in her Joy of finding herself actually here in New Mexico, Marti, the quintessential Ultimata of natural dye experiments...put some cloth in with chile powder she'd gotten for food. the coloUr she achieved is magnificant, a strong red/amber/orange...just amazing. i never thought it would work. lo and behold. but then it began to fade. no mordant? we wondered? maybe use whole pods? we wondered? so...this morning i stuck some chile pods wrapped in muslin into this jar with a little alum dissolved in boiling water. will watch what happens with Sun today and late in the day dump it in one of the pots. not sure which? aluminum? cast iron?
and while out there, just looking around...
the striation on this rock was not evident before. many of the rocks/stones have new appearances this year.
~Afternoon~
seeing if i can bleach a scrap that i really didn't know i had
the Nighthawks came. will they stay????
~EVENING....SUN SPILLING TOWARD THE RIM.....
Down in the low right...in case you don't notice... is a complete Surprise.
Jude is talking about personal symbols over in the Diaries of Spirit Cloth...Windows, particularly, in the moment... and ok. quite out of nowhere came the urge to kantha this corner. and to kantha it in RED thread. well, none of the reds are the right red, like "scab red" as my kids used to call it. no scab red. so...this and i will go back with a different thread and maybe between the two they might get closer to the red that is Good to me. so i guess here are two personal symbols. the first, kantha stitching, has GREAT energy to me. what?, tho? well...that Spirit is on the Move. and you can interpret that any way you want. and then, RED. i have been moving closer and closer to Red. I have come to WANT oranges, oranges of amber, with ochre, oranges burnished like copper and corroded like rust. them. i really want them now. interesting.
