sun and mud

I've been playing with solar power. Five or so years after first pondering it I have bought a Freeplay Ranger solar-powered and wind-up radio, and also a Freeloader portable solar charger for mobile and camera. I love them both!

Proof that "objects" are anything but... an hour after ordering the new radio I turned on the kitchen radio: hissssssssss.... Hmm. It was working at breakfast. Only a few hours later it had died. Over twenty years old I think, it worked brilliantly for most of that. And presumably held on faithfully until the last moment, right until knowing the next generation was safely on its way. Something like old and ill people who "hang on" until an occasion, a particular moment has been reached and then they die, presumably more at peace than before.

Unfortunately I had earmarked the new radio for the studio, but couldn't transfer the existing studio radio to kitchen because I play (music) tapes on it (especially while the CD player is out of action). I thought a second new radio would be needed but you know what's so great: having a portable radio again! I take it round with me to whichever room I'm in, and it's no effort! I hadn't realised just how lazy and consumerist wired appliances can make us, well, me anyway.

So far it's stayed playing just by being on window sills (after an initial 24 hour electric charge) but I am spending a lot of time maximising direct sun dose of both toys. Ideally they need to be outside in direct sunlight but unless I also am outside that's not so easy. They are trickle charging through the windows but several days of daylight and some sun-through-the-window didn't re-charge the Freeloader enough to fully charge the mobile; it took another 10 minutes on electric.

But what about charging a wax pot by solar, or rather charging a battery to provide power for the wax pot? It doesn't seem feasible at the moment – not just financially but also in terms of creating enough juice to fire the thing! None of the solar panels I've read about online will do more than run laptops, electric lawnmowers, TVs, lamps etc, certainly nothing hotter than a toaster. So definitely not wax pots or Burcos (I use the Burco to boil wax out). But solar thermal collectors for heating hot water (for boiling out) might work, though personally I use little hot water during our warmer months. Then there is the question of Cornwall's sunniness... plenty hot water in summer, warmish only in winter.

Carbon reduction through lower power consumption is the main reason for me investigating renewable-powered tools. But I also believe within a few years electricity will start being rationed, either by a number of off-hours per day or through personal allowance. There's a few studio-based essentials I feel handy to have around – radio for news, wind-up torch and an ability to charge the mobile and camera. But if I have to seriously curtail waxing time I need to find either an alternative way to heat wax (and water to remove it) or find a non-heat-requiring resist.

In Malaysia (where I first made batik) wax was heated in a wok over a naked flame, either from a gas stove or charcoal fire. In my current studio set-up with its low ceiling, neither sounds desirable especially in winter when window-opening is minimised. But I need to find out how carbon intensive these methods are – if they are carbon-practical alternatives then my workspace may need to change from an indoor one to... hmmm. Outdoor working is great but the cold, draughts, damp and everything else about the Great British Outdoors are not conducive to wax resist working.

I've been fascinated by mud resist since first hearing this is how Mali people decorate cloth. But their batik doesn't use mud to resist dye in the conventional sense, instead mud is applied to yellow-dyed cotton, with something (iron?) in the mud turning the yellow brown. Un-mudded areas are discharged with a caustic solution returning them to white. It would be great if china clay could be used in some way – but again I stumble with my lack of chemical knowledge. I do want to experiment with china clay, local river muds and natural dyes, but the potential size of the experiment seems overwhelming! Either I spend aeons on trial and error, or I seek help!

By chance a few weeks ago while visiting an artist/gardener in the next village she produced some decorative batik she'd made as a student. Which led into discussion of various techniques... as she had used mud resist! And then she produced her notebook full of recipes and samples – which I have on loan... It's a start!

slow travel, slow talk

Three strangers, three conversations. Had I driven (as would have been my former inclination as everything could be visited (ie "done") in a day) then I would never have met these people, never would have had such interesting and stimulating exchanges with them. But as I travelled slowly, walking or by train (other than lifts to and from home, and one to a railway station), taking two days, there was time, and so I did. Taking it slow and being away also made it a mini-holiday and back home I feel energised and invigorated...

I went to Slimbridge, Britain's first wetland nature reserve last week. I travelled on to Bath to see the Batik Transitions exhibition at the Museum of East Asian Art, staying overnight in Bath Youth Hostel. Here is the first conversation, I will post the others later.

Conversation One
After being dropped at Slimbridge village by my lift, I enjoyed a pleasant half-hour's walk from the centre past cows moving field and a working canal lock-bridge. Just before the centre a sign invites you to view and read about their reed bed filtration system. All their waste water and sewage is filtered through several stages including gravels and different plant groupings. All the nasty bits for us are food for bacteria that live in the reeds root network. Clean water eventually flows out into a wildlife pond, proof it works! Adam Joseph Lewis Centre at Oberlin College both incorporates a reed bed system in their building and explains its workings well.

Last year I researched wax removal processes*, including disposal of both used wax and the cleaning agent (in my case, boiling water). It included the effects of disposal via the sewer, which I contrasted with direct disposal into the ground. But disposal via reedbed filtering hadn't crossed my mind so I seized this moment to learn more (had I been driving I would have already left, because of the intention of "doing" Bath in the same day). After a phone conversation or two, a WWT specialist met me and kindly gave some outline advice for my situation.

A reed bed filtration system would probably be impractical due to scale. Scale of my practice more than scale of space needed for filtering! The system would need to be regularly "fed" waste water to stay active/alive, so including household waste water/sewage would make sense. Umm, what about when I go away, say for two weeks? Yes, not advised, it's long enough to starve the reed bed. I pondered collective action as a solution but feel in my street only one household might consider it without thinking it weird. For now, anyway. Who knows about the future?

Every reed bed system needs to be designed precisely for the potential waste it receives, so my hypothetical one would need to take dyes into account as well as waxy water. Chemical dyes and natural dyes – I am still considering switching to natural dyes. Procions would need more than a casual conversation to analyse but I feel in the doses I use they would break down sufficiently and harmlessly (in the early 1990s I sought advice on their disposal via mains sewage from someone working for the then National Rivers Authority and a housemate working for Severn Trent Water authority; both OKd them). Natural dyes also might affect micro-organisms within the reed bed – they are essentially chemicals too. But what was made apparent during the talk was incompatibility of inorganic materials to reed bed systems – such as metal mordants used to fix natural dyes.

I have read and heard from time to time that chemical dyes are (or can be) more environmentally friendly than natural dyes simply because of the mordants used for fixing most natural dyes. I really doooo need to look into this properly... and the carbon cost of both. I also have an inkling that wood ash or just plain wood can be used for fixing. Indigo wouldn't have the same concerns, not requiring a mordant. Not to say it wouldn't introduce other problems.

But the biggest problem to adopting a reed bed system at my studio and house would be location location location... the garden slopes uphill from the back of the house. Aaagh! Completely the wrong direction! But a point to consider for when I move...

* The wax removal article needs a bit of amending before being posted here, I will try to do this soon.