beeswax

Wax, both paraffin wax and beeswax, is a material as fundamental to batik as dye and cloth. For the last few years I've been aware that there are global issues with honey bees (colony collapse disorder, or CCD) hence a potential for shortages of beeswax. And that alongside peak oil and rising oil prices will undoubtedly be peak paraffin wax and rising paraffin wax prices. I also knew that I didn't know that much about either, and so in January set about researching.

I started with paraffin wax, but fairly soon it appeared there are far more issues to learn about with beeswax. The article was written for the Batik Guild Magazine, in the event an edited version was published a few weeks ago. The full version is on my website here though the research is ongoing and will be updated. I will write up the paraffin wax research later this year too.

In the way that soy wax has been developed as a resist in the US (though I understand it's not that good for batik), and the Malaysians are working with a oilpalm waste resist, I feel in Europe we need to consider finding and developing a future home-grown source for wax, as an alternative to paraffin wax and supplement to beeswax. I thought I'd read somewhere that snowberry was used in the past for its wax qualities - berries I assume, not leaves - but can't find a reference for it now. That a new source could in fact be an old source is just as feasible as one developed from waste from another process or product.

Researching beeswax was so interesting I have become enthused to take up beekeeping! But compared to the small scale growing of woad I began last year, I think instead I will see if there is a beekeeper locally who would be happy for me to help and learn from them. As wonderful and interesting as woad growing has been, I feel it would be too big a commitment for me to try to grow as much as I envisage using, and beekeeping would be even more of a responsibility.

woad - and spring?

Although there was some more snow last night, the more recent pattern has been of warming weather, that joyous feeling that spring is on its way. The woad plant that was out all winter (in the black pot) has put on a spurt, whereas the greenhoused plants don't seem to have grown so much. More than this, the out-wintered woad's spurt loks suspiciously like a flower stem is on the agenda. The in-wintered plants have more bulk still though. The same pattern can be seen at Helen's, where those that had been under demijohnish covers until about a month ago have more and larger leaves, but those without cover have a definitive upward growing shape.


photos taken 1 March 2009

UN international year of natural fibres

The UN's International Year of Natural Fibres is launched today. Its objectives are to:

- Raise awareness and stimulate demand for natural fibres;
- Promote the efficiency and sustainability of the natural fibres industries;
- Encourage appropriate policy responses from governments to the problems faced by natural fibre industries;
- Foster an effective and enduring international partnership among the various natural fibres industries.

Lots of events around the world are planned for this year, including in Britain an International Conference in London in December (though it seems more directed to industry than artistry) and an international textile conference in Leeds in September.



Another exciting conference:

Making Futures - the crafts in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas.

Organised by Plymouth College of Art and Design (PCAD), it is taking place in September 2009 at Mount Edgcumbe House, near Saltash in Cornwall. I hope to be there!



And, because some things come in threes, the next issue of Selvedge magazine is themes around 'Frugal'. I was asked if I'd like to advertise but as well as not knowing what I'd be advertising I feel it goes against the essence of what I'm trying to do. The magazine is beautifully produced with gorgeous photography, and even the adverts are a pleasure to look at, but it has a large readership and global circulation. Being just a humble artist I want to get on with things quietly and minimally and appropriately and... frugally. Self-promotion there seems arrogant and loud and wrong, for me, in this context. But I am looking forward to seeing the next issue.

frugality (blog action day - poverty)

"Frugality does not mean poverty or deprivation. It means the wise use of resources."

Paul Hawken in 'The 11th Hour'.
For full quote, see NPQ (4th from bottom).


Rather than write about poverty, the theme of this year's Blog Action Day, I thought instead I'd consider the wise use of resources as the means to avoid it. Partly I am inspired by that wonderful organisation Practical Action which devises and/or introduces very simple technologies to lift struggling communities out of dependency or poverty.

A recent mailout from Practical Action describes a fish-rice culture introduced to Bangladeshi rice farmers. A minor re-design of rice fields allows fish to also grow there. The rice thrives from the fish naturally fertilising it, consuming insect pests and circulating oxygen, giving an apparent 10% increase in yield and savings in purchased pesticide and fertiliser. As well as having fish to eat, the farmers now also grow vegetables and bananas on the dykes.

Fish-rice culture reminds me of the traditional silk production cycle – silkworms feeding on mulberry bushes, the cocoon waste following silk harvesting fed to fish in the pond, with fish waste being scraped from the pond floor annually to fertilise the mulberry bushes.

My dream is to find a similar cycle for woad production. At the moment, in theory, I can use organic chicken manure to fertilise soil (for nitrogen content). Perhaps chickens will eat post-extraction plant waste, but there isn't much of it (currently it goes in the compost bin). Perhaps as woad is such a slug-magnet there'd be mutual benefit with poultry living alongside? Whether simple or complex the cycle turns out to be, I said it was a dream and probably it will stay that way. I don't have and am unlikely to ever have enough land to grow enough woad for all my own dyeing – I will always need to buy it in.

Earlier in the year I visited Ian Howard in Norfolk, who's been at the forefront of woad revival in Britain for some years now. Since processing my comparatively meagre crop a month ago I have thought a lot about the time and effort he must put in, leading to the high cost of woad-sourced indigotin. Occasionally I've wondered whether it is really worth it... but then think back to Procion dyes and the minimal information available about its production. It means so much more to know who has grown and produced the dye and where, how, and why! To know this farmer has and is increasing specialist knowledge of the crop, knowledge that would have been garnered over generations of past woaders. To trust that he knows he needs to take care of his land in order to continue to grow it, and to maintain both quality and financial return. That must mean a wise use of resources.

Synthetic dye... dye with no entity, no place, let alone no place in nature, and virtually no history. Dye without a soul. Manufactured anonymously somewhere in the world from petrochemical from somewhere else in the world, packaged up and sold on somewhere else again. There is no trail, no depth – any dyeing from this becomes just a colour, nothing more. So how to be sure resources have been used wisely? Impossible, it seems, with Procion MX.

One is cyclical, working within nature's limits; the other based on linear production. Cyclical is frugal, implying taking only what nature can afford – some years not much, but in others a bonanza. In comparison linear can only ever lead to poverty somewhere for someone, surely?


update, midnight at end of Blog Action Day

Having spent the last hour reading other blogger entries for this day addressing poverty, I have felt moved enough to do something more (the concept of Blog Action Day works!). Instead of occasional donations I am setting up a regular payment to Practical Action. Their donation page says the following:

Please do something special today. Offer the hand of friendship to poor communities by making a regular donation by Direct Debit. Be part of the solutions that will change the lives of people in poor communities day after day, year after year.

For over 40 years Practical Action has been investing in simple and extremely effective technologies that give determined people the power to change their lives. Our experience tells us that you can’t solve poverty by giving handouts – instead we work together with people in their homes and communities, listening and learning from them. We work at the heart of desperate communities across the world, helping people to find simple, sustainable solutions to problems they face.

- We don’t believe in imposing quick fixes. So we make sure that all our projects are sustainable, use local materials and are organised and run by local people
- We overcome poverty across the world using practical, tangible and often innovative solutions. We use simple technologies and share our knowledge widely.
- We make sure that the money that funds our work goes directly to our offices in that country rather than the government, so you can be sure the money goes only to the people who need it.

quality not quantity

I woke up yesterday morning thinking about my two grams of extracted woad pigment... of the amount of work involved in its production. And, even allowing for the cool wet summer's affect on growth, how disproportionate is the effort to the result.

Later I read this article about Cornish vineyard Camel Valley Wines. The weather knocked out nearly 80% of their grapes but also created circumstances for those remaining being ideal for their sparkling wine 'Cornwall'. So if 'Cornwall' can compete with Champagne (as the vineyard owners believe), then I shouldn't be at all despondent about my measly woad pigment result...

Quality it is then. Not quantity.

. . .

While writing this I've been wondering whether there's a connection between grapes getting extra fizz from the particular circumstances of this year's summer, and the exuberance of foam I got during woad processing, also experienced this year for the first time by Helen Melvin (in North Wales) (see previous post and comments). Is it an omen of the champagne of blues to come?

getting blue!

On the tray is all the woad cut at Helen's on September 4th, about 450g. Several plants had grown better than mine, that is, they had bulked out though were still not as fully grown as expected. Others were middling, like mine, with a few well and truly eaten! But only three caterpillars emerged during the wash!

The four pots from my front garden yielded a further 50g, so in all I had about half a kilo. About half I'd been hoping for – but quite acceptable considering August's lousy weather. The left hand pile is good wholesome leaves, the top those that were fairly battered, bruised, part-eaten and part-rotting (bad bits later cut out). Can't quite remember what the right hand pile is – possibly small and slightly battered leaves.

While washing my leaves I felt they were more blue-green than Helen's, so compared them. One-all I think, if mine are bluer but hers grew better. I'll come back to the growing stuff later.

Half a kilo of chopped leaves - including stalks. I reckon stalks must contain some indigo too, and having so few leaves/weight I couldn't afford to be discriminatory.

Whisking time is telling time... when the alchemy works or doesn't. In my case I was leaping with joy to see so much blue pigment (indigotin) in the foam, and appearing so quickly! I was expecting the foam to turn 'back to green' within 10-20 minutes of whisking, but all I was getting was more and more foam, and blue. The bucket was less than two-thirds full of liquid - top third all foam! I tried scooping it off and re-whisking, I tried mixing the foam back into the liquid, I tried giving it a break for some minutes. But still foam came up good and blue. In the back of my mind was a vague memory from one or more of the various indigo workshops I've been on, where a similar stage in vat-making required stirring to introduce oxygen - and being told soon after that it had worked and I could stop stirring. And so an hour later I convinced myself that I surely had whisked enough, there certainly was blue there (and everywhere!), and I could move on to the next stage - bottling. The memory of stirring at an indigo workshop remains vague and, in the light of day (I stopped whisking around 1 am!), not making sense. Either I was confusing the process with another, or we were processing woad (or other) leaves to make indigotin without me realising. Anyway, whatever it was, it helped me at that time - I had started to think about what I was doing, the process that was happening, instead of just following instructions!

This yellowy-green is the colour of the liquid going into the jars.

Total of seventeen jars. At this stage I deviated from the instructions, which called for periods of settling and siphoning off of the top liquid, followed by a consolidation of all bottom liquids into one container, with the top liquid being diluted with water and siphoned. Each time I pulled off the top liquid it was greenish, making me suspect there was 'blue' in there too. I saved all siphoned liquid, letting that too settle before re-siphoning. In all, I had three separate siphoning stages. After a few days of settling, some jars were showing a central body of amber liquid, surrounded by greener tinted liquid and a strong blue bottom layer (see previous post). It demonstrated to me that my earlier instinct was right, that the top greenish liquid had contained some blue pigment, and a longer settling time was all that was needed.

All liquid from the last siphoning went into the bucket, and a few days later when its top liquid was siphoned off it revealed yet another bottom layer of blue!

Although it obviously wasn't traditional to use filter papers, I did think it was perhaps the modern take on a traditional filtering technique - and had read it would yield more indigotin. I also thought it might yield more if I didn't repeatedly 'water down and re-siphon' the liquid, as early on the top liquid had proved to also contain blue pigment. So I started filtering undiluted liquid - some greener, some bluer. My instinct paid off again - see how golden it came out (in a beer glass from a Bodmin Beer Festival, and looks good enough to drink!).

Filtering started at a rate of about two drops a second. By the end it was one drop a minute, which is why by then four filters were on the go! But slowness wasn't the imminent problem. Soon after starting the filtering, I was wondering how to get the pigment off the paper at the end. The more I thought about it the more I wished I hadn't started down this route. Perhaps an upside is that it made me concentrate on related chemical processes to look for a solution. There may be one but far too long-winded to take seriously, though I might check it out sometime.

Two dried filter papers with skims of pigment over some, and a crust in parts. The crust cracked up like dried mud. If it had been thicker it might have picked off cleanly, but for me it took some paper fibres with it. The very thin layers I scored lightly with a scalpel before brushing the fine powder away. But some paper fibres went too. Pigment and fibres weighed in at two grams.

Four filter papers, as much pigment as possible removed. Took about a day. Now, had I followed instructions to consolidate the bottom liquid more and dilute it down with water, this end result might have been different. Probably I'd have had just one filter paper, so the pigment on it would have been thicker and more easily removable. Possibly it would have not seeped so far into the paper had the pigment been suspended in water instead of the remnant alkaline solution. Possibly... probably...

One thing is for sure though: a lot of pigment remains on the paper. This macro-shot shows how much is wasted. Criminal considering time and effort - mine, Helen's and nature's. I won't be using filter paper again.

With thanks to Teresinha Roberts, Helen (in North Wales) Melvin, and Ian Howard for various processing instructions, guidance and encouragement; to Ian Howard, Isabella Whitworth, Vivien Prideaux, and Abi Evans for past indigo workshops which helped develop my understanding of the indigo-making process; and to Ian who supplied the seed I grew. And not forgetting members of the Natural Dyers list. Special thanks go to my good friend Helen (in North Cornwall) for patiently growing, watering and de-slugging my woad plants over the last few months.

straight and curly, and thin green lines

These photos were taken on August 2 (4 weeks ago) as I'd noticed a variation in the woad plants. Some plants had straight edged leaves, others were wavy. Helen (growing most of my woad) has also noticed this. I wonder if it's a genetic mutation, or a natural variation...

The plant that was bitten to the core by slugs is growing back well (leaves still small) (see bottom photo in last post), the other three have been chomped away at relentessly throughout August. There is less of them now than there was at the beginning of the month. In recent days I've been thinking caterpillars are more the cause than slugs. A Cabbage White butterfly was around and on the plants around the beginning of August, as were little yellow dots of eggs on the underside of leaves. I thought I'd got all off but no, every so often a tiny green line would show itself... a few days ago one thin green line was nearly up to full blown caterpillar size! (When very small I squeamishly have squashed them, but larger ones I take up the road to take their chances in the verge vegetation).

The August weather has been atrociously wet and cool, with a few February-like gales. Only occasionally did the sun shine but it was hardly ever summer-hot. I'm sure this won't have helped the crop either - I feel it's the cause for the (former) large outer leaves to have dried up, died in parts, or yellowed. The inner newly sprouting leaves are all good and healthy. Just right for nibbling. Undoubtedly. Hmmph.

None of the woad has had (nitrogen oriented) fertiliser in its soil, though Helen's beds had before she grew the earlier potato crops and mine had a good portion of home-compost. Perhaps fertiliser would have helped the plants gain strength. I've found an organic chicken rearer who I hope to get well-rotted chicken manure from next year. And perhaps next time butterfly netting would keep off the cabbage whites... Though most of the growth problem could be caused by their late start in life. They must be sown at the right time next year!

I am gearing up for harvesting and processing the leaves in several weeks time - acquiring equipment and organising workspace. And am working on batik drawings so I have cloth ready to dye soon after.

research on bees - a petition

Beeswax is one of my raw (and most valued) materials, and the historic resist for batik, so can I urge all UK readers to sign this petition.

Think not only of their wax and honey, both ancient traditional natural materials, but also of bees 'services' to agriculture. They fertilise up to a third of our crops - if bees seriously decline there will be disastrous repercussions for crop fertility. A beekeeping friend indicated his more experienced neighbour lost 23 out of her 40 hives last winter.

The petition is asking for
funding for research into the rapid decline of honey bee colonies

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/

and runs until June 11th (a week left to sign).

The following came in the original email I received (Mark: hope it's OK to quote you):

"Quick background. I'm an erstwhile beekeeper, and this year painfully aware
of the lack of honey bees around. I leave a clump of brassicas on the
allotment every year for them to feast on, but until yesterday i hadn't seen
a single one. This combines with a local newspaper article (I live in
Warwicks) that colonies in this area - in line with the national average -
are down by 30 per cent. With no reserves in the 'British' wild (even more
serious news) I hardly need reminding anybody who is making connections that
this is part of and parcel of a bigger environmental catastrophe. I do not
use that term lightly - but without honey bees - even looked at in the most
blatantly pragmatic sense of 'eco-services' provided, our daily diets are
going to be seriously narrowed in terms of the vegetables and fruit we will
no longer be eating.

It goes without saying that last year's disastrous weather is a major factor
in the bee collapse. In other words, continued anthropogenic climate change
may spell the end of the British honey bee. The request for research money
may not help that in itself, but it might remind government on the
connectedness of all things, including the small but essential ones to our
bodies and souls, we tend to forget.

Sign the petition please, if you will!
cheers, mark"


More about bees at the British Beekeepers Association, whose site pointed me to this recent Daily Mail article about the funding situation by an enlightened (on this) politician. Last Saturday's Guardian had this informative article "Last Flight of the Honeybee". And here, a link to the government's response to an earlier bee research funding petition. Read it. Need I say more...

more woad pictures

For an agonising ten or so days only one woad seed had sprouted, but now of the five pots/ten seeds I still have here five are growing (one since thinned out). My friend Helen took in the other forty or so pots a few weeks ago to grow them on for me. They're in her greenhouse at the moment.

It's years since I've grown anything from seed and as I seemed to do OK before without too much effort, was panicking that something I'd done was wrong and I'd end the summer with no woad to dye with at all! Only a couple germinated at Helen's too and after analysing possible reasons, we decided we were being too precious with them, trying too hard, taking too much care and concern. My pots go out on the windowsill when I'm here but come inside at night, only because I worry they might be blown off! It was a mistake to start them growing inside the house - the first spent so long straining for the light that its stem is ridiculously long. I had tried to counter this by turning the pot by 180 degrees but won't again. The others are faring better by being outside from an early age, and from the pots being tilted to the light when inside. Ten days ago at Helen's I saw a good number of sprouts.

The difference in timing has surprised me and pleased me. Surprise as I assumed if conditions were right - light, warmth, moisture and whatever else makes seeds tick - all would come up within a few days. That they don't is great - they demonstrate the resilience of nature! Spreading your bets must give better chances than blowing it all on one seemingly good day. With woad's determination to do its own thing and not conform I feel confident we will have a great relationship!

images - the top one is from 20 May at 11 days old, the last from 30 May at 21 days old. It's my impression that the younger sprouts are producing new leaves faster, maybe because they weren't wasting time spurting stem, or maybe in response to climatic conditions. The point is that 21 days may be exceptional for this first sprout to be starting on its fifth pair of leaves.

woad sprout - day four

woad sprout - day three

woad sprout - day two

soda ash - where from, how, and what is it really?

The early part of February was taken up with investigations into soda ash, that versatile white powder used not only with fibre reactive dyes as a "fixative" but also as a traditional and versatile household chemical. The article was published in the March 2008 Batik Guild magazine and is also available on my website. There was a lot for me to get my head around, and indeed I needed (repeated) assistance to grasp some of the chemistry. Looking back to my first delvings into soda ash last July I realise that what the article doesn't do is assess the sustainability of using the chemical - in end use in dyeing and scouring (or by inference household use) and through sourcing and manufacturing. The trouble is I'm not confident or clever enough to draw conclusions, only to take them from published research. And I don't know if there is any.

However, I have no problem 'feeling' my way... science is all very good and proper but there is nothing like trusting instinct for getting it right.

After I'd finished the article I sat back and while resting my tired brain considered my earlier thoughts on the white stuff (pre-July 2007). I hadn't really thought about it, of course, but had a vague inkling it was naturally mined something like salt, say. But without any regard for resource sustainability. So my research has left me gobsmacked!

Of the three processes - manufactured (as in UK), mined (as in eg, US and Kenya), and 'gathered' from kelp or salsola ashes (the Old Days) - I cannot say with any certainty or feeling which is the most sustainable. But I've a feeling that at quantities produced globally today, none are. In line with everything else... I feel very uncomfortable at the thought of ripping out Mother Earth's innards, as required to retrieve limestone and rock salt for manufacture (but recognise my hypocrisy as today I put 33 more litres of petrol in my car without flinching). I'm less sensitive to surface mining of trona or natron as they are naturally renewing resources, but I feel Nature is hard pushed to keep up with our consumerist demands. Burning plants would seem the most eco-friendly resource as their annual replenishment is easy to gauge and thus Nature would set the limits. But... 'society' would collapse and (new) resource wars break out if this became soda ash's only source.

I need help to get answers, obviously.

irony and purpose

Next month the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation comes into force requiring biofuel to be included in 2.5% of petrol and diesel. It is now widely known (see here and here) that most biofuels are now discredited for being more damaging than the fossil fuel they are meant to replace. Not just for increasing greenhouse gas emissions but for putting up global food prices and destruction of pristine habitats such as rainforest.

The irony of a fuel designed to reduce greenhouse emissions but that actually increases it is not lost on me with my predicament over the direction, future, purpose of my art. My batiks reflect and interpret the natural world and/or environmental issues in the hope of inspiring or enlightening others to appreciate and live more respectfully with nature. But until recently I had minimal consideration for the consequences of their actual existence... not just the materials and processes used but the fact yet another "object" had been created and added to the world of consumerism.

edited 7 April

nettle fibre (and leather)

Despite my research into cotton production that lead to testing of organic and fair trade cottons I am still a little uncomfortable at the thought of using fabric that is produced thousands of miles away and on land that (today) might better be used for (local) food crops. I slightly reconcile it with myself with the thought that trading of such 'commodities' has gone on for centuries, so it isn't such a problem.

But I have been pondering whether I should learn to work on materials that are available locally, ie in Cornwall. Being cattle and sheep country that means leather or wool. As wool needs to be dyed at high temperatures that obviously rules out batik work (though other resists may be possible). Batik on leather is possible, but I don't get on with the smell of leather and am not sure how well I'd wax while gagging! Last year I learnt that my great-great-grandfather was a saddler by trade and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him were shoemakers and cordwainers - if leather work is in my blood perhaps it is my destiny. (For those who also need to look 'cordwainer' up: my old Collins dictionary says shoemaker or worker in leather. More about cordwainers here.)

And then, in today's Guardian, an article about stinging nettles being used for fibre - which mentions a nettle clone crop is being trialled in Cornwall. Leaving aside any ecological issues with cloning for the moment (it may just mean being grown from the same rootstock - easy!), there is hope for a locally produced fabric to make batik on!

I have already tried dyeing an organic nettle/cotton mix from Greenfibres - but only a scrap as it's expensive. This fabric is delightfully soft but being slightly stretchy isn't ideal for waxing. But other mixes or types of cloth may well be developed and be suitable - and smelling much nicer than leather!

asking the right questions

I went to a Transition Town event in Wadebridge on Wednesday to hear both Rob Hopkins, the founder of Transition Totnes and the wider Transition Towns movement, and Anthony Gibson, Communications Director of the National Farmers Union and founder of Taste of the West, speak about Peak Oil and the future. Without digressing too much I already felt that Transition seems the only way forward for western culture, and certainly for those of us at the geographic/geopolitic margins – never mind that rural areas are the food and water providers.

Although both speakers had areas of common ground (eg locally produced food, return to importance of British farming, great need for re-skilling people) they diverged strongly over the sourcing of energy beyond peak oil. Rob believes in addressing a powerdown, there being no serious feasible option to provide a fuel replacement to oil (petrol) to give us and our culture the mobility it has become accustomed to. Anthony is still selling biofuel as the future solution, though I don't feel he is as strong an advocate as he used to be. He indicated that second and third generation biofuels should overcome some of the problems of currently produced biofuels. He believes that British farmers further in the future may not be producing crops for biofuel (other than for farm use) and instead will be producing high quality food for domestic consumption with biofuel being imported from developing countries. But for now he encourages farmers to go for growing biofuel crops, even where it displaces food crops, as it's where the market is at now.

The market? As a member of the audience pointed out, the market, the existing economic system, seems to be causing the problems as it doesn't recognise that nature and the planet are finite, and can the answer really be to chase money all the time. Frustratingly this economics discussion often and did also on Tuesday lead to the dead end/let's-not-go-there-now of if not the market then there is only state control. When really we need another system, one that looks beyond GDP and competition or quota and control to... something modelled on nature's patterns, planetary capacity. Yes I'm no economist and I don't know the answer except change is needed.

As events are meant to, it got me thinking. Certainly I am looking to make my practice sustainable and ecologically sound, but is attempting to use quantitative measurement the right way? After all, the tipping point for irreversible climate change cannot be proved without actually going there, which only apocolyptickers would advocate doing. I am attempting to use carbon equivalent emissions as a measurement tool, which I still think is OK. But can I really pitch a petro-chemical method with no conceivable long-term future against one of renewable abilities? Do I really need to prove it? Have I been asking the right question?

Shouldn't I instead be asking:

How should I be making batik in a transition culture?

What purpose will batik hold for my community? What can batik give?

Or even:

Should I be making batik? Or something else?

Yeah yeah, sounds a bit drastic eh. But as a Transition Network leaflet says:

"The need for change is urgent and these profound changes can't happen overnight. We still have some time - if we act now. By thinking and acting together, the transition to a way of living that consumes substantially less carbon energy yet is a happier, more fulfilling and abundant place will become much more achievable."

who makes procion mx?

When I started working in batik back in Britain I contacted ICI to ask about the safe use and disposal of Procion MX dyes (ICI created them back in the mid-1950s, and in 1991 was still manufacturing them). The then ICI Colours SHE (safe health and environment?) Adviser wrote back with good general advice, along with an assumption that disposal to the sewer in the small quantities I was likely to be using wouldn't be problematic. The adviser also offered to supply the safety data sheets for each individual dye I had.

When these arrived someone I knew working at Severn-Trent Water, and later on someone else at the National Rivers Authority (now the Environment Agency), looked over the data and interpreted it for me. Both said that in the low dilutions I was using Procions, there was no potential harm to aquatic life. If the dye was mixed as a sludge then that was a different matter, Procion is then toxic enough to kill fish. But essentially, the dilute batik doses were of little environmental consequence (at least to fish - my assumption not theirs).

And so, even now in terms of disposal I'm not unduly concerned about using Procions. I still wonder whether, in this respect, they are safer than (most) natural dyes because of their requirement for metal mordants. And of course until I ask people who really know, who have the full facts and the answers, I will keep wondering instead of knowing...


Creation of the dyes is another matter again. ICI no longer makes Procions – it seems Dystar took over manufacturing the full range but they no longer make MX. It's been suggested Procion MX is made in India and I'm making enquiries in an attempt to discover who, where and under what conditions it's now made.

It may sound arrogant and could be completely wrong-headed of me but before at the time I was in touch with ICI, I had assumed that because ICI made the dyes certain environmental procedures and precautions would be met. That high environmental procedures and precautions would be met. I'm older and wiser now and so know not to assume anything with big business. Or with manufacturing in India.


My dithering over whether Procions or natural dyes are the most all-round eco-friendly, eco-sustainable, continues. Which has a lower carbon footprint? Woad, for instance, apparently shouldn't be grown in the same patch more than two or three years in a row as it depletes the soil. Maybe in a rotation system or companion planting soil exhaustion doesn't matter so much but if these or other cropping systems aren't practised, is woad production better or worse than synthetic dyes? I am reading the woad bible, Jamieson B Hurry's "The Woad Plant And Its Dye" (first published 1930, Oxford University Press) and finding some answers. I also know of (and will read up everything available from) Spindigo, a European collaborative research project developing new and sustainable methods of indigo production from woad (Isatis tinctoria), Chinese woad (Isatis indigotica), and polygonum (Polygonum tinctorium). Early in 2008 I intend to visit Woad-inc, Norfolk based growers and producers who also are involved in Spindigo.

The week before Christmas after months of indecision on 'when-to' I called Envision, a southwest based agency that helps businesses with environmental matters. An adviser and I will meet in a few weeks to see how they can help me advance my research and, hopefully, begin to reach some conclusions. I also signed up for a Carbon Trust course (Practical Guide to Footprinting) in February. I feel not only that carbon costing is on its way in to becoming mainstream practice (see here) but along with living systems thinking (nature is role model) it's a major tool for grasping the sustainability implications of every action and production.

dilemma resolving

A good thing about outing yourself – as I did with my dilemma of work direction (see this previous post) – is that because you have faced facts and acknowledged the situation you know there is only one way to go from there.... towards resolution. There's no more excuse to dither.

So late last week I contacted Jane Deane of Cross-Eyed Chameleon to find out if they had any imminent native plant dyeing (on cotton) workshops, and specifically local plants. I'd met Jane a few months ago at their Open Studio in Launceston, and in between the chinwag I realised these were people who knew loads about natural dyeing - and even better shared my outlook on the environment.

My big plan had been to move towards working in indigo – or woad. Solely in blue. That ambition hasn't gone but threw up its own dilemmas: the majority of the remaining Mekong work wasn't envisaged for indigo and even if it did I'm not sure the show would hang together half in indigo and half in brilliant Procion. They wouldn't complement each other – the remaining work would have to be in Procion.

And (as already discovered) indigo/woad makes a mess and I don't have proper space to allow that mess. So indigo work is delayed until I do have a suitable workspace. Hmmph. Grrrr. Aaaagh! But.

Some months ago I joined a couple of natural dye lists on Yahoo, mainly to pick up tips about indigo dyeing - a kind of preparation and a constructive remedy for the unsatiated urge. An email came in response to a comment I'd left about wax and resin – from Teresinha Roberts who's behind the amazingly informative All About Woad website. She does her woad dyeing in a greenhouse, keeping the vat alive right over the summer. And... ping! So could I! Why had I been thinking bricks and mortar and evicted car? Someone somewhere not too far away must have a disused greenhouse I could hire next summer... and how eco-friendly that would be, with its own solar heating. Brilliant! And what's more... a deadline to work towards.

What also has come out of these dye groups is recognizing the buzz others are getting from dyeing with local plants, whether garden grown, picked from the wild (with caution), or retrieved from 'waste' (eg onion skins); and their sharing of knowledge and re-discoveries in traditional ways, and ecological and health issues.

The wildlife, agriculture and culture surrounding a local river, from its sources here on the moor through to its estuary, is my next project (though it may evolve). Being able to dye from plants and vegetable matter found along its banks and valleys fits perfectly with the theme... and my intention to source locally where possible. To help that along I began an informal self-taught common plant ID course in the summer. For twelve months I am surveying four local one-kilometre squares for fifty locally common plants, learning about them as I go and in the process helping create a database for the Parish Wildlife Project. I was ashamed of my ignorance and pleased that I already knew quite a lot... just not their names! But already I'm finding an acuter awareness of these plants and their localised ecosystem, and hopefully this will develop into a feel for appropriate amounts that can be taken for dyeing.

Like woad work, this would be a spring thing... in the meantime I can learn more about plant dyeing – techniques, tools and space needed. Also... how combatible the various processes are with batik (not melting the wax!), sustainability issues around mordanting, and lightfastness. And also, whether natural plant dyeing is more eco-sustainable than chemical dyes, once all externalities are built in. I'm still to be convinced one way or the other.

Except with woad. My feeling is that woad will win easily over chemical dyes, if I could grow my own. But alas I have read woad is not a lover of acid soils. Which is Cornwall's lot.

organic cotton from seed!

I bought a cotton vest in Padstow recently, in Seasalt, an accredited ethical clothing company based in Cornwall. Not only is it certified organic cotton, it's a gorgeous colour! By luck it was in the sale though buying it wasn't a spontaneous consumerist response to finding a "bargain". I have been on the lookout all summer for a vest (organic, fair trade), my old two being over 10 years old and anyway... lost! A vest was a "need" not a "want", and I managed not to be seduced by any other delightful things in the shop.

What was a bargain was discovering one of the attached labels was in fact a packet of seeds! It advises me I can sew them in the summer (inside on a sunny windowsill) and later plant them outside (in a sunny place)... and to water them well. And regularly remove pests such as aphids or caterpillars. Later they should flower and (if there's enough sun) the resultant bolls will open and produce cotton. And seeds for a new crop...

This is very exciting! I am just frustrated at having to wait six months to start... and curious about whether Bodmin Moor, let alone Cornwall, has enough sun for them to flower. And if our inconsistently wet weather would mean I'd still have to regularly water them. Whatever, I hope to learn a lot about cotton growing. I'm sure it won't be easy.

I just took a peek inside the packet – there's three fluffy seeds looking quite unlike seeds I have ever known.

world weather impacts

A few days ago an email came from my Ghanaian friend Antoinette Ablordey, a former student. She had dropped by my blog and emailed to say hello and that she liked the idea of indigo and organic cotton. Here's my reply:

Hi Antoinette

Yeah, I'm fine - how are you? Are you still batikking - have you taken a
textiles or design course now?

Glad you found my blog and research interesting... as you'll be aware the
consumerist West has to make massive lifestyle and cultural changes in the
light of climate change. George Monbiot and Mark Lynas amongst others
predict we have to cut back by more than 90%, and soon. Of course it's
possible to live at that kind of consumption, many already do in the world
and I experienced it too, partially, when I was travelling and living in
other countries. But to live at that level in our existing culture (even in
Cornwall) is infinitely harder at the moment - it's still necessary to earn
money to pay local tax, building repairs, health care and dentist, and
unless you can put time into growing all your own food, to buy food. In the
west we all have to power down together... and this then impacts globally in
other countries with a lower consumerist (but more sustainable) lifestyle,
in connection with their exports to us of crops such as cotton, coffee,
cocoa, which traditionally have been traded for centuries and we can't grow
here. How will this change?

Where does this leave art? What role for batik in this new
soon-to-emerge-culture? Should art/batik lead, should it follow? Where art
has become elitist, and clothing is dominated by throwaway fashion, how can
the new art and the new batik reach out and be part of culture?

These are fascinating questions for me...What is the view from Ghana?

Cheers for now

Robin


The view from Ghana came yesterday not from Antoinette but from the BBC – floods across Africa.

Ghana is hit especially hard with around 400,000 made homeless in the north – the equivalent of 80% of Cornwall's population. The north is even more of an agricultural area than here and loss of crops and livestock will affect the whole country's supply... and doesn't everything in life revolve around food?

I often check the Met Office website for the local weather forecast. On the right hand side it has a section "World Weather Impacts" that highlights, well, exactly what it says. Storms, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, blizzards, lightning strikes, heatwaves, wild fires (due to...), power cuts (due to...), landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, sandstorms and so on. Is it gloomy reading? errr... no. It's sobering. Very sobering. The Met Office don't describe these happenings as climate change related, but the flavour left in your mouth is that they must be. I mean, can this many people be made homeless, destitute, starving by floods (or whatever) every year? I don't think so.

I read them because it otherwise is so easy to ignore natural disasters happening elsewhere, to live entirely isolated from them, safe in this cocoon called Cornwall. It is so easy to let go of the knowledge that we share a planet and her resources. That we need to share. Which in the West means having, doing, taking less (and giving, caring, being more).

I asked Antoinette, as I ask many others, what is art's role in – or for? – the new culture that will emerge to survive climate change. I sound people out because I am searching for the new direction for my own work. It needs a new meaningfulness, something beyond just observation of nature, or culture, or personal impression – or environmental statement.

I wonder whether, in the hour or so I've been writing this post, I have started to find it...


PS Northern India has had floods and landslides recently too. I have wondered whether this affected the organic cotton growers... I will find out.