Wabi~Sabi Swingline Shibori

We'll see how this paper bundle fares.

This will spend 7 months exposed to Arizona desert sun and monsoon season.

Wabi~Sabi Shibori

Stapling Muslin

Recently I caught up to someone's blog that was involved in Seth Apter's Altered Page Disintegration Project. (I wish I could remember whose it was, I need to start taking notes when I visit and comment on blogs because I find I'm losing track really quickly!) I'll update this after some sleuthing.

I was enchanted by the idea of disintegrating bundles that are left out in the weather and using the components in later projects. My aesthetic has been embracing the Japanese idea of Wabi-Sabi, the impermanence and shifting with age and deterioration and disintegration.

I gathered up suitable materials that would most likely change with six months of Arizona monsoon and scorching sun and wind. I assembled two bundles, one for materials and objects and the other primarily paper.

Then I had the idea of stapling muslin in a design onto muslin. I'm always finding rust spotted muslin in antique stores from pins etc. I thought it would be a rather nice wabi-sabi shibori as long as the staples rust as I hope! The staples bunched the muslin slightly so I'm pleased with the design so far. Rust will be all the better!

I'm going to leave them out for the six months I'm in Alaska and see what I'll come back to next winter.

"Creative Handicrafts"

My last visit to the local thrift store netted me a 1938 book Called "Creative Handicrafts" by Mabel Reagh Hutchins which has the most basic overview of crafts from pottery to the art of dyeing. There are a few sweet illustrations but the most hilarious thing is an excerpt from the "Art of Dyeing" chapter.

After some pages of instructions on batik she includes some basic instructions on "Tie and Dye"
I quote... "This may be called the kindergarden class of batiks. It's a simple process---one really feels like an inmate of an institution for the feeble-minded while doing it---but affords much fun experimenting and many lovely effects may be obtained."

She obviously had never seen the complexities of shibori tie and dye!

My collection of rusty bottle caps is growing by day and I'm readying to create more bottle cap earrings.
Also my bamboo beads decoupage project is coming along nicely.

I'm spending a little bit of time down in the "Pure Torcher-South Studio" as I've just signed up for a local holiday bazaar at the Serbian Hall in Bisbee two weeks from now. I hope to have an array of goods since I've left the bulk of my inventory in Alaska.