day disappeared and we had rain for most of the day but that didn't dampen our creativity or good humour! I ran through the process of making up an organic indigo henna vat from scratch (which then gave us the luxury of 4 vats to work from) and some beautiful pieces were made as you can see below.

One thing I stress to students is the attention paid to preparing the fabric before dyeing and also after dyeing in indigo. The finishing process is very crucial to ensure that the indigo is fixed inside the fibres and not just sitting on the outside, where it will quickly crock off. After rinsing in cold water several times after oxidation, and then neutralising in a vinegar rinse, it is important to then place the cotton fabric into very hot soapy water. As Joy Boutrup explained, this serves the dual purpose of getting rid of any excess indigo pigment on the surface of the fabric which has not been trapped inside the fibre, and at the same time swells the indigo molecule that is inside the fibre, ensuring that it is now trapped and cannot escape. In a recent Instagram post Aboubakar Fofana also stresses the importance of correct finishing of the indigo dyed fabric.

I'm off on a short holiday to Singapore and will post something on the textiles while I am there.

Cheers for now!

Over to the Dark Side....

Wow, I have no idea where July and August went but we are almost into September and I thought I had better do an update on my blog. A couple of weekends ago I ran an Introduction to Natural dyes and Printing with Mordants workshop in Canberra which was well attended, including several participants who have continued to come along to build up their knowledge and skills of natural dyes. It was especially lovely that Pirjo came all the way from Darwin and braved the Canberra winter, lucky it wasn't the weekend just gone because we had both hail and snow here on Sunday.

Making the mordant mixtures for printing

The lovely part about running the workshops is that we have a large kitchen with an open fire blazing away, so we can relax and eat yummy lunches and chat about our natural dye experiences. These conversations always seem to come back to the same gentle admonishments of why I am not on Facebook/Instagram etc etc etc.....

So....in order to keep Belinda, Jess and Ellen quiet....I now have an Instagram account : #julierydertextiles. And to be perfectly honest, I am enjoying connecting with other people, although because I am new to Instagram I am still learning Insta-etiquette. As Ellen commented, I have now crossed over to the Dark Side! So I am determined to show them I am not the luddite they think I am! Actually its more about finding the time to upkeep, but please connect with me on Instagram if you can.