Watermark textiles and Te Papa

kelea's photostream on Flickr.

These are textile wallhangings which I have dyed vertically in previous exhibitions over the last 6 months. They are all inspired by images on Google Earth of rivers dyed multi-coloured by textile dye. I find the images of dyed rivers beautiful but disturbing at the same time...

Here is the latest Watermark wall hanging which was dyed in Te Papa Museum on Saturday as part of Makertorium.

Photo by Marie-Claire Andrews

It was a hot day and I should have worn something cooler. The sun was coming straight through the window at me . It dried out the dye so that it took much longer for the dye to travel around the picture. By the end of the day most of the exhibitors were coughing because of the dry air and drinking lots and lots of water .

In spite of the heat, it was a GREAT DAY!!
All the other exhibitors were so enthusiastic, it was a great celebration of 'makers'. I had a wonderful time and would love to do it again armed with more knowledge of how the dyes work in the drier air, how not to get dye on the floor of Te Papa, and what to wear to keep cool.

I also know more about what the public might do in a tight area. There were lots of people trying to get past or trying to stand back to see what was going on. The booth opposite me was also very popular so we caused a bit of a bottleneck. And some of the public got a bit grumpy and tried to do things like walk very close to the dripping wallhanging or even around the back. Some tripped over the leg of the stand and one woman even put her finger in the dye pot to see what was in there. If the stand hadn't been very sturdy there would have been an accident which I would have had a hard job explaining to Te papa (we all signed a form saying we would not make a mess).

Thankyou to everyone who came in to see the show, thanks also to friends who made a special effort to come and see my work because they missed it last year.

Here is the wallhanging hanging up in my sewing room while the dyes set. I have put soda ash in the cups at the top and that is running down right now so the picture looks even blurrier than before. It is still impossible to tell what the final image will look like as the soda ash changes the picture and sets only in some places.

In some ways I like the details best

regards
Clare

Watermark day 5

 Here is todays wallhanging. It is Zealandia - Karori Sanctuary in Wellington. It is a fenced sanctuary for native birds and has a big predator-proof fence.

 I chose the traditional blue like the willow plate but couldn't resist adding a bit of pink which turned purple.

 This is a final shot of the whole gallery with all 5 dripping dyed wallhangings. No. 1 and no.5 look as if they are  similar colours in this photo but they are quite different blues in real life.

Thats it folks - the show is over. I'd like to thank Clare Plug , Ian Smith, James Wratt, Margery Smith, David Wratt, Chris Wratt, Pheobe and Nina Smith, Deb Donnelly, Peter Deckers, Viv Atkinson and all the staff at the Visual Arts department of Whitireia Polytechnic for their help with this exhibition, I couldn't have done it without you!

Tomorrow- images of the shadows formed on the walls behind the hangings, incidental details, hopefully images of the fabric which mopped up the dye at the bottom (rolled up in the guttering).

Watermark exhibition Day 1

This is the first wall-hanging before the dye starts to drip. The central image is Pauatahanui Inlet near Porirua, New Zealand. The building is a bird watching hide and the estuary/inlet is a haven for all sorts of waterbirds. The outside patterns are from the willow pattern plate.

Here is my artist statement for the exhibition.

Watermark

 The inspiration for this exhibition came from a quote.

“The Chinese textile industry creates about 3 billion tons of soot each year, and a single mill can use about 200 tons of water for each ton of fabric it dyes. Millions of tons of unused fabric are burned or sent to landfills each year when dyed the wrong colour. Rivers run red or chartreuse, or teal, depending on what colour is in fashion that season – with untreated toxic dyes washing off from mills.” (Menon, 2010).

Dye pollution occurs in many textile-producing countries.  Western consumers demand lower and lower prices for clothing forcing manufacturers to cut corners to save money. Water treatment processes are expensive. Meanwhile New Zealand remains ‘clean and green’ and the pollution happens somewhere else, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

Would we put up with our rivers turning pink or teal or scarlet according to fashion?  Probably not.  Instead our waterways are contaminated with invisible pollutants.  Nutrients from farm fertilisers, heavy metals in storm water and high bacteria levels from dairy farming.

Not so clean and green after all. 

And now for the exciting bit - when the dye starts to run. The colours for today - Delft Blue and pink.

Apologies for the photo colours - I will re-work some of them in photoshop. I can't quite work out how to change the white balance to deal with halogens (no setting on my camera).

This has been an exciting dyeing day, and I didn't get any on the carpet - honest!

Please leave a comment so I know you are there.
Clare

Watermark

My solo show has a new title and a new photo. Soon I will have a poster to go with it.

Watermark
16-20th July
1st floor, 15 Dixon St
Wellington
10-5pm daily

Each of the 5 wall hangings are based on the willow pattern plate. This was the test version. The actual pieces have an extra ring of decoration and are 1.2m wide. At the moment they are white on white but during the exhibition they are going to be dyed, one per day, by trickling dye down from the cups. Gravity and capillary action at work.