a science of qualities

For much of today I've been thinking about scientific process, following my last post on wax temperature. I have been making batik since 1990, so that's nineteen years (wow! is it really that long!). For much of this time I've had a good feeling for when the wax is not hot enough, when the room/ambient temperature is not warm enough, when the wax has crossed the threshold of 'good', and so on. The same with dyes, colour mixing, in fact everything to do with the batik process. Some I learnt from my early tutors Jin and Latif in Malaysia, but most "knowing" has been gained intuitively, through practice and observation and awareness... and over time. For instance I've never needed a thermometer to know if the room was warm enough for batikking - I came to realise I just had to consider what I was wearing. Anything more than a t-shirt and sweatshirt meant it was too cold.

My experiment last Monday in wax temperatures at different Tixor Malam settings was generalised/experimental. It was not set up to be controlled and perfectly measured, because I was more focused on the artwork I was doing. My thinking today was that if it had been a perfectly measured and controlled experiment (when it would be hard to also focus on artwork) , then that would give me precise results for only those variables (eg that wax mix). Another experiment would be needed for each variable. How maddening is that?

But more than maddening, I feel such a method takes away knowledge and understanding rather than giving it. If I heat the waxpot from calculations based on test results rather than on an innate awareness of what is necessary, garnered from experience, have I lost something fundamental?

Which led me to thinking about A Science of Qualities. I first heard about this from Brian Goodwin, I think at a talk he was giving at the University of Plymouth a few years ago. It is akin to Goethean science, and draws on impressions, intuition, sensory perception and sensory imagination, context, history, seeing in beholding, appropriate response, dialogue and consensus, and evaluation. It was so exciting when I first heard of this approach - inside me was singing 'that's what I do!, that's what I do!', meaning it's how I approach working on a painting or design. Or visiting a place, seeing a new phenomena, travelling, whatever. I don't do it in such a structured coordinated way nor with an ability to add headings to each element of my process, but what I do resonates with the pattern.

The Science of Qualities allows both the essence and the bigger connections to be expressed, through seeing the whole rather than the parts (holistic versus reductionist). But somehow I don't think it is appropriate to demonstrate wax temperatures - but now I think: why not? Isn't it easier to tell someone that from experience I found if I am wearing more than a sweatshirt the room's too cool for successful batikking than to say from experimentation I found that the thermometer must be above a particular temperature? Although it's easier for them to measure their room with a thermometer than to get me to stand there with or without sweatshirt or more... the idea for them to learn their own clothing level is much better, as their space may have variables I have not accounted for (drafts, higher ceiling, different humidity etc).

I think why I've gone the reductionist route on much of my sustainability research is that, supposedly, there's more cred to the results. I can say x y z with certainty rather than 'in my experience' which anyone could dismiss as artist waffle. Sadly.

I dug out a few articles about A Science of Qualities - this one I've read before, it's long but page 3 has a few appropriate paras. There's also this and this. Page 5 here (scroll down) describes a newish book by Brian Goodwin which is now on my reading list.

2008 carbon footprint

8.57 tonnes CO2 - CarbonFootprint.com
7.60 tonnes CO2 - Resurgence
5.49 tonnes CO2 - Energy Saving Trust
5.27 tonnes CO2 - ActOnCO2 (UK government's)


Back in June 2007 I wrote about my carbon footprint, as worked out on a range of calculators. Last summer I intended to re-measure and compare, but felt such an activity was better suited to dark and cold winter evenings. So my new footprint is for the calendar year - January to December 2008.

Depending on calculator used the carbon footprint ranges from 5.27 to 8.57 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Resurgence and CarbonFootprint.com's calculators endeavour to include lifestyle and industrial share as well as the energy and travel factors. When taking energy and travel alone these footprints fall into the same range as the other two, at 5.1 and 5.57 tonnes.

Two major changes from last time are using the car and having double/secondary glazing fitted. It's been interesting to see what changes they have brought.


Travel

2.46 tonnes CO2 - Resurgence
2.29 tonnes CO2 - CarbonFootprint.com
2.01 tonnes CO2 - Energy Saving Trust
1.99 tonnes CO2 - ActOnCO2

Last year my footprint was 6.3 to 7.5 tonnes CO2 annually depending on the calculator used. But when my average driving mileage of 10,000 miles pa was factored in it rose to around 9.5 tonnes!

So one plan for 2008 was to restrict mileage to 6000 pa, roughly 500 miles a month or a tankful of fuel each month. Five hundred miles sounds a lot and is a lot and in general wasn't too hard to stick to. But two long-distance trips – to Norfolk in the spring and recently to visit family in Shropshire - were all it took to push me over by 831 miles. So I failed. Or failed to stay below my target, but I did learn that lower mileage is achievable. Several times I told others or myself I couldn't afford (meaning 'spare') the petrol that month, or consciously decided I didn't really need to go/do where/whatever. Some people seemed incredulous that I was rationing my fuel use... until fuel prices went over the pound/litre rate mid summer. All future long distance travel must be managed better. Or differently. I will have to think about this.

I also have attempted being a better driver – maxing at 60 mph on dual carriageways and slower on main roads. I've tried smoother gear changes and check the car tyres monthly. I keep records of mileage done when filling the tank. All the stuff they bang on at us to do.

My 2008 travel footprint ranged between 1.99 and 2.46 tonnes for the 6831 miles. Because it's an older car (R reg), each calculation was based on a generic 1.4 litre petrol car. However the smttCO2 website calculates emissions from every model and age of car. My Peugeot 306 hatchback emits 176g CO2 per kilometre and so, for my mileage, 1.93 tonnes for the year – less but in the same range as the calculators. Probably they also incorporate factors like oil changes and service materials - fair enough.

Two years ago I signed up to TargetNeutral, a carbon offsetting project initiated by BP. I was and am sceptical about the merits and morals of offsetting carbon but then as now feel that showing willing and concern is the important point (to oil companies and politicians!). Hence, despite having paid around ten quid to 'offset' my 2+ tonnes of CO2 (shockingly cheap, carbon, innit!) I am not subtracting 2+ tonnes from my footprint. Why not? Because although TargetNeutral purchases carbon credits from projects that sound worthwhile I have no idea if their carbon figures are also being used elsewhere, ie multiple accounting.

For instance, if a wind farm was installed here in Cornwall thus removing x tonnes of CO2 pa and TargetNeutral bought these emission reductions as carbon credits, that's one thing. But should, for example, the local authorities then be able to incorporate these reductions into Cornwall's renewable energy figures? In some ways, yes, but not when an overall (eg national) picture of emissions reduction is wanted as the figure could be counted twice. Unless I've missed something! So, for now, I'll continue offsetting but not including the figure in my own footprint. The most viable current option to reduce carbon remains to reduce mileage not buy your way out.

(A few catches about TargetNeutral – you have to buy BP fuel and use a Nectar loyalty card (so your purchases are logged). And then go online once a year to confirm details and pay up. BP fuel seems to cost a little more than elsewhere but that's fine as I seem to get more mileage per tank on it.)


Energy

3.48 tonnes CO2 - Energy Saving Trust (of which 3.22 heat/0.26 appliances)
3.28 tonnes CO2 - ActOnCO2 (of which 3.06 heat/0.22 appliances)
3.28 tonnes CO2 - CarbonFootprint.com
2.63 tonnes CO2 - Resurgence

I've spent an hour getting my head around the variation in these energy footprints from different calculators. Surely all should be the same, considering the same 6113 kwh annual figure was used? Resurgence uses a conversion figure of 0.43, same as I used last time and understood to be the industry standard conversion figure.

But on a National Energy Foundation page it says that 0.537 should be used when calculating carbon footprints and is "based on a 5 year rolling average UK electricity generation mix of coal, nuclear and gas turbines, as well as renewables". And, no surprise here, 0.537 x 6113 kwh = 3.28 tonnes CO2. (Why EST's is a bit higher can remain a mystery for now! Either they add some for energy loss during transmission (sensibly) or they hadn't updated their rolling 5 year figure.)

The lower figure of 0.43 apparently is appropriate if estimating "emissions in line with Climate Change Agreements (CCAs)... or when estimating energy savings". This lower figure is "based on marginal emissions (which are usually those from high efficiency Combined Cycle Gas Turbines)". Aaah. I see. Sort of.

I thought that when I last calculated my footprint, 0.43 was seen as the conversion figure representing the average UK mix of electricity generation. But in 2008, according to ElectricityInfo.org, the average UK mix comprised coal 33%, natural gas 43.5%, nuclear 16.1%, renewables 5.5% and other 1.9% with CO2 emissions at 0.48 kg/kwh.

Ecotricity's mix includes renewables at 37.4% (up from 26% in 2007), and its CO2 emissions were 0.267 kg/kwh. I think this means I could get away with using a conversion factor of 0.267 for my annual energy use... but won't. The national availability of renewables is limited, at 5.5% (also shockingly low, innit?), and so the national share must be used however irksome it is being forced to use a rolling 5 year figure when one for 2008 is available.

So, my energy related emissions were 3.28-3.48 tonnes of which 3.06-3.22 was from hot water, heating and lighting, and 0.22-0.26 from appliances. Both figures are down from last time (3.48 and 0.38 in 2007, respectively). Quarterly usage to end December also was lower than a year ago. The double and secondary glazing were fitted in late November and early December – it will be fantastic if they are responsible for this small reduction on the heating side!

Appliance related emissions dropped more markedly – this might be because I have made every effort to switch off and unplug everything not in use – though tend to have forgetful phases with the kettle, and very unremembering with the cooker. An old anglepoise lamp also remains plugged in and switched on but that's due to its temperamentality. Otherwise all is off as much as possible. I never would have believed it could make this much difference. But all the official advice suggests doing it, so it was worth trying!


Industrial Share, Lifestyle and Other Extras

3.0 tonnes CarbonFootprint.com
2.5 tonnes Resurgence

Only Resurgence and CarbonFootprint.com's calculators included an industrial and lifestyle section.

Resurgence invites you to analyse your life by, amongst other things, income. It suggests for every £5000 of income you add a tonne of carbon, reducible only if you endeavour to buy second hand, locally made, craftsman made, repair etc. They also allocate everyone a tonne from the national share of common and public amenities. I made my lifestyle emissions 2.5 tonnes last time, and arrived at the same figure this year.

CarbonFootprint.com's worked from lifestyle questions with multiple choice answers. For example it asked whether you 'always', 'sometimes' or 'never' bought organic food. With this question and a few others I found the range of answers limiting – there was no 'mostly' to choose, and 'always' would have been a lie on my part. So after running the test again with 'fully' answers where I needed an alternative, I worked out what I believe to be my truer position – 3.0 rather than 3.14 tonnes.

Both calculations are subjective and only a guide. In time as more goods and services become carbon costed we all will start to know our true lifestyle carbon cost.

How soon will the time come that I can give a carbon cost for a batik? Not this coming year, I expect. But it remains an aim.


Water

The carbon cost of water and water industry related services isn't included in the calculators (though may be incorporated in the lifestyle sections). I haven't found a source online giving a conversion figure but have emailed South West Water to ask them.

Water carries its own cost of course – the planet is running dry from over consumption and waste of fresh water. My household water use for the year to 5 November 2008 was 34,527 litres or 94.59 litres a day. Although year on year it's down nearly 7000 litres, or 9 litres a day, when I think of it as 47 two-litre bottles full of water and lined up every day inside my house I struggle to comprehend how – where - I could be using so much!

But just as with the carbon calculators, there's also water use from lifestyle to consider. WaterFootprint.org have a calculator that gives a per capita average depending on the country you live in. Mine comes out at 694 cubic metres a year... or in litres, 694,000. Scarey! Way, way higher than household use! Their website also has a more detailed water use calculator but I need to weigh my average food intake before I can do that.



Thinking about it all

My footprint has come down since last time – sort of. Last time around I'd had to stop driving for a year, and that made it considerably lower than now. But it is near on impossible to earn a living and 'live' here without a car (mine or a friend's) because of the lack of public transport and distances from certain facilities, including train stations. So until I move, a reality of life is running a car. After 15 years I have given up trying to get the authorities to supply a bus service that extends beyond the few daily shopper buses to the local town (8 miles away), or a cycle path that will take cyclists off the dual carriageway. When I move, accessibility to public transport will feature!

At 5.27 my footprint also remains below the UK national average of 9.96 tonnes but above the government's current target footprint of 4.22 tonnes (ActOnCO2).

Residents of the South-West apparently have slightly lower Ecological footprints than the national average – 5.23 compared to 5.36 global hectares, and citizens of three local cities Plymouth, Truro and Exeter ranked 1st (ie lowest footprint), 9th and 14th respectively out of 60 British cities for their ecological footprint. So regional lifestyle is assisting me. On the personal calculator here my ecological footprint came in at 2.33 global hectares - or rather 23.3 gha (don't understand why ten times higher) but still equivalent to 1.48 planets. Down from last year's 1.9 planets... but still obviously an unsustainable amount of planet.

So, my aims for 2009 are to keep lowering usage. Keep mileage below 6000 pa, and better use of trains and buses for long distance travel. With electrical consumption I'll check what difference the double/secondary glazing has made in three months time, when the coldest of weather has passed, and then consider future options for improvement. I'll also continue measuring energy use of equipment used for batik - this is the ultimate aim of course, to give batik a carbon footprint. Water... I must figure out where those 47 bottles worth are being used!

textiles now

Last Saturday this lovely book arrived in the post - Textiles Now by Drusilla Cole. I got so excited when I picked it up, thinking 'I can feel it! I can feel it!' and running my fingers across the textures while staring blankly into space. I'm not going to tell you any more about that so you can have the delight too if you get the book yourself or decide to hunt it out it in a bookshop or library. I do have a habit of feeling textures with the tips of my fingers. Sometimes it worries people! But texture is just wonderful, and touch/feeling an under-appreciated sense.

Textiles Now has around 250 pages of contemporary textile art. Gorgeous colour, form and texture in sections - 1 Constructed, 2 Dyed, printed and painted, and 3 Mixed media and stitched.

A couple of my river batiks are in the second section - Source of the Penpont and one with a long title that was abbreviated to De Lank Camel which will mean little to many but confuse North Cornwall folk who'll know it's the name of two major rivers (and yes, I am a little annoyed about the amendment). The full title is De Lank near the Confluence with the Camel. See them on my website here and here, but not here right now as the colours don't fit with those of the cover.

There are also batiks by Isabella Whitworth, Pat Hodson, Dorothy 'Bunny' Bowen, and Betsy Sterling Benjamin, and dyed felt pictures by Helen Melvin amongst other artists work or names I admire or recognise.

The book is not oriented to artists working sustainably or towards sustainability, but there are some included. For instance Helen Melvin's and India Flint's work is with natural dyes and Bunny Bowen has researched soy wax as substitute for paraffin wax in batik. At a stretch my river batiks also fall into the sustainable approach category by utilising whatever was around to apply wax for resist or, as I usually describe it, using scrap, found and home made tools.

It seems right to combine sustainable-approach art alongside - how to describe it? other art that hasn't deliberately incorporated such methods or materials, rather than keep 'eco-art' in an elitist niche. I know organic farmers who think this way... their approach is that it is just a different way of farming (though they obviously think it the better way!). By keeping in with the mainstream those others won't see organic as elitist so shouldn't feel 'threatened' or 'looked down on', and are more likely to be open-minded as to the benefits of organic and negatives of their own practice (and vice versa?). These farmers are good role models for me...

'Textiles Now' is published by Laurence King, where you can also view some pages. But you don't get to feel the cover!

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.

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...

germination!

A magic moment exists when developing your own photographs and the image starts to appear, in batik when wax resists the dye, and also in indigo dyeing when exposure to air turns the cloth blue. But these thrills come nowhere close to those of nature: yesterday a woad seed germinated. The miracle of life unfolding before my eyes... look at those amazing hairs on the sprout, holding tiny droplets of water.

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.

batik in a warming world

Has batik featured in Bali? There's a great story here about how delegates at the Climate Change Conference in Bali had to ditch their formal attire for batik shirts, because despite their requests it wasn't possible to turn up the air conditioning...

environment, heritage and the arts

I do not think the measure of a civilisation is
how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people
have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.

Sun Bear, Chippewa, USA

This is one of those profound but obvious statements that I was glad to stumble across again recently (in the Survival International catalogue). It sums up well the awareness that grew on me when travelling in Australia in the late 1980s. Today I'm so happy to read that Peter Garrett (of Midnight Oil) has become Australia's new Environment Minister. More than that his ministry covers Environment, Heritage and the Arts. These three aspects of life are so interlinked in traditional ways of thinking that I am smilingly thrilled for that nation's First Peoples, I hope it works out for them. Also I have real hope for the future if this cultural attitude leads Australia to become once more a (the?) leading player for the environment and our planetary future (I think back to Bob Hawke's signing of the Antarctic World Park Treaty, two full years before campaigning even began in Britain).

Yet here in England, Environment comes under the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, signifying environment as a place outside of urban and suburban contexts; while Culture (which I think is meant as a catchall for Heritage and Arts) is lumped into a Culture, Media and Sports grouping. Within the DCMS, Culture is joined up with creative industries and tourism.

Culture to me means the way of life of a group of people, even a nation - and not a packagable, brandable, competitive, marketable commodity. The arts are not an industry, surely? They are about our soul, our situation and our sagacity. Aren't they?

What hope is there for our nation, for our children, for our planetary survival no less - if at ministerial level the majority of our citizens are disconnected from the environment?

Australia, show us the way...

environment

Being Blog Action Day for the Environment I thought it might be time for some introspection. Umm? Environment... introspection? Well, yes. But it's not really about me.

For me, environment isn't an external thingie to occasionally be looked at and tick-box admired/appreciated/enjoyed, or something that can be taken for granted as always being there, whether 'there' is here now under my feet or somewhere else, somewhere over there.

Environment is part of us just as surely as we are part of the environment. At least that's how it feels to me. In some places around here, especially up on the moor I feel a deep bondedness with the land, with the atmosphere, with 'place'. I feel we have melded and I move within it, not over it and distracted by other thoughts. I no longer concentrate on direction or footfall, only occasionally being aware that somehow miraculously I am still on track for wherever I already was heading. Now if this sounds a bit flunky, then let me tell you that I – and others – have found our way off familiar moorlands despite sudden windless fogfall. Your head is little use to you at this time, you have to allow all your body's tunings to guide you. Let's face it, your head (mine anyway) would be useless and panic, thinking of all sorts of bad possibilities... like sudden huge endless quaking marshes which you've never seen before so and which seem to have surrounded you! But your body, in harmony with nature, is led with "feelings" (physical not emotional)...

Yesterday afternoon I walked from my house up to Eastmoorgate and on to East Moor. A last minute thought was to take my camera... shame I hadn't thought sooner as the battery was low and konked out just when everything was getting very interesting. Oops.

I walk this way once or twice a week as far as the gate, and once or twice a month out on to the moor. Recently I've been picking blackberries and bilberries (local name, whortleberries). I know the seasonal haunts of jay, cuckoo and golden plover... and appreciate songs and calls of other resident birds. I stop on the bridge over the Lynher and gaze into its water, both upstream and downstream, every time I pass. I've seen herons and an otter here. I walk alongside moorland streams, gazing at their swirling patterns of clubrush. I see the changing colours in the fields, the hedges, the views. I smile appreciatively at the oft-repaired fences and gates. I sit or lie on a large stone at dusk and just listen. I watch the sunset, the cloud patterns, the stars and rising moon. Every time I go this way there's some new marvel as well as the re-assurance of the familiar. And from this place comes inspiration for paintings and designs.

I'm fascinated, hmm, don't like that word. Intrigued, maybe? I'm intrigued... not quite that either. It's that Australian Aborigines have such a deep familiarity, connectedness, with the land that (I have read) they share a surname with plants, animals, land features and areas. They are that close. In the Maori language the word whenua means both placenta and the land. Even in English the root of the words nature and natal is the Latin nasci 'to be born', and nature also implies "identity or essential character" and "the whole system... of all physical life... not controlled by man" (McCleod and Hanks 1985). So being bonded with nature is a pretty ancient way of being!

It's also a zillion miles from the world of objectivity, where everything including nature exists only as we look at it and record it. There is a time and a place for measuring, of course, but I feel it's imperative that as a society we re-learn the wonder and joy of nature, we re-discover our connectedness with nature and grow a familiarity with the nature around us.

And that's the rub. It needs to be the nature around us not the nature in some other place, not that there national park, or them there beaches, or – dare I say it – some other country! Not to say don't go and visit these places... the unfamiliar is great for stimulating the mind! But it definitely can't replace the comfortable familiarity of our own nature.

My painting has always been inspired by and reflected the natural environment around me, (with occasional exceptions of larger environmental issues). I paint what emerges from within, by which I mean what's around, what I have experienced and felt... and I encourage students to do the same. It's my hope my art also plays a part in assisting others' connectedness with nature, to encourage viewers towards their own immersion in nature.


Reference
McLeod & Hanks (1985) The New Collins Concise Dictionary of the English Language London: Guild Publishing


































...and just when it was getting interesting, the battery conked out! (Also a reason why all the above shots were, literally, first shot.)

sustainability of clothing

"Clothing and textiles is a high impact product category, accounting for 5-10 per cent of all environmental impacts within the EU-25."

Says DEFRA (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). They go on to highlight environmental, social and ethical impacts of the textiles/clothing industry in the UK:

"Environmental Impacts

• 1.5 - 2 million tonnes of waste generated
• 3.1 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emitted
• 70 million tonnes of waste water generated
  

Social impacts predominately occur in developing countries:

• child labour
• poor working conditions
• low wages
• health and safety risks

Ethical Impacts

• animal welfare issues
• inequitable trade"

And not before time...

"...representatives from the fashion, clothing and textile industries along with environmental and ethical groups are meeting to look at how they can work with government to improve the sustainability of clothing throughout its life cycle."

They met on 5 September 2007 and one welcome outcome will be a sustainable clothing roadmap coordinated by Defra that "examines all stages of clothing’s life cycle (from raw materials to end of life), charts the environmental and social impacts arising at each stage, and proposes ways of limiting those impacts where most effective."


Although I don't work in fashion or clothing (or interior textiles) I will be following this research, direction and action closely. And that's not just because of the relevance of the 'raw materials' findings for my own practice but because I believe the concept of fashion is in direct conflict with sustainability. This is not to oppose change or good design for they can bring improvements, but because the fashion world thrives in a self-promoted culture of throwaway and need for new for the sake of it. The only benefits are financial for the industry.

Fashion isn't limited to clothing, of course, it exists in the art world too. And Cornwall isn't exempt - many commercial coastal town galleries show what I call tourist art. Art created for a self-created market rather than a higher purpose... All us artists have to make a living somehow of course, but I wonder where tourist art fits in with sustainability...

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.

what next with indigo?

An article in last Wednesday's Guardian about the global rush to biofuels and its detrimental effect on food crops and food security got me thinking about any future widespread growing (in Britain or Europe) of indigo crops, and other implications of indigo growing: is organic indigo available? If not, what are the environmental consequences of non-organic production? Is/would it be grown on land better/previously used for food crops? Can it be intercropped? What are social conditions like for farmers, pickers and processors?

Additionally I will be looking further into synthetic indigo production and its environmental consequences. But the indigo research will be later this month or early October, once the organic cotton tests are concluded. More on both organic cottons and indigo are in the August posts.

another planet?

If everyone in the world lived like me we'd need 1.9 planets.

One Point Nine! Almost a whole other planet. So I am using/consuming nearly twice as much as Earth can sustain. I've been greedy while thinking I wasn't!

Planet-based measurements certainly bring home the impact of your lifestyle. Yes, I've been playing with online carbon calculators... I also discovered my ecological footprint. It's around 3.2 global hectares. The UK average is 5.3. Worldwide there are only 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person.

My carbon footprint is around 6.3-7.5 tonnes annually of carbon dioxide emissions (varies according to calculator). The UK average is 10.22 tonnes. But I've nothing to be smug about – when my car-driving travel pattern is used my total annual emissions rise to... 9.5 tonnes! Discovering this stunned me. Even upset me. I was sure I was doing way better than most – after all I work mostly from home and only used the car a few times a week. Of course living rurally means going anywhere will be quite a way, but even so...

Seem it's been a blessing to have had to give up driving for a year – I have been forced to make hard choices and changes in what I can and cannot do. For instance I didn't submit work this week for an exhibition at Cube 3 in Plymouth because it would have required four trips to the city (meaning four lifts in a car big enough to take my work). But that wasn't so much about carbon as time, expense, and the arranging of four separate lifts.

Breaking down the figures my electric/energy footprint is 3.2-3.6 tonnes (depending on the calculator used) made up of 3.48 tonnes heating, hot water and lighting and 0.38 appliances (national average 4.56 heating/hot water/lighting and 1.56 appliances).

My house/studio are all electric, and at the moment living by myself means I can't halve the heating aspect. My energy footprint is based on 100% non-renewable electricity even though I buy from Ecotricity. Less than 5% of electricity currently produced in the UK is from renewables, and although Ecotricity's tariff supplies me with 26% renewable it seems more appropriate to work within the national share of non-renewable – ie 95%. So I left it at 100%; some calculators already factor in the renewable. Apparently demand for green energy is outstripping supply... explains several new applications for wind farms around this windy moor.

My land-based travel is 0.6-0.7 tonnes (not driving) or 3.0-3.6 (driving) – isn't the difference stark! The national average for all travel is 4.1 tonnes. I haven't flown since 1999.

My industrial/consumption footprint is 2.5-2.9 tonnes - though being subjective are only rough guides, as the calculator websites admit. It depends how much new or second-hand stuff you buy, whether you repair before re-buying, how local your food is and so on. I haven't adjusted anything particularly in my favour, just made myself average. Around half of CO2 emissions come from industry and commerce to support our everyday lifestyle. Works out at five tonnes a person.

The government's target is for a 60% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050, to around 4 tonnes per person, and about 7 to 7.5 tonnes (26-32%) by 2020. But George Monbiot has concluded that for a 50/50 chance of avoiding more than two degrees of global warming we need an 80% cut in global emissions by 2050 with 91% per capita being the British share. The Tyndall Centre affirms this by demonstrating that "even a 30% chance of not exceeding the 2 degC threshold require[s] the UK to cut its total carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and in the region of 90% by 2050."

Down to one tonne a head in the next 40 years? Three tonnes by 2030? Substantial doesn't begin to say it. But I believe we can get there!

So, where from here?

Alongside energy and water use tables I have started a travel table. And now that I have conversion figures courtesy of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) I can calculate my CO2 emissions alongside them. The SMMTCO2 website has given exact CO2 emissions for my car, a Peugeot 306 hatchback, of 176 grams per kilometre.

Heating is another important area to address. Batikking does require warmth – for waxing and when drying dyes. So do I to feel comfortable enough to work! Being too hot is a less of a problem, anyway I'm quite content with an electric fan (for now).

These are only the first steps towards calculating the carbon cost of making batik and making my practice sustainable. It's going to take more research to figure out specific costs and even more to discover externalised costs from industry and sourcing materials. I also need to consider offsetting my "excess" carbon – not to make me feel OK but as a constructive contribution to address my part in climate change.


COIN lists and ranks a range of carbon calculators. I used Resurgence.com's, COIN's own, Ecofoot.org's, Bestfootforward.com's and, not listed there, the UK government's new one, ActOnCO2. It is so over-designed it looks like carbon emissions don't need to be taken seriously. Why does everything have to be entertainment these days? But dig deep enough and you find a methodology paper which gives more specific information – I congratulate DEFRA for this openness, and for asking for feedback.

all in the mind

Those following my postings will know I was struggling last week to draw clean wax lines but had practised and practised to refind the ability. Last Thursday was crunch time for waxing a commission. I had a terrible time all day, all skills gone to pot again. My mind was all over the place, forever drifting to the upcoming weekend and family visits and planning for a trip away the next week. I couldn't concentrate and it was preventing good craftsmanship. And I'd been up late blogging – late nights a good waxer do not make, a point made in the last post! So early evening I popped off to bed and slept for an hour, waking up refreshed and focused. Off I went and waxed such gorgeous lines I could cry! Even the grouping I'd been finding extra-problematic came out... well... how I'd expect a seasoned batikker to make them! Sadly though one line worries me, well two really, and a third ends not quite perfectly. But I think I am getting too perfectionist, too honed in on exactness that the spontaneous feel of art, batik, drawing might get lost. Niggly, but not wiggly, lines are fine.

The dyeing and final waxing stage will be next week. This is where real stress and worry comes in! Wax without dye can be boiled out and re-started. When dye meets cloth it starts fixing and can't be removed (assuming fix has been put in dye or cloth). So once the dye is there there is only one way forward... only one chance to get it right. I will post pics when it's finished. It's too scary beforehand...

In life I believe everything is a learning experience, everything happens for a reason and everything happens for the best. These pearls of wisdom came from an aged step-great-aunt I used to visit as a student and young graphic designer in London. In the 1920s she'd been an actress touring India with a theatre group, and as I saw it had that kind of rational positive approach to life and its ups and downs that I later found Indians and other Asians to have.

So... what am I learning from this commission? Simplicity and complications... the title of my last post. My own approach to batik has become complex, multi-layered and wrapped up in technique. The textural achievements are pretty wonderful, if I say so myself, but are they really necessary? The old saying "less is more" couldn't be more relevant.

But, as came up in the comments section of this blog on happiness, you cannot have, know, or experience one extreme without having, knowing or experiencing the other. (And there is no blanket extremes but much grey in between areas.) There may well be further to explore in the realms of complex batik, but I feel I have gone far enough that way to know that "more" can be achieved with "less".

In terms of sustainability less also seems to suggest more. Less wax, less energy, less water, less dye... less time taken (=less financial cost). It is not to say less effort though, as to reduce to just that which is needed often requires as much – or more - understanding of design and process as a complex procedure and quite possibly greater skills.

Aaagh. I see. Early nights are here to stay.

simplicity and complications

Over the past few weeks I've been working again on the commission that needed a wet-sand coloured background mentioned in a previous post. I am making a new version of a 1960s batik from Taiwan, inherited by my client from her parents and one with special meaning for her.

Sadly it got damaged by being stored in her loft and then a cellar – both insects and mould have destroyed the cloth itself, and the dyes have not only faded but also acted in astonishing ways, such as vertical blue "veins" running through areas of a particular colour. The client and I had long conversations about the original colours. She had known the batik for decades but I could only guess – from what I saw and from extrapolation to the circumstances of its original production.

I believe the batik came from a Buddhist temple her parents visited, where they were produced by temple boys to raise funds for the monastery. Living a resourceful way of life they would have been made on old, torn or otherwise unwearable robes. The batik shows no white, the first wax went on the wet-sand colour (I stopped calling it saffron when the client called the first sample "too saffron"!).

So the background colour was sorted. The secondary overdyed colours being painted not dipped made me assume they were chemical not natural dyes (a natural dyer told me you could paint plant dyes but it seemed a longwinded way to achieve these effects. Wouldn't it make more sense to adapt the design and dip if using natural dyes?). And because all (assumed) original colours were reproducible with Procions (and very simply – black* and magenta/black mix making green-black and a dark reddish over the wet-sand) I chose to make the background with Procions as well. Fibre-reactive dyes became available in the 60s, quite probably in Taiwan too.

Most recently I've been struggling to discover how a particular waxed texture was created. Again working from what I could see alongside extrapolation (from my visits to Thai and Laotian monasteries, and from Pira Sudham's novels) took me into the garden to gather various 'twigs' to make brushes; and when none fitted to gather and test other potential wax tools.

The effects achievable from some came close but none felt right. It came back to simplicity – I was certain the original would have been painted/overdyed with blended colours and needed nothing more complex... yet I could see 'texture'. But attempting to reproduce this texture showed it would have taken extraordinary and seemingly unnecessary time yet I didn't believe damp, mould, fungus or insects had caused the dye to disappear in such patterns. Such a big dilemma... I asked the client. 'Feathered', she remembered. So, no textural waxing!

I should have started the final batik last week. But I had been shocked by my shaky waxing hand! My canting drawn lines were dreadful, like beginners. I hadn't realised how out of practice I was, so have spent days waxing, boiling out and re-waxing the same piece of cloth (not very resourceful I know, but better than using new cotton each time which anyway would have had the same quantity of wax and water/power for boiling out).

I cleaned my cantings and changed the wax. I considered my posture, my arm movements, my hold on the canting. I thought of all those things I tell students to do or not do. I tried sitting on the floor to work, thinking it was my legs and back being too tired and my shoulder too tense. I tried meditating and exercising, which helped. I practised and practised and practised. It got better but not enough.

Looking again at the smooth and confident lines in the original I felt the artist couldn't possibly have used a canting, though a very fine Chinese brush (such as I didn't have) may have been. Individual lines denoting folds in the Buddha's robe ended in a point, similar to wired batik (a length of wire used to make smooth and repeatable curves). So I tried wire. Successful with short curves, riskily unworth it with longer lines or 'S' bend curves requiring two joining wire marks. Wire it wasn't.

This morning I made a new stretcher from remnant timber in the shed, designed to the right size for working on this batik. Previously I had been using a big old one, the right height but too wide. I had wondered if over-reaching was causing wobbly lines. The dedicated stretcher helped, definitely. Attitude as much as access. Making it was akin to a ceremony, a meditation and new starting point.

I also had planned to cut cardboard guides to draw along. Although the task of cutting approximately 25-30 curved guides would eat time for a one-off use, it would have simplified good curve-waxing skills for when the temple boy was having an off-time, like I was. But I baulked. No curves were repeated, each had to be cut individually. How to remember which went where? How fiddly to hunt through the pile for 'S3' or 'T7'. Suddenly this simplicity-logic vanished. I knew the lines had been made by canting. It was the easiest way.

I practised all afternoon. Most lines were well improved, except for a persistent grouping. I waxed them from the reverse. I angled and re-angled the stretcher to change to drawing angle. I swapped the canting: a Malaysian Ahmad one for a Javanese Don Harper one. It sat differently in my hand, the wax flowed fast and free, and there I was drawing nice smoothly curved lines! Just like that!

Was it really as simple as changing the canting? I don't believe so. Yesterday I pondered simplicity, wondering about my life. Being out of practise was a major factor, but why had I let things slip to this? Taking on and doing too much, being often in a rush, late nights/not early mornings, and too much time standing and not enough sitting/resting comfortably. Anything but the simple life, the slow life, indeed!

Last night I moved the router downstairs and worked on the laptop in a comfy chair (as I am now). I didn't get to bed as early as intended (like now) but felt rested today, not tired on my feet - my whole body responded better to moving with the canting.

So tomorrow's the day for waxing the final batik.

And then I will muse on the role of simplicity for sustainability in my practice.

* the black is Kenactive black not Procion black

organic fairtrade cotton has arrived

Last week three parcels arrived containing organic fairtrade cotton - mostly metre lengths for me to test for wax and dye qualities. Following my research into 'conventional' cotton production I vowed to find a sustainably produced cotton - or two - to become my standard. I last tried several years ago, but found dye take-up not satisfactory and the type of fabric not ideal (an admission: I am pretty ignorant about different fabric types - but for sustainable practice I need to learn more about all my materials).

I have two percales (one natural and one eco-bleached) and a soft voile from Greenfibres in Devon; two calicos (one hand loom, the other powerloom, both unbleached) from Fabrics Ltd in mid-Wales; and a handloom (I think a calico) from Bishopston Trading in Bristol. Greenfibres also supplied me with a small sample of Nettle Mix fabric, 90% cotton/10% nettle to try.

It was such a joy to open the packages, especially Greenfibres' and Bishopston's, because of the care they had taken with packing. They seemed to come with love, care and meaningfulness - just as my Riverford organic veg box does. It's part of the cycle of things that makes something not anonymous or just a commodity. It places an onus on me to maintain and enhance this aura and pass it on. I believe this is what Maori call mana.

For one of my PGCE (postgraduate certificate in education) assignments I studied ancient wisdom, and Maori culture in particular. This was to learn the place of art and craft in their culture, how their art and craft skills were and are passed on and how sustainability and ecological knowledge related to that. About mana I wrote:

Mana is a spiritual power residing within people. It is conveyed from craftspeople into their work, imbuing it with value. Mana accumulates through the user, wearer or owner, and the collective knowledge and history of the art. Wholly unassociated with monetary worth, this value is also not connected to intrinsic meaning or beauty. As such, mana is not easy to translate though 'prestige' is commonly used.

Greenfibres' cloth was wrapped in grey tissue - possibly unbleached and recycled tissue - and tied with a ribbon (like a present!). This was inside a brown paper (slightly padded) sack taped together with paper tape.

Bishopston's came in a cloth bag, which if the graphics weren't so ugly, I would use (will try overdyeing it and then use it). The fabric was inside a plastic bag in the cloth bag, which was also in a polythene bag but this was the postage one.

Fabrics Ltd used no polythene other than a documents holder on the outside of the brown paper wrap they used. Open the paper and there is your fabric exposed to the elements - refreshingly trusting of the postal system. Their graphics is worse than Bishopston's... but they can be excused by being a small family business just moving into organic fabrics (the other two are seasoned players).

Some of the packaging has been re-used to send half the cloth to Caroline King who will also be testing them. She is moving back into batik after an absence of some decades and wants to start out how she means to go on. Isn't that sensible! Create the right habit from the start...

And I, I will not only be testing, I have been charged with a responsibility I wasn't expecting...

learning from nature

Clearing out the garden shed to make room to store the new bike I came across this solitary wasp's nest wedged up between two cardboard boxes. Admiring the beauty, simplicity and intelligence in the design and craft reminded me that I am trying to re-structure my work, life and outlook to that of living systems thinking. I do believe nature provides the best model for a sustainable future, one of thinking, as Fritjof Capra describes, in terms of "relationships, connectedness and context".

But what exactly is sustainability, when do I, we, know when we have reached it? David Orr speaking at Plymouth University a few years ago suggested that we don't know what sustainability entails but we should calibrate what we do with how the world works. Capra's definition of a sustainable human community expands on this. I first read it in Resurgence 226, and it's also in "Energy and Sustainability" a speech he gave at the 2003 World Social Forum:

Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its ways of life, businesses, economy, physical structures and technologies do not interfere with nature's inherent ability to sustain life.

Traditional societies had already sussed this of course, those that forgot it or got greedy didn't survive. I'm sure our biggest learning curve today is to really get to know nature again, to re-gain an instinctual understanding of her ways - not just an accumulation of facts learned from books or TV but a real knowledge from experiential discovery. I learned about and experienced this when travelling in Australia in the late 1980s - there came a point that I felt so in tune with nature, heart beating with her rhythm, the slow life. Maybe it was just the heat! But I lost it soon after returning to Britain. I put this down to indoor life (although I spend a lot of time outside) and the daily pressures of living/earning here. Which means I know how to return to closeness with nature... it's just finding a way to get there.

In his lecture David Orr gave a number of eco-design principles which seem appropriate guides for making my practice sustainable:

- nature is standard
- protect diversity
- account for all costs
- whole systems
- use current sunlight
- eliminate waste

and he indicated implications arising from these:

- short feedback loops
- short supply lines
- closed nutrient cycles
- accountability
- decentralised control
- redundancy
- information moves not materials
- prices that tell the truth

Expanding on these: short feedback loops suggests that anything resulting from an action should not have a linear feedback (such as finite mining of salt reserves) but should loop back or be cyclical (ie ocean salt being replenished fast enough), and the effect should be as localised as possible. I haven't explained that well and need to mull it. edit 1 May 22.32 James Lovelock described positive and negative feedbacks in his recent book The Revenge of Gaia. An example of a positive feedback he gives is the "ice albedo feedback", 'albedo' referring to reflectivity. Snow-covered ground reflects sunlight back to space and so stays cold. But as snow begins to melt dark ground emerges which absorbs sunlight and so becomes warmer. The warmth melts more snow and so positive feedback and linear feedback exist. Before accelerated ice cap melting an equilibrium existed, a negative and looped feedback.

Short supply lines is akin to buying or acquiring locally and thus related to the above and to minimising energy use in transportation.

Closed nutrient cycles relates to waste - or ensuring that anything I produce but cannot use can be used elsewhere, and likewise considering whether what I use to start with need be raw material or could be a re-used material. Guess I could have just said 'recycling'!

Accountability is why this blog exists. As is moving of information not materials - although sharing my discoveries is not a material like Cornish Sea Salt.

De-centralised control and redundancy need a bit more thinking on my part.

Prices that tell the truth is partly about externalised costing - not just for example energy use but also social costs, which is why I support the Fair Trade concept. But true pricing also accounts for, to use the same example, the unsustainable use of finite resources such as rock salt.

And now I am going to ponder the wasp nest, and think about how these principles and implications relate to the nest design and construction. I already have been advised the outer cup or bowl is for thermo-regulation ("use current sunlight"), and may be the reason the cells are on a pedestal.

About this blog...

It's obvious from my batiks that nature, the environment, and ecological and human relationships are important to me. Since first working in batik in the early 1990s I've attempted to consider my materials, tools, processes and their environmental and social implications. But my discoveries and actions have tended to be disjointed - picking snippets up here and there rather than researching the full picture. In recent years I've begun to feel hypocritical in that the subject matter of my work is not fully reflected in its production.

And so… I am attempting to look into all aspects of my practice, and structure my findings and progress here on this blog. After all, ecologic sustainability requires cooperation not competition as its foundation.Issues for investigation include:

• water
• carbon
• energy
• production/source (tools and materials)
• waste/resource (tools and materials)
• transportation
• pollution
• end product and purpose
• consumerism, fair trade and social

Areas of practice for investigation include:

• batik production
• exhibiting
• teaching, lecturing and talks
• working premises
• professional practice
• work/home lifestyle
• purpose of art

My journey, reporting and ramblings are unlikely to be logically organised; I will save that for my website where for instance can be found an article on cotton production published in the Batik Guild Magazine's March issue.