indigo and batik

Hi,
I'm in Summerville, SC, just outside of Charleston, with five girlfriends for a WEEK of
sewing and fun. Today was just the most perfect day! Joanne arranged for a class with Arianne King-Comer, an indigo batik artist. Arianne is from NY, has travelled to the west African countries where indigo dyeing was born. She has been living in North Charleston for 14 years, after discovering that this area also has a rich history of indigo dyeing. Her artwork is awesome!


She had some fabric and two boxes of awesome stamps for us to play with. Some of the stamps came from the African countries, some came from Read's Fabrics in Charleston. They are carved from wood...the photo of two stamps is to the right. We also used 'paintbrushes' made of chair seat cushion for the free hand part of our experiment.







This is a batik sample Arianne made in a class she took with batik artists in a country that none of us can remember! It is about 10 feet long by about 4 feet wide.











This is Arianne showing us how to use the 'paintbrush'. Notice the necklace she's wearing...it's a traditional memory necklace. It is to remind the wearer to let things go. She adds to a leather strap beads or stones from special places, and when it breaks, it reminds her that we move on.












This is Kathy removing a piece of fabric from the dye bucket.
When the fabric comes out of the bucket, it's green. The color changes once the dye is exposed to the air, changing color in just a few minutes.