Woad is Me!

It's time to harvest the woad in my garden before it flowers and goes to seed. You can see here that the plant is a brassica related to broccoli. 

After steeping the leaves in hot water to make a kind of tea I added washing soda to increase the alkalinity and then beat the tea to oxygenate it. The liquid was dark green but the foam on top contained indigotin particles and was blue.

I have been having a hard time deciphering the many instructions in books and websites for woad dyeing. I still don't understand the chemistry. I was supposed to let the woad precipitate and get rid of the watery part until I was left with a powder. Then I was supposed to collect a gallon of urine and let it ferment for six weeks. And then add it to the woad along with some other chemicals...Arghhh. I am not a patient person so I just started dipping cotton into the solution. It came out green but I read that rinsing in vinegar would turn it blue. It did!





I know I have done this "wrong" and can hear the natural dye gods tut tutting me from heaven but I feel just about as pleased as punch with the results. It's really blue!

I still want to try the urine thing though. 

Teaching Art at Zaatri Syrian Refugee Camp, Jordan

While I was in Jordan I spent a few days teaching art at the massive Syrian refugee camp near the border. I have written about it here.

An Exhibition at Bainbridge Public Library

My paintings of farms and food will be at Bainbridge Public Library through the month of April and I'll be there for First Friday Art Walk. Come and say hi.

Teaching Art in Jordan

I have been teaching art in the town of Safi, Jordan - on the shores of the Dead Sea. The women's society has an art exhibition coming up in one of the big hotels and we spent our time getting ready for it. I love this picture of Aishie drinking her tea.

We painted vegetables that we picked on the farm. 

And we learned the English and Arabic for parts of the face.

Weesall begins a face painting. Yes those are Trader Joe's frozen dinner plates brought from my kitchen in Seattle. My secret is out. 

Ali stands in front of some of our self portraits.

Some of the colorful faces look best when combined with another face. It's always a fun day trying to match the pieces so they look wonderful. After they are matched we sew them together.

The picture below is interesting to me because I have never seen men in this room. It is a women's society after all. But local carpenters came to build stretchers for our paintings. The women are stretching their work with a staple gun.

The beautiful, moody and wonderful Noor. She could run the world if given a chance.

Two Weeks. Two Shows.

I have just wrapped up my project to paint the organic farms of the Snoqualmie Valley. Because this project was supported by three different grant agencies I am writing reports about how everything went, what I learned and how the public benefitted from my work. These are thought provoking questions.

I set out to explore my emotional response to the farm landscape - an environment I imagined to be inspiring and nurturing. What more positive and joyful expression of the human condition than growing  food in a gentle and sustainable way? In fact I found this to be more than true! My time sitting in farm fields painting the gorgeous colors around me was more than inspirational. It was a dream and nourishing to my heart. (It was also literally nourishing when I got to take home vegetables). This painting, created in the studio, shows the difference between the flat sunny farm land and the shady wild salmon creek restoration on Full Circle Farm.



What did I learn? I learned that farmers are the hardest workers I can imagine. I learned that farm fields are flat and do not necessarily provide interesting compositions for paintings. I learned that the vegetables of mixed farming are extraordinarily varied and fascinating in shape, color, texture and beauty.

So the direction I ended up wanting to explore is to paint the individual plants, rather than to try to describe the whole farm. I have already started a new series of giant vegetables, all growing in the ground before harvest. They are amazing shapes and characters. It is so exciting. Here I am looking cold at the farmer's market with my new and unfinished painting of giant vegetables.



How did this project benefit the public? Because one grant came from the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs I arranged to show my work in Seattle at Ballard Farmer's market (and earlier in the year at Seattle Tilth's Harvest Fair). I brought my images of the farms into the city to connect urban people with the sources of their food.



Another grant came from King County's 4Culture so I exhibited my paintings in the farm community that inspired them. Miller's in Carnation will be displaying my work until April allowing people who live near and work on the farms to see their environments described through art.



I also got support from Artist Trust who are amazing. Granting agencies don't just give us money, they give us a pat on the back and tell us that the work we do is valued and we are not crazy. It's been a grand year.

Back to the Farm

Paintings of Farms at the Farmer's Market!

Part of my work to connect Seattle with the sources of our food. I have been painting the organic farms of the Snoqualmie Valley for the past couple of years and what better way to bring my impressions of the farms to the city by showing at a farmer's market. If you don't know the Ballard Market it is worth checking out. Amazing food and great dog watching.

This is the vegan version of the poster.

Under the Arc of the Sky Number Two

I'm still painting chickens. It's still winter.

Taking Chances

One of the pleasures of being "between commissions" right now is that I get to experiment. I have been wanting to try new media and new languages for a while. Here is an unfinished drawing of a brussel sprout plant on gessoed polyester lining - that cheap fabric, kind of like silk, that lines clothing. As well as playing with the substrate I am experimenting with media - there is pencil and charcoal and flat acrylic and gesso. And I am playing with style of course. Breaking some rules - not that I was ever really aware of them. Running the risk of "unbranding" myself which is bad for business but so good for art. And good for my heart on these dreary winter days. 

The fabric crumples up and springs back perfectly flat. I wonder what will happen if I paint it all with polyurathane to seal the charcoal. It might all smudge into a grey smear. Stay tuned.

Under the Arc of the Sky

Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.

What's never known is safest in this life.

Under the skysigns they who have no arms 

Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost

Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

- exerpt from Was There a Time by Dylan Thomas

Yes it is that time of year again when I need to paint chickens. Hapless creatures who only fly when falling - flung into the unknown by unseen hands - or leaping hopefully off ledges comically close to the ground.

I was thinking about chickens a couple of years ago at this same time. You can see the images I painted here. Coincidentally I packed up the painting called "I'm a Driver. I'm a Winner" and sent it to my lovely friend Nina just this week.

A Painting for China

Another painting for Starbucks! This one will be installed in Taiyuan, China.

Starbucks asked me to start this painting with a narrative describing the town and its feeling of community and celebration. I wrote this - "A gentle winter wind blows snow toward Taiyuan from Mount Wutai as people celebrate their community with the colorful Lantern Festival. A few months later peonies bloom around the Twin Pagodas and winter seems a distant memory. Just as winter and summer are brought together in this dream of Taiyuan, the past and present mingle in ancient buildings and the modern city." Pretty snappy eh!

My favourite part of the painting is the charcoal and wash of this couple. And the shape of the trees behind them. The snow was fun to paint falling on on everything.

Kenna Guizio from Starbucks art directed this painting - with many emails and phone calls and a lot of faith in me. We had five weeks from start to finish. Crazy. Thanks Kenna!

Now I can get my life back together, do my laundry and maybe even clean out last summer's flowers from the garden. I love a New Year. I can't wait to see what projects happen next.

Thank You

Here a some pictures of the people who helped apply gold leaf to the mural. With a tight deadline and almost 400 square feet of painting I couldn't have done it without them. This is Isobel and Will. Isobel is drawing with a bottle of glue. Will is applying the glue with a sponge. Later they will stick gold leaf to the area. It seems it was a good idea to have children all those years ago. (Isobel is my daughter)

My mum. 

Ericka who amazingly lent us her house to work in since my studio was too tiny. Can you believe how sweet that is?

Kenna from Starbucks who art directed this whole project.

My mum, Aileen, Chris, Leslie, Kai and me.  I remember the sunshine. Distantly. I think I look a little stressed. I wonder why. I think at this point the deadline was a few days away.

Jeff and Chris.

My youngest helper, Morgan, and his mum Nicole. With Aileen applying leaf. I don't have pictures of Pat and Daniel who put in so many hours. Sandra and Tracy helped too. It was so great to have support from you all. 

Installed in Kuwait

Here is the mural installed at Starbucks, The Avenues, Kuwait. Some day maybe I'll get to see it. It was such a big part of my life for the past year I kind of miss it. So many friends worked on it with me, from people at the date palm society, friends in Jordan who advised on plants and sent me photos (Dino, Bill Ammar) friends and neighbors here in Seattle who helped me apply gold leaf. So much gold leaf!Family who came down from Canada to help. The wonderful guys at Rainier who cut the wood. I'll find some pictures of us working and post everyone's names. It was a huge amount of fun and a wonderful adventure.