'The wanderbeutel' is a practical carry-all for wandering artists, with room for notebooks, pencils and brushes, water jars and collecting bags.
This patched and pieced bag grew from explorations of the traditional Japanese tsunobukuro shape :: tweaking it to give it a belly along with useful internal and external pockets. In making it, we spend time sifting the poetics of place through printing and dyeing our cloth with local colour, imbuing our cloth with memory and meaning. We cover the fundamentals of bundle dyeing, explore slow stitch practice. Though we literally work on our laps, the techniques learned may be applied to larger projects when participants return to their own studios.
We will complete one bag in class, and begin work on a second [using leftover materials] to take forward as a travel project. As usual, a little poetry may find its way into the week.
India Flint
India Flint describes herself as a 'botanical alchemist, forest wanderer and tumbleweed, stargazer and stitcher, string entwines, working traveller, dreamer writer and the original discoverer of the eucalyptus ecoprint, dyeing for a living in the deep south of Australia'.
Inspired by the West Australian botanist, Georgiana Molloy, her published works including Eco Colour (where it all began) and Second Skin, have cemented her reputation for botanical dyeing. This expertise sees her travelling the world delivering workshops, exhibitions and lectures in far flung places that include Canada, Scotland, Ireland, USA, France and the UK. India's workshops are much more than learning to work with plant dyes, rather they are a 'whole body' experience where the reverence for the natural world can be a deeply spiritual experience that resonates long after the cloth has dried and participants have packed up and wandered off home. Gallery 152 is delighted to have the opportunity to host a three day and five day workshop as well as an exhibition of India's works in York in October 2020.