Raking leaves in autumn is a perfect way to forage natural color right in your back yard. Japanese maple leaves create a pink/mauve dye for your textile and craft projects by simply chopping them up and throwing them in a pot of simmering water. Rich in tannin, the dye forms a strong bond with the textile that is long lasting and safe from light and water. This tutorial will show you how to forage and brew dye from Japanese maple leaves, as well as deepen the color with an iron water bath. You will see the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.
Iron Water
Iron is a great way to shift your naturally dyed fiber to darker shades quickly and easily. Make your own homemade iron water with 3 simple ingredients: rusty nails, white vinegar and water. After a few weeks, your iron water is ready to go! You only need a splash, so store it away to use any time you are looking for darker shades including gray and black. This video tutorial will show you how to make and use iron water, as well as the resulting color swatch samples of 6 different natural dyes on cotton.
Cold pH Shift
You've seen how to shift the color of red cabbage in your dye pot from purple to pink & green, but did you know you can cold shift too? Grab red cabbage dye you already have stored and play around with the pH to see what different colors you can make. Temperature can also play a factor in the colors you achieve with natural dye. This video tutorial will show you how to quickly color shift your red cabbage dye with vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (silk).
Black Bean
Black beans are a natural way to create blue dye for your textile and craft projects by using a cold process. Are you soaking black beans for a pot of soup? Fantastic - just let them soak an extra day and the thick leftover water can be saved for a blue that can have hints of green, purple and gray. This tutorial will show you how to create a 'cold brew' for a lovely blue dye, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.
Spinach
Spinach is a natural way to create green dye for your textile and craft projects by using food from your kitchen or garden. Did you forget the spinach in the back of your fridge? Even better! Wilted leaves that are past their prime can help coax out that green dye. This tutorial will show you how to brew a subtle green dye, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.
Citrus Peel
Citrus peel is a natural way to create yellow dye for your textile and craft projects by using your kitchen waste. Using citrus to add zest to your cooking or for a quick snack? If so, start collecting the skins to throw in your dye pot instead of your trash bin! Any citrus will work: grapefruit, orange, mandarin, lemon, etc. This tutorial will show you how to brew dye from the peels, as well as the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.
Color Quest
Welcome to my new YouTube channel, Margaret Byrd:Color Quest as I move my Trail Tales blog to a vlog! Every Friday, I release new video content focused on the amazing world of natural color. Join me as I explore ways to forage and invite organic color into my creative practice.
Creative Currency
Whole numbers
I am now rich with sand dollars. Not the broken shells typically found in my childhood beach hunts, but perfectly whole specimens of this sea urchin treasure.
Seriously – we are talking the mother lode of sand dollars.
Never have I seen such a gorgeous array of sizes and colors of whole sand dollars washed up on the beach, Cayucos, California, September 2020.
So, what does an artist do with so much natural wealth?
Simple – leave it behind in exchange for creative inspiration that only the coast can generously offer.
Welcome to California’s Central Coast!
Bank holiday
My latest journey to visit my daughters living in San Luis Obispo filled my pockets up in more ways than one.
Christmas was the last time I saw my oldest daughter, Devon, and the pandemic had cancelled a springtime trip to play on the beach with all four of us together.
So, two weeks relaxing oceanside with my kids this past month was a true gift.
Hiking Harmony Headlands with my kids, Zsofi, Devon and Mason, August 2020. So much fun!
Exploring the sea cliffs at Montaña de Oro and Harmony Headlands state parks, watching my girls surf at Dog Beach and Moonstone, and catching some pretty sweet sunsets brought some big smiles.
Devon living the surfer’s life on Dog Beach in Cayucos, California, September 2020.
Zsofi shredding it on a foggy day at Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, August 2020.
It also brought me the opportunity to connect more deeply with my surroundings by leaving small installation offerings as an ephemeral payment of gratitude.
Thank you, Central Coast.
Frozen assets
To tender ice as an artistic medium on a windy beach is exciting stuff.
Finding the perfect spot to create a brief visual experience involves sand, stone and surf. And, as you might imagine, not all places freely accept my form of creative currency.
You have to place a lot of ice to get a lucky shot, and luckily, the failures melt fast! Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, September 2020.
But, failed attempts are all part of the trek, and without the stagger there can be no sparkle.
Ice installation is a true balancing act of patience and persistence. Cayucos Beach, California, August 2020.
All of the rejected installations are rewarded with laughter and lessons of letting go - critical elements of building a balanced artistic practice.
Bag of sand
Two beaches that are especially generous in their inspirational exchange along the Central Coast are the pebbly Moonstone and the long sandy strand stretching from Morro Bay to Cayucos. Although waves crash against both to sculpt the tideline, there are unique features at each one that draw me in time and time again.
MOONSTONE
Say hello to a rock hound’s paradise of agates, jade and jasper. Every visit I make to the area requires a few hours simply sifting through the stones. So, leaving a small ice installation to mimic the colors of the tumbled rocks felt perfectly placed.
Blue butterfly pea, hibiscus, spirulina and turmeric created beautifully vibrant ice sticks to complement the colorful stones on Moonstone Beach, Cambria, California, September 2020.
Ice orbs mixing with the salty spray of Moonstone Beach honeycomb rocks, Cambria, California, September 2020.
The wind whipped hard on the beach that day, adding to the expressive challenges, but my incredible kids stuck by my side (behind a driftwood shield!) so their free-spirited mom could artfully play.
Love you guys!
CAYUCOS
While this beach charmed me with its trove of whole sand dollars, it was the long, slow tide and larger rock outcrops that inspired my icy installations.
The proximity to our house made it an especially great space to experiment with frozen shapes across several days and in different light.
As the tide stretched in and out, tidal pools exposed vibrant sea anemones and their starfish friends.
The neon glow of the sea anemone at low tide was breathtaking, Cayucos Beach, California, September 2020.
The variation of barnacle formations and mussels on the exposed rocks created intriguing complements to the melting blue cylinders of ice.
Perhaps the most compelling geological feature was a sea stack that brought back memories of an installation adventure in Lofoten, Norway in 2018.
Granite Stack ice installation in Lofoten, Norway is one of my very favorite shots, October 2018.
I made several attempts to capture the essence of Granite Stack, and was treated to a special image in exchange for hours quietly washed away by the California tide.
Mussel Stack ice installation in honor of Granite Stack, Cayucos Beach, California, September 2020.
Stack ‘em deep
Seems that my creative reserves have been happily refilled by my time on the Central Coast, and for that I’m thankful.
The rush of excitement I felt by collecting fistfuls of sand dollars was immediately followed by a natural impulse to interact with their subtle beauty.
Sorting, stacking and releasing them back to the sea is somehow intertwined with the curiosity that drives my installation practice.
How comforting to know I can bank on this coastal inspiration forever.
The Art of Craft
Small craft advisory
As an artist, I aspire to be crafty.
Forget the misguided, and tragically oppressive Western narrative of ‘high art’ as somehow ‘enlightened’ and more valuable than the exquisite beauty found across all creative expression labeled as ‘craft’.
If you can translate an idea from mind to hand, the material is immaterial – you are an artist - plain and simple.
My creative curiosity has led me down a crafty path or two, and I’m now enamored with one diversion so often associated with handiwork: natural dyeing.
Some of my kitchen favorites for natural dye: avocado, turmeric, red cabbage and black bean.
While I could fight against the notion that this diminishes the value of my art, why would I entertain such a silly thought?
Nope. I choose to celebrate, my artist friends, so let’s get crafting with natural color!
Color classics
Focusing on colors from nature in #The100DayProject has filled my fridge with an incredible rainbow of botanical dyes.
Dyes brewed from foraged plants and food scraps during #The100DayProject.
Every time I find a new plant to brew, I add to my collection. When I see a color missing, I go searching for a plant. It is a never-ending exploratory cycle.
10 dye plants foraged from Tambark Park and my garden waste to study local flora colors.
As I shared my project, and the art I created with these dyes, I could hear the buzz all around me as people became curious themselves. Certainly interested, and maybe even inspired, to learn about natural dyes.
I get this. I have a history of being intrigued myself. It’s how this passion for organic color grew and how I learned what I know so far. Ironically, it seems the more you know, the more you want to know.
Having had many of the same questions when I started my love affair with nature’s palette in 2017, I have been searching high and low for answers ever since.
When I learned from a Dutch artist that seaweed was a sustainable source of dye, I headed to Iceland to investigate.
And, because sharing is caring, I’m very excited to tell you a secret I’ve been keeping all to myself:
Starting in August 2020, I will be releasing short tutorial videos and mini-courses all about the incredible world of natural color. My intention is to build a place where you can easily find the basics to get you inspired to add color to your life naturally.
Soon to be released YouTube channel, Cookin’ Color, with short video tutorials on organic dyes, August 2020.
The topic is HUGE. There are so many options and different approaches to extracting color, plus a multitude of ways to use it.
For me, organic color has been an integral part of my installation practice, and more recently my mixed media work. But a beautiful aspect of natural color is that it is available to everyone, no matter where you consider yourself on the art/craft spectrum.
Bioplastics cooked and cured with natural dyes in my kitchen studio in June 2020.
And, the botanical dye in my fridge right now is a perfect example of the countless ways we can weave natural color into almost everything.
Nature’s bounty
Finding a way to create color in an ephemeral installation without hurting an environment is how I got hooked on natural dyes. But as my #100DaysOfNaturesColors meandered its way through botanical dyes and earth pigments, I could clearly see just how many different ways I have been exploring color from nature. Maybe one or more of these will strike a creative chord with you too!
TEXTILE
Probably the most obvious and popular use of natural dyes is to create sumptuous hues for fabric. With a growing interest of sustainability in fashion, botanical colors are popping up from head to toe. If you’ve got natural fibers in your closet (cotton, hemp, silk, wool), you can dye organically – the options are endless.
Textiles of wool, silk, cotton and bamboo hand-dyed in Oaxaca exclusively with organic matter.
My first on-line workshop will be on how to create an ombre-dyed scarf from foods in your kitchen, and this fall, I will be teaching a similar technique using earth pigments. Incorporating these rich colors into a wardrobe is a delicious way to get your art out of the house.
However, if knitting or weaving is more your speed, soaking yarn, string or ribbon in a batch of botanicals can create subtle sweetness. Just look at the wonder of this wool I dyed in Mexico.
Wood hand-dyed in organic matter including indigo, muicle, pericon and cochineal in Oaxaca, Mexico.
While I preferred to use this fiber for installation, imagine a hat, scarf, mittens or sweater with that special colorful touch?
But who says you have to wear hand-dyed textiles? My mom was an avid quilter which I’m certain has influenced my mixed media textile pieces and love of squares.
Naturally dyed textile piece, Blossom, created while on residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.
How special it would have been to forage with my mom and organically dye fabric swatches for her to sew into her quilt creations. Keep that in mind for the quilters in your life.
PAPER
Textile’s extended fiber family is paper. The delicate translucency of paper has intrigued me for quite some time, both for sculptural and 2D applications. In Oaxaca, I first tested how wet strength fibers like mulberry and tissue would hold the colors I had brewed, and it worked like a charm.
First time hand-dyeing paper with plant matter in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.
So, one chunk of 10 days during #The100DayProject, I focused on creating collage with these dyed papers. The variations of color, especially when layering, felt closely tied to the depth I love to create with overlays of silk in my textile pieces.
Hand-dyed paper collage backlit in Tambark Park, made exclusively from organic dyes foraged in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Feeling inspired, I foraged local ‘weeds’ in my beloved Tambark Park the last 10 days of the project and made a new rainbow stock of colorful paper from the PNW.
Paper samples of natural dyes brewed from foraged plants in my neighborhood. Only blue butterfly pea was from my kitchen!
What’s wonderful about paper is its versatility across several art disciplines, and a true staple in many craft projects. Why not make hand-dyed paper with plants foraged from your neighborhood the next time the scissors and glue need some exercise?
INK
Dyeing paper is one way to spread some of nature’s colors around, but making ink turns just about any organic matter into a medium for drawing and watercolor fun.
I simply poured the dyes I brewed from foraged plants in Iceland and Mexico on paper, but learning how to make ink specifically was yet another way to expand my natural color wheel during the last 100 days.
Testing inks made from avocado skin and red cabbage during #The100DayProject.
I even made blue ink with my cherished blue butterfly pea blossoms for the first time, one of the most elusive colors of nature.
Watch out - lake pigments might be just around the next corner!
KITCHEN KRAFT
While all of the above may result in time at a craft table, a stovetop is still a critical element in a studio of natural dyes. Therefore, it’s no surprise that crafts of the kitchen can also add a splash of organic color.
Much of my installation work was born in the kitchen - infused ice, mung bean and playdough have been some of my edible shining stars.
Mung bean string installation naturally dyed with kitchen scraps in Sayulita, Mexico, December 2018.
Brewing organic dyes as natural food coloring for baking, cooking and blended drinks is certainly a fun way to add color in the kitchen. At the very least, you can start with next year’s Easter eggs having that natural color vibe.
This year’s Easter Eggs were dyed au naturel in turmeric, red beet, red cabbage, avocado and blue butterfly pea.
Plus, the kitchen is the perfect place to start playing with natural dyes in general. So many fruits/veggies, spices and even food scraps can make wonderful colors with very simple recipes.
In case you missed it this spring, download a copy of my Cookin’ Color brew booklet with a few of my favorite kitchen dye recipes, or better yet, sign up here for my 5 Days of Dye short video tutorial series releasing soon in a kitchen near you!
HEADING
Go ahead – call me crafty. I don’t mind at all.
To be honest, I question why any negative association became attached to a word that honors the vision and skill it takes to create beauty with your hands. To be an accomplished craftsperson is a lofty goal for any artist, and certainly one I aim for in my daily practice.
So, let’s keep spreading the art of craft in the world today!
The Tambark Ten
Frozen
The itch to travel runs deep in my veins. Funny enough, I’m also strangely content to hole up in my home for long stretches of time. Perhaps the balance for me is having an alternating pulse of movement and stillness.
With travel at a standstill, walking has become my movement of choice this spring, and as luck would have it, a small forested land sits opposite my house – Tambark Park. Daily excursions into the lush greenery spurred inspiration that translated into a surprisingly abundant creative surge starring two of my art darlings: ice and installation.
Shot glass ice installations popping up all over the place!
Boy, have I missed you two!
100 steps
Heading into the fourth 10-day chapter in #The100DayProject, I committed to placing installation right outside my front door. Until now, I had connected my installation practice solely to the exploration of distant lands – a way for me to personally interact with a landscape that provided wonder and inspiration.
One of many ice installations inspired by the breathtaking beauty of Iceland, December 2017.
You don’t have to go far in the PNW to have this sensory experience of marvel. Slowing down and opening up to my local surroundings brought me simple joy, loads of chuckles and some pretty sweet photos.
Organic dyes of avocado, turmeric and red cabbage melting in all their glory.
Let’s meander through these 10 days together.
Spark
Full disclosure - I stole the idea to place installation in Tambark Park.
As the world shut down in March, a beautiful trend of leaving small gifts of love and hope emerged. Walking the trails, I started noticing flowering plants that were not indigenous to the undergrowth.
Did forest elves plant these colorful treats amongst the cedars?
It took the brightly colored blooms at the base of several looming evergreens to notice a pattern: Someone was planting these in the darkest corners of the forest to offer light.
Another sweet offering scattered across the property were colorfully painted rocks. Spying the hidden stones became a visual treasure hunt I looked forward to playing every day.
Some of the painted treasures even had messages of hope.
These acts of kindness poked at my creativity, and so bloomed 10 days of installation.
Icy roads
Colors from nature first appeared in my art as a non-toxic way to tint the ice pieces I placed in Iceland in 2017 – the launching point for my installation practice.
Winter sunset through blue butterfly pea and red cabbage in the Westfjords of Iceland, December 2017.
Frozen climates eventually graduated to balmy locations to push the limits of ice as an ephemeral medium.
From tiny rental refrigerators to mobile coolers meant for chilling wine and travel snacks, I froze all kinds of shapes and sizes of water infused with plant-based organic dyes I brewed. I took some crazy pride in the lengths I went to transport my frozen works of art to their installation destination.
The ice cooler is a must-have on installation road trips, Maui June 2018.
Ice was an obvious choice for Tambark Park to stay true to my project of #100DaysOfNaturalColor. And to be honest, I never had it so easy! Using my full-sized freezer, packing a thermal lunch bag and walking no more than 10 minutes to place installation was an absolute dream.
The beauty of ombre dyes frozen in a full size freezer is pure magic.
Note to self: it doesn’t always have to be so difficult!
Secret garden
Tambark Park has a network of trails that meander through a mixed woodland. The search for more pristine locations, however, had me traipsing off the beaten path where I found some amazing nooks and crannies in the greenery.
Ice stack placed where few have ventured except for fallen trees.
I may have been only 20 feet from the footpath I walked every day, but it transported me back to the days of my childhood where we spent muggy summer days hunting for hidden places in the brush to build forts and play hide-n-seek.
Bumping into fellow hikers in Tambark Park while reemerging from the secret spaces always garnered a curious look and sometimes even a smile.
The green light
Blazing my way through the thicket meant I stumbled into some of the PNW iconic vegetation: erupting ferns, fuzzy tufts of moss, horsetail reed and skunk cabbage. Such variations of green allowed for creative play that produced a visual tension with the vivid colors of the frozen botanical dyes.
A colorful shoot of ice in the midst of fern fronds.
The woody stumps of fallen trees provided sumptuous textures in a wonderfully neutral palette that also allowed the ice to shine.
Ice marbles wedged into weathered wood.
Possibly the second most exciting discovery was bumping into stinging nettles. Yes, they left their painful mark on my hand, but without this accidental collision, I would not have been able to identify this weedy herb.
The stinging nettle that bit me during installation will be a welcome addition to my dye pot.
Soon I will head back to collect the leaves because they make the most incredible gray-green dye, a color not easy to find in nature ironically.
Creature comfort
And what would the flora be without the fauna? Hiding among all of this incredible foliage, I was treated to chance encounters with all kinds of animals:
Rabbits flourish here and spring is the time of baby bunnies.
One lone squirrel would rustle in the trees in the same spot almost every day
A bat swooshed just above my head on a twilight installation.
Even a snake slithered its way across my path!
But, the ultimate treat, and yes, THE MOST exciting discovery was a tiny friend who joined me on the very first installation.
The first ice installation in Tambark Park had an unexpected spectator (see below photo).
Thanks to patiently waiting for the streams of sunlight to hit just the right spot, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse, and a photo, of this sweet tree frog.
The tree frog who sat quietly for more than an hour while I placed ice and returned to its melted remains.
She didn’t dash away, and even when I returned an hour later to check on the ice melt, she was still cozy in her hole, taking in the afternoon rays.
Ice flow
Where there are frogs, there is water, and Tambark Park has a lowland marshy vibe trickling everywhere. Many a day was spent mucking through spongey ground to install, but I also examined how a stream’s gentle current would dance with my ice pieces.
Mother’s Day ice installation in honor of my mom, Maia, who passed away May 31, 2019.
I’ve played with kinetic energy in my installation work, and certainly the simple act of melting is an inherent trait of mobility in ice.
However, running water provided many more layers of movement to explore: Releasing, floating, bobbing, flowing, dissolving, and ultimately, disappearing.
Frozen floats of organic dyes in Tambark Creek gone within minutes of placing this installation.
Movement, in fact, may be implicit in the ephemeral – an idea I am just now realizing.
Micro-living
Ten tiny days of micro-travel has had a macro-impact on a deeper understanding of my creative practice. Slowing down to open the senses to my immediate surroundings has brought wide open space for reflection. Yet again, I’m reminded that movement can be a collective effort of small steps, as long as I actively nurture its momentum.
The colorful Mr. Biv
The stuff of rainbows
Don’t know about you, but I have a handful of tricks up my sleeve to remember trivial bits of information. I am the maven of mnemonics:
Need to know how many days there are in April? Got my knuckles for that.
That 5 letter Great Lake messing up your crossword puzzle? Try H.O.M.E.S. on for size.
Pulling out the crayons to draw your sweetheart a rainbow? I’d like you to meet Mr. Roy G. Biv
I think it was my grade school art teacher, Mr. Malley, who taught us how to remember the seven colors of the rainbow. (Yes, I had a full time art teacher with a dedicated art room when I was a kid!).
Mr. Biv has been a tool in my paint caddy ever since.
The organic colors of the rainbow hand-dyed on paper in my residency studio in Oaxaca, Mexico.
So, of course, Mr. Biv was my travel companion to my artist residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, last month as I continued my quest to find the rainbow in nature’s palette. Let’s just say, we found all seven of his colorful letters and then some!
Red
The color of love (among many other things) is a highly sought after hue that has a history connected to imperialism and revolution. Minerals of hematite and cinnabar, the root of madder and several parasitic creatures have been foraged and crushed so we can bathe in red.
One insect in particular has become the darling in the wide world of dye: cochineal.
I had only bumped into cochineal about a year ago when I was preparing for my residency in Iceland. Visiting a dye master in the countryside two hours north of Reykjavik, Guðrún Bjarnadóttir shared the secret sauce of her scarlet wool yarn.
The gorgeous hand-dyed Icelandic wool of Hespa Iceland. Looks like a neutral cochineal soak to me with those bright fuchsias peeking through.
She had a large jar of cochineal that she imported to Iceland as her ancestors had done before. You see, red and its variations are not natural colors found in Iceland.
Cochineal is a parasite that lives on the nopales cactus indigenous to present day Mexico and Peru.
The white powder of the cochineal insect dusting nopales cacti before harvest.
Contrary to what you may think, the red comes from carminic acid, not blood, which acts as a deterrent against predators. Or, if you are human, it seems you are wildly attracted to it!
Working for three weeks on a cochineal farm in Santa Maria Colotepec in Oaxaca, Mexico, the secrets of its beauty were slowly revealed to me.
All the lovely shades of cochineal hanging out in wool yarn on the farm near Oaxaca, Mexico.
But, not only did this tiny insect produce the most amazing carmine color, it played a starring role in many of Mr. Biv’s letters.
Orange
Beyond the measurements I wrote about in last month’s Trail Tale, dyeing incorporates some elements of chemistry.
Who remembers those little litmus strips from your high school lab? Well, turns out cochineal is sensitive to the pH level in the dye bath. Add a bunch of lemon juice, aka. acid, and mira - orange!
Shifting cochineal neutral by squeezing lemons. The secret of playing with pH!
Makes me chuckle to think that adding yellow to red actually makes orange in this corner of the dye world. Trust me, that isn’t a hard and fast rule in dye chemistry, but cochineal happily plays along.
Yellow
I know what you’re thinking: lemon juice must be a key ingredient in yellow dye. Nope. I have recently seen Sasha Duerr, a natural dye specialist, create yellow from citrus skins, but in Oaxaca, we used pericon.
You may know this native herb as Mexican tarragon or marigold, both of which are used as dye in other parts of the world. The pericon grown and harvested on the cochineal farm, however, produced a gloriously vibrant yellow that demanded visual attention.
The green leaves of pericon cooking up some instense yellow on silk strips I used for installation in Oaxaca.
Move over marigold – you may have a rival nipping at your heels, but pericon may be tough to find in my local PNW nursery.
Green
When it comes to the plant world, it’s not easy being green.
Both, Guðrún Bjarnadóttir and Manuel, my Oaxacan dye master, utilize the primary color theory to achieve green. First you dye with yellow (pericon or another yellow source), and then you over-dye with blue (indigo), another elusive color rarely found in nature. Voila - green!
Although I attempted this on the farm with my wool yarn samples, I struggled with the indigo (more on that below). That didn’t stop me from experimenting in my own dye studio on days away from the farm, and I had some success.
Who knew the cold sludge of fermenting black beans could tease out such gorgeous greens?
No over-dye step required here. Just a 2 day cold soak in fermented black beans!
I was expecting a grayish blue dye result when I bought the dried beans in the Mercado 20 de Noviembre. You just never know with natural dye - the surprise element is one of its sweetest characteristics.
Blue
If you think red is tough, you haven’t met blue yet. Treasured minerals of lapis lazuli and azurite are pigments of royalty. In the plant kingdom, indigo is queen.
The cochineal farm is an educational venue exclusively focused on the natural dyes of the region, and indigo has roots in the tropical climate of the Oaxacan coastline. Manuel grows every plant we used on the farm, but his indigo suffers in the dry heat. So, as traders have done for centuries, Manuel brings his indigo crystals from the coast.
Grinding indigo with mortar and pestle before adding it to the dye pot.
Extracting color from indigo is a labor intensive process and one that requires humility and reverence. I was quickly humbled by the mystery of blue.
Indigo
With all the work that went into making 12 dye pots to create 40 unique colors over three weeks, saving indigo for last didn’t surprise me. However, I soon realized that rushing indigo at the end did not honor its spirit, and so it did not fully share its color with me.
The many shades of indigo from an ignored dye pot hanging out with no-fuss cochineal orange.
When I explained how tough my day with indigo had been, a local artist told me the secret of the blue goddess: one must be fully present without distraction or haste.
I love this thought. It rings true across so many aspects of life, and so now indigo is yet another gentle reminder of the beauty of presence.
Violet
The last letter in Mr. Biv’s name was a dual effort in the organic realm. That sneaky, chameleon of a dye, cochineal, can be shifted to a yummy color of the violet persuasion. All the alchemist has to do is sprinkle in minerals (various recipe options) which can shift the pH balance to alter the hue.
Cochineal neutral plus 15% alum working its violet magic!
No minerals to be had – no problem: muicle to the rescue! Picking the leaves of this medicinal shrub on the farm produced a lovely violet dye as well. I doubt these leaves are sold in my local farmer’s market, so they may be a color treat solely for the Oaxacan palette.
Dye me a river
The colorful experience I was so lucky to have in Oaxaca is not soon to be forgotten. Just ask Mr. Biv.
But, that hasn’t stopped me from building my own mnemonic device to capture some of the amazing tips I learned, and a few of the easy kitchen recipes that can produce a rainbow.
Feeling inspired to get your dye on now? Click here for the Cookin’ Color Brew Booklet to see if you can catch Roy G. Biv just like I did!
xoxo - Byrdie
Beyond Measure
For good measure
One of my new favorite sayings is ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’. It is a gem of Peter Drucker’s thought that I’ve applied to just about everything in my life recently:
The food I’m eating, particularly the sugar (cause of most evil in the world!)
The growing number on my email list (many, many thanks to all of you!)
The distance and length of time of my daily walk (finally a habit!)
I’m sure I’ve annoyed my closest friends by spewing this wisdom a few too many times.
Funny enough, measurement is strangely absent from much of my creative practice. My tendency is to eye it, guesstimate, and just plain wing it most of the time. The result is an inexplicable delight of the unknown.
Will it work? I never know, but I trust the surprise I may stumble upon is often better than any measured steps I could have meticulously planned.
Bob Ross calls these happy accidents, and I’m perfectly content crashing into some of my most beloved creations.
Bumping into the one and only Bob Ross at the Funko headquarters in Everett, WA 2019.
Drastic measures
Having a happy accident in art school may have started this trend of semi-controlled spontaneity. It is an example I speak of often, and I believe I may have even mentioned it in a Trail Tales blog of yore. Forgive the repetition, but I suppose that is how what we learn can truly sink in.
At the University of Montana, the Ceramics Department is world-renowned, many thanks to the unique work of Rudy Autio that pushed the conventional boundaries of clay. As a BFA student, everyone is required to take Ceramics 101 at the very minimum.
One of the beautiful slices of U of M art school is that it was the most welcoming, inclusive, non-competitive and encouraging environments I have ever experienced. I count myself extraordinarily lucky as I understand this experience is not always shared among other BFA programs.
Walking in as a complete newbie, I was wowed by the amazing work being produced by the graduate students, and incredibly inspired to bumble my way through an art form that has its roots in measurement. My professor, Beth Lo, was kind and generous in sharing her knowledge of this ancient art form, and I honestly tried to follow all the steps on each project we were assigned.
Honest.
Our final project was a chance to design anything we wanted to be saggar-fired in a vessel we built ourselves. As my 3D intrigue was beginning to bubble, as well as my installation curiosity and unexplained love of all things square, I knew exactly what mixed media magic I wanted to create, and I quickly sketched the design and built a board to describe my vision.
One of my BFA thesis mixed media pieces used in an installation. This was the vision I had for my ceramics project.
When Professor Lo pulled the vessel from the fire, she warned me that I would be extremely disappointed in the result because it was nothing like what I had planned.
The center piece of the biggest mistake in my art career, 1995.
True, the 5 cube forms were not the smooth porcelain surface I was after, nor the rusty colors of the earth. They were a bubbly mess of grays and blues with ashen edges. My idea of embedding polaroid transfers into the center square was quickly washed away by residual globules of mis-measured glazes that had an unexpected combustion soirée in the kiln.
I was blown away, smiling from ear to ear, because I could never have planned such surprising beauty. At that moment, my professor told me I would be well-suited in the wild world of art.
Measure up
For the past two years, I have become passionate about extracting color from nature. Much of this was driven by a desire to use only organic matter in my installation practice, particularly when leaving a piece of art to dissipate into the earth.
Starting in my kitchen, I began brewing colors from spices and vegetables I found in my cabinets and fridge. From there, I became curious about foraging for botanicals and experimented by creating dyes from seaweed and lichen. My longstanding love of stone lead me to the world of minerals and earth pigments. Yes, I am officially addicted to the quest for a natural palette.
The colors of the rainbow courtesy of Moonstone Beach in Cambria, CA.
And, the exploration continues. Today, I am writing from my artist residency studio in Oaxaca, Mexico, a global center for textiles and botanical dyeing. My intention is to learn by doing with hands-on instruction from a dye master of the region, as opposed to my stand-by instructor known as the internet.
How will things measure up?
In short measure
As I’ve quietly entered the wide world of natural dyeing, I’ve become acutely aware that ratios, weights and recipes are quite important in assuring a desired color result. I have the utmost respect for the long history of passing precise knowledge from master to pupil. Beyond that, I am humbly grateful to have the unique opportunity to simply learn about botanical dyeing.
My master, Manuel, teaching me the Zapotec dye tradition from the Oaxacan region in Mexico, Feb 2020.
Manuel, the dye master in my residency, has shared many local practices along with some practical advice about what to avoid:
Don’t let your dye come to a boil to avoid losing the colorant to vapor
Don’t brew your textile with your botanical material to avoid splotching
Don’t let the textile touch the bottom of the dye pot to avoid color variation
Don’t stray far from the ratio of plant-to-water-to-textile to avoid weak color saturation
Don’t dry your fabric in the direct sunlight to avoid quick color fading
All of this makes perfect sense in the world of order and consistency, but as Manuel noted, none of it is a guarantee of color perfection to match your mind’s eye. It’s Mother Nature’s job to figure that out for you.
With this wisdom, I believe I’m perfectly suited for organic dyeing. The joy I experience is in the unique variation of color that nature chooses to surprise me with every single time.
First color swatches in my residency studio with textiles brought from the US and NL. Excited for the wool yarn soon to dye at the farm with Manuel!
In fact, I hope to never dye the same color twice, and splotches – bring ‘em on!
In equal measures
On my mantle, I lovingly display the biggest mistake of my BFA program, and my most cherished piece of art. These explosive cubes of clay are a constant reminder that although measurement is important, celebrating the unexpected is the spark of life.
Wonder what color surprises Oaxaca holds for me the next few weeks? Stick around for the big reveal in next month’s Trail Tales!
Into the biodome
For the love of lava
Flying between the Pacific coastline and the Cascade range is a visual treat on a clear day. Making this trip up and down the west coast is all in a day’s work for this technical sales person turned traveling artist. If you’re extra lucky, the plane may even fly directly over some of my favorite volcanic peaks like Crater Lake or Mt. St. Helens. Living near Seattle, we are almost always greeted by the giant of them all, Mt. Rainier.
Even on a cloudy day, Mt. Rainier always pops out to say hello. Portland bound, October 2019.
As you know, I’ve got a thing for volcanoes and all things lava. Many of my dream destinations are volcanic hotspots – Iceland, Hawaii, Mexico, Peru and my home turf in the PNW.
What I didn’t know was that one of the most incredible architectural designs, the dome, was also a natural phenomenon in the world of lava. Just inside of Mt. St. Helens crater, for example, is a beautiful lava dome, all perfectly rounded from hot magma.
A tiny peek of the lava dome in Mt. St. Helens from 30K feet. Still Portland bound, October 2019.
Somehow knowing this, makes my pursuit of the dome shape in my installation work much more interesting. Rather than connecting it to the architectural design feats of Dome of the Rock or Taj Mahal, I’d like to connect my inspiration back to the greatest artist of all – Mother Nature.
All that glitters
The dome shape came to my creative practice because of a simple craft kit I saw in a department store during a Christmas shopping blitz: glitter bowls. You just never know where your next idea might pop up, so keep your eyes and mind wide open!
Glitter bowl’s brother from another mother - the thread bowl.
Eager to explore new shapes, the kit came with the first materials I would test: glue, glitter and three sizes of plastic molds. The kit was intended to make small sparkly jewelry bowls, but I saw everything upside down.
The first of the upside-down glitter bowl, aka. dome, all sparkly in blue, January 2018.
These molds would become my architectural ‘crutch’ to defy gravity and build my first dome. Rushing from store to store to gobble up as many holiday glitter bowl kits as possible, while supplies lasted, I managed to collect an army of molds so volume production could begin.
Crumbling down
Glue is pretty amazing while glitter is just plain pretty. Combine the two and some visual magic can happen.
For six months, I feverishly built domes, and they had a starring role in my installation work in Mexico, California, Hawaii and Oregon.
A spruce bush in San Miguel de Allende all spruced up with glitter domes, February 2018.
I loved them so much, I began searching for a way to display them for an interior installation that could be submitted for art shows. The inverted domes, aka bowls (haha), could be nested with various sizes and colors, and adhered to a flat surface of wood or canvas.
Upside-down domes all nailed down and ready to show, March 2018.
There was one major problem with the design: glue is no friend to climate change. Everything I designed inside, and certainly those that traveled long distances, had no chance of ever surviving.
The domes became a brittle pile of shards or a melted glob of goo.
The dome remains after a long, and obviously hot, flight from Maui, June 2018.
Back to the drawing board.
Pro Biotic
One aspect of the glitter dome that I loved was its translucency. I’ve been chasing this in my work forever (hello ice!). One major characteristic I was less in love with was the inorganic material used to make glitter today – plastic. While I tested mica as a sparkly organic substitute, it did not provide the same binding properties as glitter.
Mica plays the sparkling role in these gold domes, Black Butte Ranch, Oregon, August 2018.
As my installation practice developed, my search for organic material has expanded:
· Brewing vegetable and spice dyes from my kitchen to color my first ice installation in Iceland
· Foraging plants like lichen and seaweed to dye textiles for my mixed media canvases
· Hunting for mineral deposits to create earth pigments as a material for paper studies
My quest to create ephemeral sculpture that can dissolve cleanly into the soil has become an integral part of my artistic world.
But how to find a translucent material made from botanicals that could hold a dome shape?
Hello mung bean!
Hibiscus dyed mung bean all domed out in Aguas Calientes, Peru, June 2019.
Biodiversity
Ahhhh….the short-lived life of a mung bean dome. Yes, it can drape across a form and hold its translucent shape, but again, travel and the elements are not kind to mung bean. Even more delicate than ice, the mung bean dome could barely handle a five hour flight.
Ode to a mung bean dome after many an installation flight.
Yes, I could sleep peacefully knowing the organically dyed mung bean would return quietly to the earth. But, if it can’t be transported to the installation site, it’s burnished glimmer is lost before it’s ever seen.
While repeated material disappointment might stop some in their tracks, not this artist. Every single iteration of my dome has been an informed failure for the next discovery. Without each of these stumbles, I would never have found the newest material I’m so excited to explore – bioplastics.
Oh, let the light shine in, you gorgeous bioplastics, you! Bothell, Washington, November 2019.
Dome 3.0 is born!
Biosphere
This weekend, I cooked up my first batch of bioplastics. Built from organics of agar, glycerol, gelatin and water, the quick and toxic free recipes were easily brewed on my kitchen stove. Adding dye steeped from the blue butterfly pea and hibiscus flowers created subtle shades of grayish blue and purple.
Beyond the dome: molding square bioplastics in my Bothell kitchen, November 2019.
As they quickly hardened in various molds, translucent forms emerged as the water evaporated during the curing progress. Shrinking and contorting, every day a new shape has appeared.
Agar bioplastics morphing back to algae, November 2019.
Now, it’s time to test the dome. Only problem is I have no idea where those molds are in my new garage, soon-to-be studio.
No worries – I have time. The bioplastics are sure to stick around.
Beyond the biodome
Finding a name for a shape before it’s even been built, I just know the biodome is going to be a success. Beyond the lava field, some of the most beautiful ‘biodomes’ constructed by humans have been igloos, wigwams and beehive houses. Anything built of ice, bark, reed and mud is an inspiration for an installation artist like me.
Into the biodome I go…
Head into the comments to join me!
2D or not 2D - that is the question?
To flip is to flop
One pair of flip flops is all this artist needs. If I didn’t love the polar north so much, my toes would always be exposed in the only shoes in my closet. One pair, no choice, no problem.
Flip flops were made for installation! Placing a few colorful sticks on a dock in Union, Washington.
Asked to choose between chocolate or vanilla, the bean made of cocoa would win, even though chocolate chip ice cream would be the obvious solution. One flavor, no choice, no worries.
Canine or feline? That’s easy – woof. One pet, dirty house, ugh.
Meet Callie - resident studio dog, lover of eggs and cheese, and one giant fur ball!
Having choice is one thing, but having to choose is quite another. As much as I like to believe in the power of choice, I also recognize that I prefer fewer options, thus making the selection process quick and easy.
So, in a world where there are endless possibilities, why are we asked to pick a favorite, to choose one instead of the other?
I ask this because in the world of art specifically, I can’t choose, and quite frankly, I don’t want to. It’s the one area where I want to try everything (ok – maybe not realistic figure drawing!), and for once, the more options I have, the more my creativity can thrive.
Stack Shack in all of it’s macro glory! A rainbow of organic dye in Þingeyri, Iceland, February 2019.
2D+3D=5D. Now that is math I can get behind!
Tik Tok
Wait…there is one more area where I long for a ‘sky’s the limit’ kind of choice: Travel!
No surprises there. When Chris asked where he could take me for my 50th birthday, the list of options, places high on my bucket list, was lengthy. In the end, the choice, Lofoten, Norway, wasn’t difficult because I still have so many amazing landscapes to discover. There is time and it will never be too late.
Chris and yours truly leaning into the wind on our way to Lofoten, October 2018.
And these words perfectly describe how I feel about my creative journey. Yes, it appears my passion has led me to installation, filled with all kinds of delicious sculptural material to build, but the photographer in my DNA is itching to compose a still life of my creations. Not sure what the painter in me thinks about all this craziness, but she’s okay to fling some color around in the meantime. There is time.
Resident artist
Even with the wanderlust and countless corners of the globe to explore, I seem to choose Iceland again and again, just like those worn out Havaianas. This time (February 2019 to be exact), however, I decided to return to that enchanting island near the Arctic Circle to explore my love of the fifth dimension.
Shot Glass installation on the beach of Þingeyri, Westfjords, Iceland, February 2019.
For my first artist residency, I proposed to dive deep into extracting organic dye from the land and sea of Þingeyri, Iceland in the Westfjords. With these colors from nature, I would experiment across mediums, and one might even accuse me of stepping into the craft side of the arts’ universe: Dyeing fabrics, installing the frozen liquid across the village and pouring it on paper to see how seaweed, lichen, cabbage and kale would soak into washi. Is she a cook or a seamstress? A forager or a printmaker? What is this artist crafting now?!?
My warehouse studio at the Westfjords Residency. Cold, but oh so spacious!
Passion…
Palette perfection
Ten days in a remote fjord in the middle of winter was the perfect setting for limited choices. It was exactly the wildly windy silence I sought to focus exclusively on creative expansion. Choosing only four organic substances for extraction also felt comfortably restricted. My reward in the sparseness was a beautifully abundant color palette only Mother Nature could create.
Seaweed, lichen, cabbage and kale - oh my! Organic dye in all it’s natural wonder.
From simplicity came the complexity I seek in my art practice, a choice I may never have made on my own.
Any doubt lingering in my mind about a need to choose just one discipline continues to dissipate. What my Icelandic residency gave me was not only a deeper understanding of organic dye, but a sharpened curiosity of how I might use it’s subtle beauty across varied platforms. Iceland also gave me some amazing artwork!
Building a body of mixed media work from the Iceland series. Organically dyed fabric on canvas, 12x12 inches.
Letting it slide
One pair of snow boots is all it takes to keep this artist’s toes toasty in the Arctic chill. Four times over eight years, no change, all good.
One pair of boots and a bucket of ice. What more does an artist need?
In February, I also brought a pair of slides to Iceland, my winter version of flip flops. As we made our quick exit to beat the blizzard winds threatening to strand us another day in the Westfjords, I accidentally left my slides behind.
Note to self: I only need one pair of shoes wherever this journey takes me.
Kisses - Byrdie
It's a jungle out there
Fizzy pop
I got bubbles on the brain. Maybe it’s the sound of a cork popping at the strike of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Could be the bubble bread Zsofi lovingly baked for our family at Christmas last week (it’s not just for Thanksgiving anymore!). Or perhaps it’s the thought of soaking in a steaming hot bubble bath to shake off the holiday blitz and quietly wind down on the last day of the year.
Bubbles can make you fly!
Whatever the reason, the amazing creative bubble I’ve floated in this year has bounced me across the globe experiencing a perfect balance of art and nature. From eucalyptus to ponderosa, boreal to rain, the forests I’ve smelled have been as varied as the installations I’ve placed. And this month, I was lucky enough to add a vegetation variation to the tropical climate category – the jungle.
Deep in the jungle of Haramara Retreat in Sayulita, Mexico.
Rustic roots
Signing up for a week long Art2Life painting workshop at Haramara Retreat in Sayulita, Mexico was a treat I gifted myself to continue my pursuit of all things acrylic.
The open air studio of Haramara. A perfect place to paint for a week!
Described as eco-rustic, the property has kept its promise to provide a quiet sanctuary among the wildly pristine terrain of the dry forest entrenched in the coastal mountain range. Open-air cabanas tucked away in the groves of coconut palms and paper bark trees have no electricity, only candlelight to flicker as the sun sets over the Pacific.
Living among the tropical elements in Moldavite cabana.
Not exactly roughing it with the personalized service, fresh organic food and spa amenities, but the jungle’s heart beats steadily in the tangled thicket all around.
And over one week of creating in this lush environment, the jungle showed me just how strong of a pulse it has.
Bio-diversity
Although painting brought me to Haramara, I could not ignore the pull of installation, particularly in such a wild terrain. Kindly requested by the owner of the property to place only 100% organic material, I spent weeks experimenting with new substrates in my studio/kitchen that could absorb home-brewed organic dyes.
Homemade organic dye cooked up from hibiscus, paprika, turmeric, parsley, blue pea and red cabbage.
Mung bean and rice paper met the challenge as I found a way to recreate bio-degradable forms that kept the translucency I adore.
Mung bean infused with organic dyes hanging in the Mexican sun.
Dough was an obvious choice, but I also dreamed of making paper pulp bricks to stack or embed in the forest floor. How to keep those blocks colorfully eco-friendly? Earth pigments, naturally!
Nothing better than color from the earth!
Even in the tropical heat, my love affair with ice was on the planning list, so new mold shapes were discovered and a bond with the Haramara kitchen staff (and freezer!) was cultivated.
Freezing and melting tubes of ice wedged between young palms.
I could not have been better prepared, but as I soon found out, the law of the jungle has its own set of rules, and I was far from its queen.
Jungle fever
Born from the Hindi word jangal, to call this place a wasteland seems a tad severe. However, in the metaphorical sense, I truly experienced the uncontrollable nature and isolation of the jungle every time I tried to install.
A jungle tree opening up for organic dough. One of the few installations I placed with limited difficulty.
Granted, every installation journey is filled with challenges, but I felt each one of the emotions often associated with the word jungle: confusion, powerlessness, disorientation and immobilization.
Perhaps it was the heat playing tricks on me, but you cannot ignore the signs of the wild for long. Every day, the organic artwork would fight its placement in some way:
1. The terrain would swallow it whole – pieces plunged to their fate through thorned bushes and tumbled down rocky ravines.
2. The canopy played with the light, diffusing it across the artwork so it disappeared against a back drop of the most comprehensive palette of green known to the human eye.
3. Sand and dirt refused to play second fiddle to the vibrant flower petals I had collected to embed in ice, so the crushed earth clung to every single piece I touched.
4. Ants ate everything else.
Lesson plans
As with any good struggle, a lesson is always intertwined in its fiber. Perhaps the easiest explanation was a gentle reminder from the universe that my Haramara trip was meant to expand my painting practice. Noted.
Finding my abstract language in acrylic paint. Getting closer to quiet simplicity.
Or maybe, my ephemeral darling, ice, should be kept for polar excursions where the pressure to place lasts longer than 318 seconds. Hmmm.
Ice infused with organic dye and installed on the beach at Haramara for mere seconds. Ephemeral work at its finest.
Valid thoughts for sure, but neither one rang true in my heart, and certainly would not keep me from such creative exploration in the future.
No, it was much simpler than that, and yet, so much more profound:
The jungle is abundance personified. Bursting with life, it creates beautiful harmony all on its own. It has exactly what it needs – nothing more, nothing less.
The essence of things to come
A bumpy trek in the jungle could have burst my creative bubble, but I’ve returned from the wild side of installation a tiny bit wiser…once again. Each journey brings its own surprises, all of which provide just enough sparkling effervescence to fuel the next adventure.
Ice infused with organic dyes installed on a dried coconut palm piece found along the beach. Guess how many times it tumbled into the sand?
Cheers to 2018, and let’s clink our glasses to 2019! I’m so honored and grateful to share this journey with you, no matter how bumpy the creative road may be…
Kisses - Margaret
Not too frail to fail
On the rise
Bubble bread is a buttery ball of doughy goodness that bakes in our oven every holiday season. Although I don’t recall when or where it melted its way into our family’s feast, my children have gobbled it up every Thanksgiving since they could rip it from the loaf.
The famous Bubble Bread in all of it’s risen glory!
As much as this seasonal treat brings smiles and happy tummies, bubble bread has a history of being an epic failure in my kitchen.
Rise yeast, rise! This mantra screams in my head as I hold my breath waiting for the single-celled fungi to wake up and eat the sugar I’ve lovingly fed it. I’ve learned to have several packets of yeast in the wings after too many holiday attempts left me scrambling to find a grocery store that was miraculously open on Thanksgiving or Christmas. No longer a problem in today’s commercial world, I still feel a tiny nervous pang every time the yeast hits the tepid milk.
Baking is truly an artform, and frankly, I have struggled with it my whole life. Here’s the thing, though: without every failed attempt, and the push to try, try again, there would be no tradition of bubble bread in our family. Honestly, it is the process of kneading the dough, watching it rise, punching it down and rolling tiny morsels of yum that keeps me coming back, even when the yeast decides to take its own holiday.
Dough of the installation kind, organic and placed on a beach in Maui, June 2018. No yeast required.
Basically, bubble bread is exactly how my art practice tastes. It is the product of failed attempts that has allowed me the humility to stumble, the courage to get back up and the sweet reward at the end of a winding road of discovery.
I think it’s time I share some of my failed ingredients. Move over yeast!
There is an egg in bubble bread, but frankly, there should be no eggs in installation! Maui, June 2018.
Mounds of trouble
Reflecting on the past year, I am not only grateful for some incredible creative opportunities that have bubbled up, but also thankful for all of the bumps along the way. And, let me tell you, there have been more than a few.
Torturing a Bird of Paradise for the sake of art….if you can call it that! San Diego, CA, April 2018.
To read the definition of failure, you often see it referred to as the ‘opposite of success’. But, if you dig a bit further, failure can be described as simply a condition of not meeting an intended objective (thanks, Wikipedia!). Sounds pretty benign to me, and it is predicated on the assumption that there is a goal, which in my book means you got your ‘stuff’ together.
As an artist, each one of us knows the complexity of translating vision to action, from mind to hand to paper (or substrate of your choice). Most of my creative musings are never realized in a final piece, and what I’ve discovered is what I see in my head and heart is only a tiny sliver of the artistic puzzle. I have to try every piece out, move them around, see if something links together, and use every ‘failure’ as guidance for the next step.
Note to self
One year ago, I decided to throw a few of those puzzle pieces around. To be exact, I chucked a bunch of ice across the elfin land of Iceland. My intended objective was somewhat fuzzy, but I knew it was time to see what that gnawing creative vision was all about. Let’s just say the first pitch was a curve ball.
The very first documented installation attempt, rough at best, Blue Lagoon, Iceland, Nov 2017.
But what specifically did I learn from that icy first day?
It’s cold, wet and windy so pack the right clothes, and don’t forget to wear them.
Not all installation locations are equal, so be prepared to lie face down in snow, dirt, mud, and sand, or better yet, look for placement at eye level!
It’s okay to feel scared, stupid and foolish because you are stumbling (and most likely slipping and falling) into the unknown.
First attempt saved by trial and error, contemplation, experimentation and the incredible arctic light of the autumn sun in Iceland, Nov 2017. Lava rocks and lichen certainly didn’t hurt.
The perfect storm
One of the warped puzzle pieces of social media is that I can choose to create a façade of perfection. No need to show the 17 attempts to capture one decent photograph of an installation gone sideways or the stack of rejection letters from galleries, grants and publications.
Trust me, the heap is huge on this artist’s studio table. However, without crawling through each one of those failures, I would not have pushed through to secure my first international gallery installation in Mexico next year. If at first you don’t succeed…
Cactus garden at Fabrica la Aurora in San Miguel de Allende where I will have a large scale installation in March, 2019. Hope to see you there!
We should celebrate it all, the good, the bad and the ugly, and wear each one proudly like a badge of honor for all to see.
Tangled webs
In the spring of 2018, I applied to an artist residency on a local farm in a big leap of faith to honor a newly revealed intention so proudly displayed on my first vision board. My proposal was to gather natural materials from the farm and create woven installations throughout the property.
A tree on the Mary Olson Farm as a potential installation site, Auburn, WA. Little did I know that lichen would play a starring role in my next residency attempt.
Although I landed in the Top 10, I was not selected for the next round of interviews because there was no history of weaving in my background. The ‘rejection’ did not keep me from requesting feedback which I would not have otherwise received.
Nope, it was this critique that allowed me to strengthen my next residency proposal: forage natural materials from the wild land of Iceland to make natural dyes for installation.
Testing pigment extraction from Evernia prunastri, a lichen foraged from a fallen tree in my neighborhood. If successful, might have deep purple dye in 2 months.
Guess where I will be in February? Hello Westfjords, Iceland….
The long and wild drive to the Westfjords, Iceland, Nov 2017. It ain’t a road for the faint of heart!
Over-cooked
Two weeks ago, my daughter Zsofi made bubble bread twice for the holiday, and only once, did I mess around with the yeast. Maybe I stirred it too vigorously or it was that ‘back-up’ pack from last year, but it just didn’t rise to its doughy potential.
Reaching into my bag of tricks, lessons learned from every botched job of yore, I placed it into the microwave above the toasty-warm oven working overtime to cook our Thanksgiving feast. No…I did not turn the microwave on…but left the dough, knowing maybe, just maybe, the ambient heat would give the yeast the gentle nudge it needed to rise.
Guess what? Success.
Tell me about your recipe for success? The box below needs a new trick or two!
Barefoot in a Sneaker Wave
Better get your trench coat
From 16,000 feet deep in an under-water ravine to the crest of an 8-story thundering wave, the coast of Nazaré, Portugal has a magnetic pull. In the churning Atlantic water of Praia do Norte, hard-core surfers, and spectators alike, plunge into the wild world of big wave surfing. In fact, in November 2017, Brazilian surfer, Rodrigo Koxa, broke the world’s record by flawlessly riding this massive 80 foot wave, honoring a life-long passion.
First and last time on a surfboard in 8 inch surf at Praia do Madeiro, Brazil, 2010.
Northern exposure
Later that same month, 25 degrees north of this famous breaker, lying face down on a rocky beach along the Strandir coastline, I encountered my own booming breaker. Fingers numb in the gusting wind, I howled, “never turn your back on the ocean” - a saying my kids have heard me utter many times. Placing my second ice installation within feet of crashing waves, my travel mate, Chris, kept eye for any monster swell that could sweep us away.
Dried leaves embedded in ice installed on the Strandir coast in the Westfjords, Iceland. The tiny black thread near the top left side of the ice is my glove, sticking relentlessly to the frozen piece. Thus, bare hands were required to install!
In absolutely no way were we facing the danger of Nazaré, but chasing my creative dream pulls me back to the ocean time and time again. What power do these wild waves have over my journey, and how do I make sure I’m not turning my back on the surf in front of me?
Facing the churning sea in Djúpalónssandur, Iceland to install blue pea infused ice.
The Big Kahuna
Duke Kahanamoku, the father of modern surfing, is credited with coining the famous phrase that keeps us facing seaward. Both practical and philosophical, this saying teaches us two important life lessons about the power of the ocean:
1. There are significant physical dangers of being hit by a wave.
2. Mankind needs to show deep respect for the sea.
Humbly, I’d like to offer one additional lesson to be learned:
3. The wave coming could be the ride of your life!
Rising temperatures and rising tide at Kirkjufell, Iceland means melting ice...fast!
v = f x λ
Waves as a metaphor for artistic creativity is perfectly suited. Many of us have had times brimming with unbridled imagination and surging productivity. For each crest, however, there is a trough, a quiet time…the lull. Without one, we can’t have the other, so I’ve gingerly embraced both, experiencing the drought before the flood.
Silk thread orb installed at the driest place on Maui: Haleakala Crater.
Roll with it
Today, facing an expressive tsunami, however, I am feverishly grabbing at each medium that pokes out of the rushing water. Ice, resin, paper, fiber, adhesive, wax, paint and canvas are all bobbing about my studio. While I could be drowning, each one plays an integral part in this wild ride, one supporting the other in ways I can’t begin to understand. But, that is okay – I trust the process.
Glitter infused adhesive domes melting in the Hawaiian heat.
I have to - these are my life-saving floaties.
Making waves
So, if today's story is about ‘The Big One’, let’s dive more deeply into some of the ways we choose to describe a tidal wave, creative or otherwise:
Abaca installation turned upside-down in San Antonio, Texas.
- Killer Wave: Yet another negative description, but how many times have you used it to describe something extraordinary? If you get out there, showing up every day, I guarantee you will be killing it.
- Rogue Wave: When creativity hits, I urge you to ‘go rogue’ in the full Urban Dictionary sense. Don’t follow the rules. Let your heart lead and do what feeds your soul.
Nobody gave me permission to do this installation. The only formal invitation I received was from Mother Nature.
- Freak Wave: So, Rogue, go listen to the lyrics of ‘Come from the Heart’ and dance like nobody is watching! As one of my favorite contemporary artists, Nicholas Wilton, would coach: create art in exactly the same way. Flying your freak flag is what makes your art uniquely yours.
- Extreme Wave: Not for the faint at heart, when creativity comes calling, push yourself as far as you can, all the way to the edges of your comfort zone. I promise, you won’t fall off. That’s where the good stuff hides.
Blue pea and red cabbage infused ice installed near the outer edge of Ögur, Iceland.
I met a Cyclops in Ghost Trees
If the names for waves weren't scary enough, what about swells being creatively called Jaws, Dungeons and Mavericks? What do these mega-wave meccas have in common with Praia do Norte, or the crazy 'artist' who chooses to play in the 'surf'? At these beaches, to ride the Big One, tow-in surfing is not a luxury, but a technological necessity.
Yes, it means having a partner in crime, someone who understands the fierce power of the ocean and pull of passion, and is there to help propel you safely through the choppy waters.
Guess we should add one more life lesson to The Big Kahuna list above:
4. Never swim alone.
Chris, partner in crime, soaking seaside after a long day of ice installation in Drangsnes, Iceland.
On the very same island as Jaws, Chris stood watch with the surf pounding against the lava field at La Perouse Bay while I swiftly placed the last of my Maui installations. Mouthing the words that have become my mantra, my partner in crime faced the waves by my side, keeping me safe while I dove in.
Feeling the ocean spray in my face while installing organically dyed dough at La Perouse Bay in Maui.
Passion Fish
My sleep is often filled with dreams of crystal clear tidal surges that I manage to negotiate perfectly with a surfer’s ease. The trick I've learned is this:
Dive straight into the face of the wave before the crest crashes. Passion is on the other side.
Tell me, what do you dream about? Jump into the comments below - the water is perfect!
Why I put the ice in Iceland
it's cold out there!
In the deep darkness of December, thirteen impish little guys cause all kinds of ruckus across the frosty heaves of Iceland. These pranksters, the Yule Lads, spend the holidays swiping and gobbling their way through the night, sneaking treasures into the shoes of children, both naughty and nice.
Welcome sign to the Dark Fortress, home of the Yule Lads
Warming his stiff legs by an open fire, I was lucky enough to meet my first Yule Lad in 2013, Stekkjarstaur in Dimmuborgir among the snowy lava spires. Something magical was in that flame, sparking my inner elf and awakening the mischief in my creativity.
Meet Stekkjarstaur, a.k.a. Gimpy, and my travel buddy, Chris. What an incredible surprise to stumble into a Yule Lad hiking in a lava field in the north of Iceland!
What tiny gems can I leave behind for the wide-eyed and young at heart to stumble upon unexpectedly? A sparkling surprise for just a tiny moment before lacing up their boots and moving on?
Ice...obviously.
Gold leaf embedded in ice, installed in a snow drift in Suðureyri, Westfjords, Dec 2017
Medium rare anyone?
My love of ice as an artistic medium is longstanding, maybe born from:
- Holiday seasons growing up when my mom would freeze pine needles and holly berries in an ice ring for the spiked punch bowl?
- Watching icicles form through a frosty window, one tiny drip of water at a time, only to melt in exactly the same way?
- Climbing snowbanks to pluck them from the roof’s edge and enjoying nature’s homemade popsicle?
Icicles falling from a rooftop in Bolungarvík, Westfjords
If childhood memories primed the pump, discovering the ephemeral beauty of Andy Goldsworthy’s site-specific land art sealed the deal. His creation of exquisite artwork made exclusively of organic materials, only to be exposed and lovingly manipulated by nature’s fingertips, is at the core of my artistic inspiration.
I was hooked…ice hook(ed) to be exact.
Installation is my insulation
In my second year of art school, in the frigid climate of Montana, I placed my first ice installation. Studying photography, I opted to embed Polaroid transfers from a trip to Russia, in hopes they would blow away when thawed, perhaps found or lost forever. But, it was the deep carmine flower petals frozen in the ice blocks and the crimson pigment outlines acting as their pedestals that felt pure to me.
Hitherto, ice installation by Margaret Byrd at the University of Montana, Nov 1994
Exactly 23 years later, my second ice installation was created, placed and thawed in the most enchanting polar landscape I’ve been lucky enough to explore: Iceland. More than twenty icy art bundles were scattered across the Westfjords and Snæfellsnes Peninsula, left behind to let Mother Nature collaborate in any way she felt fit.
Who am I to argue?
Ice embedded with berry, installed in situ at The Blue Lagoon, Nov 2017
Out of control
As artists, we may never have full control over our medium. If we hang on too tightly, we can squash creativity, wonder and the excitement of discovery. Perhaps I hide behind the delicate property of ice, allowing its inconsistency to be the twinkling star of my work?
As solid as ice in my hand
Regardless, the breathtaking moment I open the freezer, seeing how the water has transformed and the crackling magic of the unexpected is revealed - this is why I come back again and again. My heart skips a tiny beat to see how the infused material dances with the water on their icy date. It's not unlike peeking into your shoe to see what morsel was left behind by a roguish Christmas troll.
Great balls of fire...no wait, ice!
Sneaky Pete
So, that brings us back to the mischief in this tale. If my desire to leave small marks of visual candy has an altruistic tinge, the devilish side of this artist is also smirking ear to ear. I mean…I run around (sometimes stumbling), uninvited (typically), probably on private land (some of the time), defacing nature (sort of) and littering creativity all over the place.
Sounds like graffiti to me!
Peter was my confirmation name. Why? Because it means 'stone'. I knew even then!
If you look up ‘sneaky’ out there in the virtual world, there isn’t much with a positive twist. Seems in general, sneaking around is kind of frowned upon.
But, I’d like to reframe it for you:
- Sneaking treats from the cookie jar is absolutely expected, no matter what age you are.
- Sneaking around your neighborhood on a sweltering night playing flashlight tag is how every kid should spend the summer.
- Sneaking out to meet your lover is downright romantic.
Chris and I on the last day Súðavík saw the sun for six weeks, Dec 2017
Sugar and spice and everything nice
You see, sneaking any kind of ‘sugar’ is kinda sweet. Just ask any of the Yule Lads! They are sneaking into my comment box every night...