Susan Barrett Price's Blog

The Maker, the Power, and the Planet

I belong to a couple groups where artisans share their experience making contacts prints on cloth or paper with a variety of plant materials. These are commonly referred to as “eco-prints,” using the term India Flint came up with to describe her bundling and processing method. One of the groups recently got into a debate over who has the right to call their work “eco”-anything if they use store-bought toxic chemicals to enhance color or lightfastness or if they play with plastic wrap to achieve a desired design effect. Purity credentials demand upcycled cloth, native plants, mordants obtained only from old aluminum or iron pots, etc. But what about energy use? Slow steaming is part of the back-to-nature gestalt. But isn’t a microwave or a pressure cooker more energy efficient? [Continued here>>>]

Four Seasons: Random Thoughts on Spring

Hard to find anything original to say about spring. Renewal. Rebirth. Resurrection. My mental model of spring is “when the trees flower” — mid-March this year in my hometown St. Louis. But that doesn’t occur till May in the Rochester region. [Continued here>>>]

“Red” Project: Quilt as Learning Landscape

It’s finished! My crazy stitching project that wound up as a quilt… or as I prefer thinking of it, my magic cloak. The project began in October 2014, when I decided to dye some assorted fabric (including a batik experiment) to take with me on a roadtrip to Santa Fe. Was there such a thing as a journal on cloth? [Continued here>>>]

Earth Cloth: The Gathering

Over the past year and a half, my natural dye experiments have involved avocado pits, cranberries, dandelions, geraniums, maple leaves, onion skin, pomegranate rind, red cabbage, and wild carrot. The results have never quite seemed worth the multi-day processing and the long waits in between steps. And yet I have continued to be drawn into conversations with shy botanicals. [Continued here>>>]

Earth Cloth: Dried Plants from Winter Garden

I couldn’t wait till the greening of spring. Before my late winter pruning cuts everything down, I thought that the dried remains of last summer might be good for something. [Continued here>>>]

Fifth Season: the Doldrums

Some landscapes have more than four seasons. South Asia has its Monsoon season. I have my Doldrums, Here in upstate New York, it is tucked between the invigorating drama of winter and the long-awaited fragrance of lilacs in May. [continued here>>>]

Learning: Dyeing Hand Towels

The snow for ice-dyeing is gone for the moment, but I needed an antidote to shuffling tax papers. You rarely see terry cloth towels in any but solid colors, but I’ve been intrigued about whether they’d make good subjects. I decided to start small — with two towels — and use a standard technique I learned from Jane Dunnewold… [continued here>>>]

Earth Cloth: Avocado Pits

Instructions for dyeing cloth with avocado pits are here>>>

Four Seasons: Winter

Winter is dark. It seriously gets to some people, either with the depression of Seasonal Affective Disorder or the psychotic craziness of cabin fever. For others, it’s merely the season that must be endured till spring — like Kansas on your roadtrip to the Rockies. – [continued here>>>]

Higher Power: Wind

During the day, I watch the wind, as it creates breakers on the lake, as it makes the bird feeder swing wildly from its hook, as it gives ring-billed gulls lift for their acrobatics, as it blows snow into drifts. But at night, I hear it. And when I can only hear it, I find myself identifying with ancient nomads who lived in tents or yurts, listening to the voice of God. – [continued here>>>]