Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured Alanna Wilcox, one of the highest energy people yet. Full of ideas, energy, rapid speech, the hour was over in no time.
Here she is, glam shot, with her book. She's a dyer and textile worker, spinning and knitting, who has developed a system for exactly matching colors in dyeing. She uses commercial dyes and has calculated the exact ratios to copy colors at will, for yarn dyeing.
She's a generous teacher, offered to be in touch with anyone sending her questions.
Here's an example of her spun and knitted color and design, matched to a painting.
She designed, spun and knitted the mittens as a requirement for advanced study in dyeing and fiberarts.
And here's her motto
She also daringly got into a discussion of art and craft, usually a tricky thing because of passion around the whole issue, and a lot of conflict. Me, I'd rather just get on with working and not get embroiled, but she went there, interestingly. In brief, here's her Venn diagram of the intersection.
She likes to spin yarn with a concept in mind, as in this Wizard of Oz shawl, each character depicted in the color and texture of a yarn. She's a master spinner, as well as dyer.
So here was yet another generous, happy textile artist.
I still would have liked to know why an artist wants an exact match. Both she and her interviewer seemed to take it for granted, but to me it's a question.
It's about the ability to replicate, I suppose, but I haven't found a reason why an individual dyer/spinner not making yarn as a business, would need to do that. Serious question, and if you have any input, please input it.
Perhaps because I'm more interested in natural dyeing, where replication isn't an issue, nature having little interest in it, that I'm puzzled. Or maybe it's the other way around -- only if you have little interest in replicating would you venture into natural dyeing.
Anyway it was a rapid hour, and her skills are amazing.
Speaking of natural dyes and other such thingummies, I finished the stamp fest yesterday, and here's the curtain back in place.
With a detail of the design.
Lighting in the bathroom leaves a bit to be desired, but you get the gist. I like how the gold catches the light as the curtain moves.
The sepia stamping is archival, waterproof, ink.
All in all, a happy little detour.
I can only imagine that for this artist, the exact matching of color is simply an element of her work that she enjoys the challenge of. And perhaps in her esthetic, the matching is an important thing.
ReplyDeletePossibly?
That Wizard of Oz shawl rocks!
ReplyDeleteInteresting point to think about. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking much the same thing as Ms. Moon--we all look at color from a different angle, and I would guess the ability and patience to match this design with that color display must be incredibly satisfying for her. Otherwise the work would be just 'close enough is good enough' and leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteVery impressive, and just stunning.
Good job on the curtain. I worked without color for most of my artistic career, the etched glass having no color. so when I started doing the pate de verre cast glass sculptures, I had to learn color. But since everything I do in that technique is one of a kind so no need to match color so to speak. But I guess this woman likes to be able to reproduce specific colors.
ReplyDeleteGreat job on the curtain. I love the colour and the design.
ReplyDeleteI've been knitting a lot of Alaska hats using my huge photo archive for inspiration. Those mittens gave me another poke!
ReplyDeleteThe need to exactly duplicate colours makes me wonder if there's a form of OCD involved. The way she works with exact formulas with her dye makes me wonder the same thing. Whatever her inspiration, her work is beautiful.
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