Ai remembered

My class at Arrowmont with Roland Ricketts is over and I want to remember it all. It was a dear week with many opportunities to learn. I have recorded some images here to help me remember, and perhaps repeat the steps on my own.

The pieces at right are some of my final ones. All used the rice paste resist to create pattern. Two show my attempt to copy Roland's gradiant techniques with one small circular resist.

This shows where we hung our pieces to dry after the final dip in the vat and an over-night soak to clean off unwanted plant material.

There is still much to do to render these useful.

Roland, Alysha, rice balls are steaming.

Indigo leaves ready for the dye vat, from Roland's indigo crop in Indiana

Roland mixes the rice paste by hand.

Roland dips a piece of fabric in the prepared dye vat.

Part of our amazing studio space at Arrowmont

Rice paste ready to apply

Roland demonstrates application of the resist using a moiré stencil hand cut by Alysha

My first attempts to carve stencils

My most advanced carved stencil, originally intended to be free-floating circles but I liked the bridges and kept them.

Roland demonstrates matching stencil pattern on wet resist

Applying saw dust to aid in the drying of the resist

Roland's resist dries outdoors

Preparing to dip in the dye vat

Headed into the dye vat - timing was critical to keep resist from dissolving

My darkest piece - 13 dips. The piece underneath has been dipped 3 times.

Clever use of sticks to suspend pieces in the dye vat

Though I wore gloves for the most part, I did dip once without the gloves. All washed off except on my nails.

Roland's work - real art pieces - even more beautiful in real life.

Ai = Indigo