with Kathryn John
Beetroot + Homemade Lye Water
There is so much to learn about the alchemy of altering the Ph balance of certain organic inks. The moment of questioning before adding the alkaline Lye, and the moment of dropping it on and watching the colour shift and change. A joyful and curious thing.
Watch the video on my Instagram page.
Sloe + Homemade Lye Water, Avocado Stones + Eucalyptus with white drawing pen.
Avocado stones, Elderberry + Pine charcoal on cow’s milk primed recycled card.
I have been hiding a little something…. My mess. My grubby fingers and dirty nails. Stained with berries and walnuts, acorns and dandelion roots.
I have been making Feral Ink. and using it to paint, write, draw and dye.
It is a joy. An adventure. A celebration of the natural world in learning how colour would be extracted long before synthetic dyes were about.
Inspired by Nick Neddo, Rebecca Desnos and Babs Behan I have been fermenting and straining, boiling and filtering.
Here are some images from my conversation with colour so far…
Black Walnut Ink Making: From the neighbour’s tree. A few made it past the squirrels.
Sloe Ink: Grinding sloes with a pestle and mortar.
Sloe Ink: The first colour. These sloes were collected on a walk in Little Barrington, The Cotswolds, while visiting family.
Avocado Stones: Experiment No 1. This was my first natural dye experiment and it made me very happy. That pink!
I recently came across the touching and soothing piece of beauty by the animator and film-maker Gemma Green-Hope . I began volunteering a few hours a week at Span-Arts in Narberth, Pembrokeshire a few weeks ago and Gemma has been working on the Digidol::Digital project there, facilitating people to create work – and an app – around death and memorial.
On March 2nd and 3rd Root + Write brought its first weekend workshop to Cafe Kino in Bristol.
In honour of St David’s Day (*holds hands to big Welsh heart*) the writing table was adorned with Daffodils and welsh cakes and it was mere minutes before the group got stuck right into the thick of it.
The air and ink were thick with fire and feeling and it was a complete joy and honour to witness the oiling of pens and voices.
Inspired by one of our conversations over the coffee break I invited the group to free-write for 5 minutes beginning with “To me connection is…”
Here is my writing:
To me, connection is laughter and an ease with those you find yourselves with. It is loving this stewed body, all brown and pickling the teapot with internal rings of evaporating tannin. This is connection. Connection is being yourself. But what does that mean?! How do we “be ourselves” when this emerging is so vastly unknown? The old man with light blue trousers and muddy knees. The young dad in the VW Polo, or Golf, with kids in the back and bird poo down the driver’s side. Too busy to give a shit about the shit unless it is coming out of one of his offspring. That is connection. Connection is not caring about the mud on your knees of the poo on your car because you’re too busy walking or driving to your friend’s for tea and a cry because you’ve had a hard week. It is taking a walk up the red mud track, under the gangly Ash and Pine, to the great Yew who smothers you with so much beingness you bow in complete reverence to her twisted dance.
I have written this exercise up as I wrote it in my notebook, with a little addition of punctuation. I tend to ignore punctuation when in my inky flow. This was a timed exercise of 15 minutes that started with the first sentence “I want to write about Saundersfoot Harbour.” I then wrote for the whole 15 minutes without stopping to edit or think.
A freeing process! No holds barred. All bared. Here you go…
I want to write about Saundersfoot beach. The seaside town in winter. Desolate, with people so tightly wrapped, faces are slivers between scarf and hat. The foam from the waves that relentlessly crash flies in the wind along the sand like a misdirected Ibiza foam party where no one came. Too cold to stand in wet t-shirts with lollies circling their teeth taking the edge off the gurning jaw. Here I stomp across the small slice sand, the wet top layer making way for drier, softer grains underneath. It must be coming in, that wet roar. If it were going out I would be walking on more compacted land. This village by the sea where I had my birthday party at the Wimpy in the late 80s. I must have been 5 or 6, and the knickerbocker glory that Dad ordered and we all marvelled at. Foaming whipped cream and bright red cherries unnaturally sweet.
This village by the sea that lives with the elements and blows away the crowds from November to March only for them to return in sensible shoes and anoraks ready for tuna mayo filled baguettes and arcade games. They are repairing the sign on the front of Booth’s Arcade. It is all batons and stripped back boards. The games lie silent and behind the closed doors, hibernating in preparation for their bonanza months of dropped coins and eager hands. Next door is the front door of the Sands Nightclub where nights were spent drunk and anxious trying to find happiness in dancing awkwardly with school friends kissing tall boys in shadowy corners. I remember the ladies toilets were often flooded and you would fo homes with black feet in sandals covered in sticky spilled beers and cigarette ash, the smoke clinging to every pore and morsel of fabric.
The seaside town from where a sign shines out through the dulled light. “Welcome to Istanbul – Turkish Barbers”. Sat amongst the garish yellow and orange plastic signage of the sweet shop and kiosks selling gifts. Sickly, unnatural colours of the products and shop fronts.
The beach is short. If you go out the other way, past the harbour entrance you have to jump a fast-moving stream. But today this all sits well below the ocean. As I walk I feel elated by the wind, it unstiffens me. That stiffening that happens when I have stared at a screen for too long, taking in the words of others. Feeling my senses fracture, my focus shot and the feelings of anxiety rise in my chest. The panic. Apparently, millennials live in panic. They are driven by the fear of not knowing how to fo the day to day tasks and always focusing on work is causing them to burn out. Us to burnout. Yes. I feel that push. That panic. That feeling in the dark and I welcome the wind, lean into it as I stand on the foaming edge.
How do you like to get writing?
FERAL Ink. 