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Robin Paris - Recent News and Events
December 2008
Woad has been central in my life over the last year - growing and processing the plant for indigo, reading up about its history and picking up info wherever possible. In the spring I took a week's holiday and visited Norfolk, where Ian Howard is not only growing and processing woad commercially, but is at the forefront of its revival in Britain.
But other things happening have prevented me from dyeing with woad this year... not least being unsure where to do it! I've dithered between clearing part of the garden shed and making space in the kitchen. Neither are ideal - but at least neither will be permanent. The shed is a better space for doing something 'messy' but a distance from water and the hanging line. The kitchen is the opposite.
Most woad was kindly grown for me by Helen Wood but a few pots sat in my front garden through the year so I could follow what was happening and compare growth. All was going fine until unseasonally wet weather arrived in August, and the crop stopped - or at least slowed down - growing. It was slap in the face from nature - no taking of anything for granted! But it was a good experience for a first attempt. I harvested in September and November and processed the crops into indigotin (indigo pigment), and the plants are still alive and may yield a third harvest next spring.
Next year I hope to grow some more but want to focus more on the art and dyeing side, using mostly Norfolk woad-sourced indigotin, and incorporating batik.
Various home and studio improvements throughout the year hopefully will assist with reducing the old carbon footprint - secondary and double glazing especially. Having building work going on and even organising it is so distracting. I'm glad that most is over.
'Textiles Now' by Drusilla Cole was published earlier in the year - a gorgeous book with around 250 pages of contemporary textiles. Two of my river batiks feature: Source of the Penpont and detail of De Lank near the Confluence with the Camel. It's a shame that the few batiks in the book didn't have the word 'batik' associated with them in caption or text. And the captions to my pictures were edited in a way that slightly niggles and leaves me wondering if other captions are not quite true reflections of the artists' intentions. But only a slight niggle, as said, over what otherwise is a lovely visual treat.
I haven't done any teaching through the year but am signed up to run a batik workshop in June at Roseland Mews Studios near Liskeard. I've put off running any for a while because my research into sustainability issues would throw up contradictions before I'd have solutions in place. This might still happen in June, but I've time to attempt to address any!
Over the next year I intend to research issues around wax used for batik (beeswax and paraffin wax), and try to get to the bottom of production issues of Procion MX and other fibre-reactive dyes.
January 2008
For most of last year I was without a car - I'd had a seizure out of the blue a year earlier and had to stop driving. For the first part of the year I continued exhibiting with either friends taking me and/or work to the gallery or sending the work by courier. But by the middle of the year the cumulative effect of time taken to organise getting the work to/from places (including my work unit in Launceston) on top of the limitations in getting anywhere or doing much independently in my private life made me decide to stop showing altogether until I could drive again. This particular part of the country has only a few weekday shopper buses to the local town, and getting anywhere else (larger towns/cities, railway stations, anywhere out of the village at night or weekends) required someone else driving (for practical time-based reasons or due to no choice). I bought myself a new bicycle part of the way through the year, and am delighted to be cycling again, but again distance-to-time as well as tourist-laden roads limits where I can practically get to - when earning a living remains part of the game.
Although it was an exceptionally frustrating year it brought benefits too. I've had a practice run in downsizing, something that is creeping up on all of us with peak oil imminent (or already here). I have had to consider distance, time and cost factors for pretty well anything and consequently have been thinking, doing and "being" more locally. Now I'm driving again I feel liberated that I can go anywhere anytime with the flexibility that our society demands of us - and vice versa - but feel my downsize is here to stay. For instance, it's great that I've exhibited internationally, but I don't feel ambitious in that direction any more. That's not to say I won't show again internationally (or that I will!) but I feel my future lies in making art that is relevant locally and relevant to ecology and sustainability.
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