Of keys, and greenhouses, and dye plants.

     A key.  That's it, yet it is a key that will lead to so much!  My college campus has a beautiful greenhouse attached to the back of the science building.  Every day I walk past it as I go to and from my car.  Not a lot of plants are in it; some bromeliads, some ferns, and some geraniums.  There are some random other plants - perhaps from faculty offices, trying to stay alive over winter?  I never see anyone in this greenhouse, which has had the benches removed some time in the past due to asbestos, and never replaced. Hence the lack of activity.  Still, it is light and warm and has windows that open, and water.  And I now have a key.  I have permission to use this greenhouse for my research, and I am thrilled.  Giddy, one might say.
    There is more to this than just growing some plants.  Years ago, we lived in a beautiful house in Baltimore next to a not so beautiful house that had a GORGEOUS, yet abandoned, greenhouse on its property.  I longed to get into that greenhouse.  We even discussed buying the lot next door (the not so beautiful house was situated on a double lot) so we might have the extra land, and the greenhouse.  Alas this was not to be.  So, like a kid with their nose pressed against the toy store window, I would watch the greenhouse sit there with no one entering it, nor loving it.  I watched its slow decay: ivy breaking through the windows and letting water to rot the floor, birds and rodents nesting in the office above the growing rooms, the furnace turning red with rust, the pipes green with patina...
    Now, I work on a campus with an under-used greenhouse - there was a budget crunch after the renovations were begun on it, so they came to a halt.  Since some of my research has to do with plants, I thought I would ask if I might have a small corner of the greenhouse to use.  After all, what's the worst that could happen?  A no?  I'd be no worse off than before.  I asked and got a yes!  I am finally going to have a greenhouse.  Not mine, shared with others, not perfect, but a greenhouse.
     The other cool thing was the Chair of the Biology Department, with whom I have not had interaction since the first week of school, when my mind was reeling with dozens of new names and faces, remembered my name.  It is a little thing, but it made me feel good.  It is nice to be working on a small campus again.
     So I am off to plant my indigo and woad, calendula and madder,  lady's bedstraw and others.  Expect to see me with dirt under my nails and a goofy smile on my face!

Merry Christmas, Dear Ones

   Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.  As we prepare for this special day,  remember to reach out to each other.  That smile at a stranger, or the little bit of help reaching something from a high shelf for a vertically challenged shopper has a huge and positive impact.
     I am a person who hates shopping (ironic with the job I have) but I love going to the store the day or two before Christmas.  Everyone is so helpful.  We were in Walmart yesterday.  I needed to get more vanilla extract and tee shirts.  I went into the baking supply aisle - which was very crowded.   I overheard a woman searching for condensed milk.  Having just passed it, I told her where it was.  Her husband saw me scanning the shelves, and asked what I was looking for, then told me the vanilla was back where I had just sent his wife.  It is the little bits of communication that make this such a special time.  The tiny moments, not the presents, are what we will remember.
    Family, friends, and memories can help everyone have a better holiday season.
   Wishing you all friendship, and love, and days of laughter, and moments of quiet.

PEACE

I Have Achieved Leather

   So after putting the salmon skin in the tannin solution last Sunday, and taking it out yesterday (Sunday), I have learned a few things.  First of all - I think I may have left it in the solution too long, as it is still stiff in places, even after working it.  Second - acorn tannin makes the skins much darker than the Maiwa powdered tannin I learned with.  The finished skin is dark brown, and very pretty,  but it is very different from the  burnt sienna of the Maiwa product.  Third - I need to find some fishermen and have them save skins for me after they have filleted their catch.  I love this process.  I now have to decide what to do with the leather.  The last thing I learned (AGAIN) is that I have a very tolerant family.  The fish skin and tanning solution sat on the kitchen counter in a big bowl for a week, and they just worked around it. Fish in the bathroom?  All heard was, "When will it be done so I can shower?" My husband and boys are kind of awesome.

Here is the rest of the process:

making the protein  solution with egg yolk, oils and detergent

Adding back some of the oils removed in the tanning process

Letting the oiled skin drip dry a bit - again in the shower
If you shower at our house ANYTHING might be in the tub - salmon leather, nettles, felt, anything!

The outer side of the skin - 

The underside still retaining the lines from the drying rack!

I may sand the back of the leather to even out the surface, and I may need to get a touch more scientific in the measuring of the tannins (I think my solution was quite strong) but leather was made and I am pleased with the result.  

end of season

It really is the end of the season here for eco printing.  I missed so much of the fall  plants due to work, conferences, shows and such that I am somewhat desperately grabbing any leaves and flowers that are left.  Here is one piece I have started using sumac and  Japanese knotweed among others:

My salmon leather should be ready to work by tomorrow evening.  Here is what it looks like as I examine it today.  The cross hatching if from the rack I was drying it on.  Interesting!  I hope it stays through the working process. 

My show opens in two weeks, so I will have a little breathing time to decide what to make from the salmon leather.  Next I will have to find a salmon skin supplier - perhaps a seafood restaurant somewhere?

Salmon raw hide

1. I have made the tannin solution from my acorns.
   
2. I have obtained and removed the meat from a salmon skin.
   
   
   
3. I washed said skin.
   
4. I rinsed the skin.  
5. I placed it on a rack and put it in the shower to dry. 
   
6. I closed the bathroom door so the cat could not get to the skin. 
7. I discovered the bathroom door open.  
8. I removed the salmon skin from the dog's mouth. 
9. I repeated steps 3 - 6.
10. I put a fan in the bathroom.
11. I removed the rack and skin and put them in the oven - no heat -  so hubby could use the shower for its intended purpose.
    
12. I have achieved salmon rawhide!

Adventures in Salmon Leather

Adventures in Salmon Leather

Last month I was presenting at the Textile Society of America's Biennial Symposium, and I took a pre-symposium workshop.  I did this because I was there alone, and walking into a symposium of over 400 people is daunting to me.  I have discovered that starting in a working group or class ahead of a conference helps me make a few new friends to have lunch with or sit with on the bus, etc.  It was also a really interesting workshop!

This is the hoped for outcome.

Headed  by artist Rebecca Graham, we had a cadre of artists teaching us - three First Nations artists form differing tribes and traditions, as well as a Scotsman, Peter Ananin, a natural tanner, who carries on the fish leather tradition in Scotland. Rebecca had obtained a great number of skins from a friend who is a commercial chef who saves the skins in the freezer after she has filleted the fish for her meals. She showed us how to scrape off the bits of meat and the scales using nothing more that a spoon.  She discussed the methods of tanning, and June and Charlie Pardue from Alaska's Alutiiq and Gwich'in tribes respectively added their methods.   Peter uses  tree bark for his tannin, 

Charlie uses willow, and we discussed other "found in nature" sources.  For the purpose of teaching consistency, Rebecca used powdered tannins from Maiwa. Aworkshop that is just 6 hours cannot allow you to actually tan the skin, so we did the "cooking show" version of tanning - Rebecca showed the process, but had some pre-soaked skins rady for use to do the final processing on.  The skins must soak in the tannins between 2 to 5 days, so this made a lot of sense.  At the end of the day, we all took home two pieces of salmon leather (the third strongest in the world after shark and something else) that we had worked ourselves.  

Peter's hot pan of tree bark tea.

Rebecca's tannin choice.

The skin, after removing the scales and bits of meat.

The tanned  skin - now leather. 

 So now I am going to try it without the aid of teachers and guides.  I must start by getting my tannin solution, so I am boiling up nearly two pounds of acorns in my old crock pot.  I rinsed them once to remove residual dirt and they have been boiling and getting drained and reboiled . 

Nice dark tannin solution ready to be poured off.

The next step is to defrost the skin from last week's dinner that I asked my ever so patient husband to help me cut from the side of salmon that I bought.  I will grab my notes and get back to you with photos in a week or so!

Addendum:  Photos of Peter's pants from a hide of a roe deer that he  tanned, and stitched, and even made the buttons for.  And yes, I got his permission before shooting a photo of the fly of the trousers!

What Drowning Looks Like: know the signs

A few years ago, on a day trip with friends, we were at a swimming hole in the Hudson Valley, and my youngest son - about 3 or 4 at the time, stepped off the rocky shelf, and dropped down into the deep water.  There were four adults standing next to him, but I was the only one with eyes specifically on him at that moment.  He did not know how to swim yet, and he did not cry out - he just slipped under.  I dove in (fully dressed, as a parent will do) and grabbed his hand, pulling him up before he had been able to swallow more than a mouthful of water.  I shudder to think of what might have happened had my attention been diverted from him.  Please read the following article to learn what drowning really looks like.  It may save a life.

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning