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

2018 Workshops and News

I could tell 2018 was going to be a busy year when it started off with a full class at Sturt Summer School. I had a great bunch of students, some of whom had never done any textile dyeing before, so I was really happy with the outcomes, and they were happy to learn all about printing with mordants.

Happy smiles all round! the Mordant Printing Class of 2018 at Sturt.

Since then I have been contacted by several Textile groups in various parts of Australia for some private workshops and I have finally (!) put some of my own workshops up on my website.

Organic indigo vat and resist printing and intro to shibori workshop

First cab off the rank will be an organic indigo and resist printing workshop  24th and 25th February - more information can be found here

Explore the local area, forage for dye plants that reflect the terrain

On 11 & 12 August a new workshop entitled "Local Colour & Dye" will combine foraging for plant materials and using scraps from the kitchen to create wonderful complex colours. Click here for more information.

Learn how to print with mordants to achieve a variety of colours and tones in
the one natural dyebath.

And lastly, the ever-popular Introduction to Mordant Printing workshop will take place on 8 & 9 September. More information here.

I will be overseas in the middle of the year undertaking two arts residencies - more about that exciting news closer to the time!

I hope you make 2018 a year to explore your creativity and connect with like-minded people who share your passion for textiles!
Best wishes
Julie

To Scour or not to Scour? A Galling question....

2018 was off to a good start as soon as I unloaded my van in preparation for the Sturt Summer School. I had a full class of students eager to learn the basics of natural dyeing and then to progress to mordant printing.

One of the most important aspects of all dyeing is the preparation of the cloth beforehand.  All too often we are in such a hurry, we misinterpret 'scouring' to mean "a quick rinse or wash in the washing machine".  Whilst any preparation has to be better than nothing on store-bought fabric, failure to take the time to ensure the fabric is free from grease, oils, dirt and sizing will result in patchy and uneven dyeing, leading to disappointment and waste of time and materials.

Below is a photo of already-whiter-than-white PFP (Prepared for Printing) linen tea-towels that I buy to print on with pigments. The water-based printing emulsion is mixed with concentrated fabric pigments which are screen-printed with a design. Once perfectly dry, the tea-towels are heat-set to bond the resin-based print-paste to the fabric.  It will only ever sit on the surface of the fabric, not inside the fibres as in dyeing.

However, in order to dye these tea-towels (in either natural or synthetic dyes) they must be scoured thoroughly first.  I figured not much would happen but at least I was doing a practical demonstration of the scouring process to the students, most of whom were beginners. 

Was I wrong!! The photo below shows the water that the 5 teatowels were scoured in - can you believe the colour of it - almost looks like a dye itself!!! After this photo was taken I started the process again and scoured the tea-towels a second time. The second lot of scouring water was paler than the first, but not entirely clean.  Given that each scouring should take around 2 hours, we rinsed them and went onto Galling the linen in a Gall Nut soak before we could mordant them the following day. This demonstration clearly shows that whilst the linen tea-towels may be PFP, they are not PFD (Prepared for Dyeing). This is an important distinction if you are buying fabric from a wholesaler to dye with.

Scouring water from the white linen tea-towels

Another important process in fibre preparation for immerse dyeing that is commonly omitted for cotton is the galling or tanning of the fabric or fibre before dyeing. This process literally 'tans' the cloth so that the mordant will attach more readily to the fibre, which in turn attracts the dye. I must admit that I have been a culprit in the past, but Joy Boutrup and Catharine Ellis converted me to galling  cotton when I attended a two week intensive course with them back in 2013. Galling can be done with a number of different plants but I prefer to use the Gall Nut method as it is fairly colourless.

I set up several experiments using store-bought tabby weave cotton fabric;  fabric that had been untreated and unwashed; fabric that had been unwashed, unscoured but mordanted in alum;  fabric that had been scoured and mordanted in alum; fabric that had been scoured and mordanted in Symplocos; and fabric that had been scoured, tanned in Gall Nut and then mordanted in Symplocos. We then dyed the pieces of fabric in a Weld extract dyebath for one hour and observed the differences between them once the samples had been washed, dried and ironed. 

The richest colour and most evenly dyed sample was, not surprisingly, the one that had been scoured, tanned and mordanted in Symplocos.  About one shade behind were the scoured and mordanted samples and the cloth that had been neither washed, scoured nor mordanted was the worst dyed sample of the lot. The differences were easily seen by eye, however did not really show up on camera, hence no photos.

In theory we should also have done a test that included a step with Turkey Red oil for the cotton, but in a 4-day workshop this was unfortunately one step too many!

In my next post I will show some examples of what the student's achieved in the four days, or if you are on Instagram I have posted a few of them @julierydertextiles.

Mordant printing frenzy!

I really enjoy teaching workshops on natural dyeing because I get such a buzz from inspiring people to look at nature in a different way, to learn more about the plants they use and exploring the many and varied ways to utilise natural colour for our enjoyment. However, when I am teaching I rarely get time to explore new techniques myself.  So it was with great anticipation that my good friend, Sylvia Riley from Sydney, came up to Canberra for a long weekend so that we could have a print-fest at Megalo! Having her there enabled me to print the full width of fabrics on my textile screens - around 140cm wide.

Squeegee passing with my print-pal, Sylvia, at Megalo

Megalo is such a great place to print because it has a full-width 8m table 👏 We both managed to get metres of fabric printed, although we were exhausted at the end of it.  My meterage is to be used for one-off naturally dyed and stitched scarves for the upcoming Open Studio Day.

Different mordants printed onto cotton

The only trouble with mordant printing is that when they dry, they are almost invisible, such as the alum above.  The slightly stained part of the design is a very weak iron and alum mix. All the mordants are printed and aged before dyeing.

Process from print to dyed fabric using a range of mordants.

The first dyebath I put this mordant-printed scarf length into was Acacia catechu, or Cutch. This gave me a lovely range of browns and tans, however I felt the scarf was a little 'dull' so once I washed and ironed it, I over-printed with some alum and another iron mix.

Adding more detail to the scarf with new mordants

Barely visible now but will show up in the next dyeing.

These small prints will add further highlights once I dye in my second dyebath, Rajentot.  I am waiting for this mordant to dry as we speak and will show the finished cloth in a few days time.
By the way, I am teaching an intermediate class on repeat printing at Megalo for the next two Saturdays, more details click here.

Natural Dye Workshop @ Ballarat

Had a fantastic week in Ballarat with Fibre Arts Australia printing with mordants and dyeing with a variety of natural dyes, from fresh plant material,  powdered dyes as well as extracts. I had a wonderful group of students who were right on track to learn new ways of creating images and colour combinations by printing with mordants both before and after dyeing with natural dyes.  I think we worked out that we had made over 150 colours during the course of the week.....so all the students have built up a wonderful resource for their future forays into natural dyes.  Towards the end of the week our group had to make something for the "top table" so we decided to make this fabulous table-runner which we printed with mordants and then dyed in iris leaves.

Table runner after printing with various mordants (before dyeing)

We were all so proud of it and we raised $100 when it sold to one of the other tutors during the live auction.

Table runner after dyeing with iris leaves and decoratively stitched by students

After the workshop I had several enthusiastic emails from several of my class saying they had already started putting their new skills into practice.  That is so exciting for me as a teacher - to know that you have not only inspired others with your passion and knowledge but also to create the impetus for independant research and experimentation.

The Ballarat Class of 2016 - Awesome and talented ladies!!

Thank you all so much for a wonderfully calm and productive week!

Sturt Summer School

No sooner had I finished digesting the Christmas pudding and getting over the champagne from New Year's Eve, it was time to hit the road again and head down to teach a Printing with Mordants and natural dyes workshop at Sturt Summer School.

The grounds of Frencham Girl's School where workshops are held.

This was a similar workshop to what I taught in Geelong last year, with a few plusses and minuses along the way! I love teaching at Sturt because it is only a couple of hours away from Canberra and this means I can pack my car to the brim with everything I need...and more! The campus is very handy to shops, good coffees, the Sturt Gallery and massages and yoga for those who need extra nurturing.  Mark, Tracey and Slavica have got everything super-organised so there is nothing to do but teach, eat and sleep! Bliss.
We had a few minor hiccups with one of our recipes early on in the week, so that set me back a bit trying to figure out what could have gone wrong....as it turned out it wasn't anything I had miscalculated but perhaps a recipe which needs a little more investigation.  In the end it all worked out and we managed to get some great results with our mordant printing.
One of the great successes was our totally natural indigo dyebath, which we used all week, heating it  and wrapping it up overnight to keep warm.  In Geelong we had the added benefit of a heater in the room, so at Sturt I filled up a bin with hot water and placed the vat in it overnight with lots of insulation to keep it happy :}

Some student work plus stool by local furniture maker

The trouble with making a beautiful indigo vat....what to do with it when you've finished the workshop? After my Turor's talk, a local furniture-maker who studied at Sturt and COFA showed me some of her furniture and bowls that she is selectively dipping into indigo...different coloured woods dye different shades of blue depending on their tannin content.  Above is an example including some student work on the table.  As usual, I was so engrossed in everything I forgot to take more photos during the workshop and at our final display...note to self....
For more information on upcoming workshops please visit the events page on my website.

Natural Dyes and Mordant Printing at Sturt

Sturt have just released their  Summer School 2015 workshop information and I will be teaching Natural Dyes and Mordant Printing on Fabric.  Places are filling fast so if you are interested now is the time to enrol!.  I always have such a good time at the Sturt Summer School - everybody is super friendly, the tutors are the top of their field, the Sturt staff are fantastic and the weather is usually lovely. I seem to attract a great group of students and we all end up having a fun yet productive time. I hope to see some of my students return for another great week of printing and experimenting.

While I was in the UK I went to loads of museums and galleries and one of the most interesting I went to was the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.  I am including a few images of some very old block printed  textiles which have been done with mordants and natural dyes.

Indian textile from Indonesia (1400). Block printed cotton with resist and mordant-dyed red.

Indian cotton textile traded to Egypt, block printed, painted mordant and resist.

Mordant Printing

I have just written an article for the latest 'Embellish' magazine (Issue 18) on the early history of mordant printing in conjunction with natural dyes. It was fascinating to discover that the Egyptians used mordants from the 12th Dynasty (2055-1650 BC) and that alum was used in India around 2000 BC. The advantages of applying mordants and resists to a cloth before dyeing enables a polychrome palette to exist alongside areas of undyed cloth with only one or two dyebaths. I will be teaching this process at the Geelong Fibre Forum in September-October this year. I believe there are only one or two places left in my workshop, so if you are interested, get in quick!

Experiments in Printing with Mordants

Just a heads-up on the workshop I will be running at this year's TAFTA Geelong Forum from September 28 - October 4th. My class will definitely be going ahead, and is almost full, so if you are interested now is the time to register.

Combination of resist, dye and mordant printing on cotton.

Discover the magic of printing with mordants in conjunction with natural dyes. Mordant printing is a centuries old process whereby different colours can be obtained on your cloth from just one natural dyebath. This class will focus on several mordants and dyes as well as different printing and stamping processes. It is suitable for those wishing to extend beyond immersion dyeing to printing. It can also be understood as suitable for relative beginners to the very experienced as participants can determine how to incorporate the Mordant Printing methods in their own practice.

Naturally dyed silk wool and cotton with mordant printing

Hope to see you there!http://tafta.org.au/geelong-forum-tutor-julie-ryder/

Colour+Print!

At the Sturt Summer School this year I taught a "Colour+Print" workshop that focused on the basics of mixing colour for printing onto textiles. 

One happy class!

Most of the participants were beginners although some had related experience in the areas of weaving, sewing, dyeing, graphic design and teaching art. Student learnt to mix their own colours from scratch, learning about colour theory and the technical aspects of the chemicals involved, including exploring the many different binders that could be used onto textiles to create different effects.  Once we got a hang of that, we had fun playing with carving blocks and using traditional blocks for block-printing as well as cutting stencils for screen-printing.

Kate's green hydrangea block-print

Elizabeth's vibrant block-printed cotton

Exploring both traditional and hand carved blocks

This was a fabulous collaboration with a professional outcome!

The cushions seen above are an example of how much work and effort the students put into a 5-day workshop.  The Japanese Maple block was carved by Jen, the design and construction was executed by Lee, and Marylou acted as colourist and stylist. Lee and Marylou also made matching aprons from their colour swatch experiments (seen in the background), tote bags, napkins, tea-towels and much, much more.  It was awesome to come into class each day and see what they had achieved.  In fact, the whole class was so enthusiastic that we received many many comments about the work produced during the public Saturday Open Studio.  Well done ladies! 

Oh....they also presented me with this fab tote bag, screen-printed and signed by each one of them, then sewn up in the dead of night by Lee...and filled with bottles of wine of course! One of the most enjoyable workshops I have taught.

My next workshop will be at the TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum in late September - Experiments in Printing with Mordants. Great for those of you who have an interest in natural dyeing and want to expand into printing with mordants and natural dyes. 

Where did the week go??

Last week began in an unusual way due to the celebration of Hari Raya Haji, a public holiday, on Tuesday.  Most people also took the Monday off as well, so it felt like a very extended long weekend.

Hari Raya Haji is an important event in the Muslim calendar and commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to follow Allah's command to sacrifice his son Ishmael.  As Ibrahim was about to kill his son, Allah stopped him and revealed that it was a test, and allowed Ibrahim to sacrifice a ram instead.  So Hari Raya Haji is also known as the Feast of the Sacrifice. During Hari Raya Haji, the sacrifice of four-legged animals such as lambs, goats or cows is performed to commemorate this event.  The animals are killed according to the proper religious rites and meat is then distributed to family, neighbours and to the less fortunate in the community.

In our kampung the sacrifice of around 10 cows happened outside the front gates of Rimbun Dahan, which occurs immediately after the morning prayers, around 9.30am. Families are dressed in their finest clothes and it is an important community event.  I walked to the front gates of Rimbun Dahan with Gabriel, one of the Asialink dancers here, just to have a peek at the (still live) cows, then I quickly went back inside and busied myself with mundane tasks such as washing clothes at the other end of the property, whereas  Gabe stuck it out and took photos and really bonded with the community. So no photos for the blog from me....I'll leave it to your imagination.

The rest of the week I have been stitching away and taking a few last walks around Rimbun Dahan.
I joked that most people will think this is a horticultural residency rather than a textile one, due to all the photos of plants on this blog,  but those of you who know me understand how inspiring nature is to me and my practice, and that it will all eventually evolve either as textile design, natural dyeing or ideas for sculptural objects. So here are a few more spectacular finds in the Rimbun Dahan garden. This Hibiscus mutabilis changes colour from white in the morning to pink in the afternoon and can turn a deep crimson, depending on the temperature.

Hibiscus mutabilis in the taman sari garden

Also found in the taman sari was this spectacular Dillenia philippinensis which is flowering right now.

Dillenia philippinensis front view

Dillenia philippinensis side view

We have had day after day of terrific thunderstorms which have interrupted internet accessibility and efforts to get out of the studio all week, but on Thursday Claire, Sean, their kids and I all piled into the car on an adventure to experience one of the amazing natural wonders in Malaysia - the firefly colonies in Kuala Selangor. I have wanted to see them for the whole three months since I have been here, as we often have several fireflies flitting about the Rimbun Dahan gardens very late at night.  Occasionally as you are walking up the drive from a late night out, you will think it is animal eyes shining in the dark, or something spooky, and then you realise its fireflies, gently dancing along with the moon in their bellies. So I was really keen to see them en masse.

Fireflies, kelip-kelip in Bahasa Malayu, are not flies at all but beetles which belong to the family Lampyridae. You can seen them in large colonies in only two places in the world - Malaysia and Brazil. There are around 2,000 species in the world, and three species live in the Berembang (Mangrove) trees along the Selangor River. Their bioluminescence is used to attract mates, and is a chemical reaction between  four main chemicals of Calcium, Adenosine Triphosphate, Luciferin and Luciferase in the presence of oxygen, inside their abdomen.  

We left Rimbun Dahan at about 5pm and it was starting to sprinkle.  Over the next hour driving north-west we experienced the worst thunderstorm I've ever been in, but Sean was a diligent driver and with Claire navigating in the front and me amusing the kids in the back we eventually made it to a great seafood restaurant to eat dinner (makanan laut) and wait for the storm to pass. Obviously you can't get in a boat to see the fireflies in the rain...to tell you the truth we felt the roads we were driving on were like rivers anyway! Wish we could send all this rain home to you in Australia at the moment.

Unfortunately you cannot use a flash to photograph them on the dark and peaceful journey we took on the battery-powered boat down the river, so I have included these photos from the internet.

http://blog.malaysiajao.com/2013/06/kuala-selangor-fireflies.html

We floated quietly down the river and as we rounded a bend we saw many trees on the banks twinkling and pulsating with tiny Christmas lights - the fireflies! A very magical experience for all of us.

And today I had the rare opportunity to walk through the gardens with Angela, on our way to hunt down an orchid which only flowers for one day. These are the Pigeon Orchids, or Dendrobium crumenatum, which is one of the most widespread species of orchids in Asia. Their flowering cycle is triggered 9 days after a sudden drop in temperature, by at least 5.5 °C or 10 °F, such as after rain.

The purse-shaped spurs on the flowers of Dendrobium crumenatum

It is such a rare treat to walk through the gardens with Angela, who not only knows the scientific names of every plant and tree here, but also its indigenous habitat and if it has medicinal or culinary uses. Outside the Rumah Balai where Gabe and Caitlin are living she pointed out this very strange fruit tree.

Cynometra mallacencis or kekatong

The fruit grow directly from the large trunk and lower branches, and once peeled have a lemony-apple kind of taste and texture, although there is not much flesh, as there is a large kernel inside.

With only a week to go here I have reached a milestone with my work - I have just completed the last of the four large naturally dyed, mordant printed, hand-stitched cloths for my upcoming exhibition. Now this coming week can be devoted to some final dyeing from the plants here for my textiles about Rimbun Dahan, as well as hopefully visiting an institution here that teaches natural dyeing, batik and other crafts.  I will post photos of my work next week, so stay tuned!

sehingga minggu depan

Julie

Warna-warna Malaysia!

Colours of Malaysia! 
We had a public holiday for Malaysia Day last week and I spent the whole day dyeing fabrics from several of the plants I had previously tested.

Natural dyes from the RImbun Dahan garden

If you have been following the blog you will know that I have been testing two different types of alum mordants - Potassium aluminium sulphate and Symplocos, a plant bio-accumulator of aluminium. As you can see from the above photo, there are doubles of each fabric type in each colour in the front row. As I had never used the Symplocos before I was really testing it for my own peace of mind to see how it mustered up against PAS. My results above show there is absolutely no difference between the pairs of samples to the naked eye. The fabrics in the back row are more naturally-dyed swatches not included in the tests. During my last month here I will continue dyeing fabrics that will eventually be used for Rimbun-inspired artworks.

I have also been sketching an painting some of the unusual flora in the taman sari

However, for colour you just can't get any better than an art opening, and in particular the opening of the Art Expo Malaysia 2013. Now in its seventh year, it showcases hundreds of artists from all over the world (except Australia) and this year included works by Picasso, Miro, Yayoi Kusama and Damien Hirst to name a few.

Filipino artist Carlo Gernale and I at the VIP Preview 

I was lucky enough to be invited to the VIP Preview opening through Carlo's friend, Malaysian artist Seah Ze Lin, who had work in the g13 Gallery stand.  Zelin also shows work at Taksu Gallery.

Zelin and his wife in front of his work at g13 gallery stand.

I have to say that my eyes were constantly diverted from the artworks by the colourful and artrageously dressed crowd! However I was inspired by several artists work and the 'bucket men' gouaches by Jui-Pin Chang were drawing a steady crowd.  This one caught my eye for obvious reasons....

Jui-Pin Chan's rendition of Australian $100 note, gouache on P-Tex.

Prior to the opening we were invited to eat at the cutest little cafe in Kuala Lumpur, poco homemade.

poco homemade

This Japanese-inspired cafe is owned by Zelin's wife who makes all the delicious cakes, as well as the quirky artwork and bowerbird collections inside.  I felt like I was back in Gertrude Street, Melbourne or in the Lonsdale Street Traders in Canberra. But better food!

Ice's artworks adorn the walls along with eclectic secondhand treasures.

What better way to finish off this week's blog than with the illuminating display of lanterns at Rimbun Dahan to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The children lead a colourful procession while we sat and ate mooncakes.

Colourful animal lanterns resting beneath the feet of a well-known Australian artist incognito

Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival!

Next week I will be travelling to other parts of Malaysia and hoping to find a trace of missing textile designer and entrepreneur Jim Thompson in the Cameron Highlands.

Sehingga minggu depan,

Julie