Contextural members took part in the Materialities Exhibition this summer at Alberta College of Art and Design. Both Contextural members and artists who had been participants in the Summer Residency program, participated in the end of the Residency exhibition.
I had spent the summer experimenting with natural dyeing.; a technique I have not really explored before. I tried to use plants available to me in the garden or if they were abundant in the wild, I used some different wild plants. Mostly I used plants available in my garden.
The end of year piece, which I called "COLOURS OF HOME" was made up of a background nuno felted piece, on which I embroidered leaves with natural dyed thread, mostly silk. The three pieces of organza I eco printed with rose leaves and various rose petals and peony leaves and petals. The pot that I boiled the bundled fabric in had a layer of apple and peony leaves, together with some rusty metals chains.
The leaves were cut out of all the samples of different dye samples that I had made over the summer.
My conclusion at the end of my experimenting was that there are a lot of different yellow, beige and brown dyes, available from plants. I have yet to add different after effect to my samples, which should give me some more greens probably. However, I was quite pleased with the beautiful colours that I thought looked quite lovely together even though many colours of the spectrum were absent.
