Once upon a time we had the guild system where your parent would secure
you an apprenticeship with a master if you showed an aptitude for art. If apprenticed to a painter you’d learn the skills of grinding pigments, mixing
grounds, as well, drawing, painting, design, were part of your
training. Once you were proficient you
could be found working on the master’s commissions and he (invariably he) would
sign his name to it. If you had any
spunk and ambition, you’d break out on your own and attempt to build your reputation. Sometimes during your apprenticeship,
you might even outstrip the master, as did Leonardo with Verrocchio; and sometimes you might find yourself like Govert Flinck, stuck with the master's style and signature long after he has moved on with other explorations. Those days are long gone and may as well have been
legend or fairy tale.
These days, artists and artisans offer workshops; they write books or
publish blogs and thus make a living – and their ‘customers’ pay for the
privilege of attending workshops but the attitude towards apprentices has
changed. Recently I travelled almost 10,000
miles to the Creative Felt Gathering in Michigan
for a workshop with Elis Vermeulen to be told ‘go figure it out for your self' (after I'd forked out several hundred dollars and the airfare). I found myself calling on several other participants to help me through figuring it out for myself. I also listened rather nonchalantly as Elis recounted the story
of a woman who had written to her expressing a desire to learn everything she (the master) knew. The
master laughed – no way was she going to show everything she knew. What makes that so? What makes us so petty, so bitchy, so guarded, with our knowledge and expertise? Could it be that - we are women?
And then – there’s India Flint eco-dyer extraordinaire, who with
scientific precision has opened up the secret world of plants and natural dyes.
She will teach you how to extract dye from the eucalyptus leaf but you’re not
allowed to reproduce what she teaches because it’s a signature of her ‘Prophet
of Bloom’ label. She has assumed
the provenance of the eucalyptus leaf or at least, its print upon fabric.
A couple of days ago I saw on Facebook, a stunning felt coat printed with eucalyptus
leaves and I instantly knew whose work it was – Irit Dulman, who achieves bold vivid colours and
uses an all over individual leaf motif to stunning effect. I’d forgotten about India Flint, until Irit
reminded me of her when I asked her when she was coming ‘down under’ to
teach. Irit said, ‘India Flint would
kill me’. Why is that? Why should it
matter to India Flint if Irit Dulman came this way?
It seems a lot of fibre artists interested in printing with eucalyptus leaves are afraid of India Flint.
India has written: ‘People often ask me why I teach and publish my dye techniques when
clearly (if I had any business sense at all) I could make much more money by
ecoprinting a snazzy range of silk pyjamas.
The answer is that by publishing I have established the provenance of
the ecoprint (discovered during research for my MA) and that by teaching
ecologically sustainable dye practices I’m doing what I can to make the world a
better place’ ((in Felt Issue 4, p5).
Well, you don’t make the world a better place when you publicly vilify
others for using the ecoprint. It's not good Buddhist practice (towards which India is inclined because of its principle of doing least harm) because you are harming that person. More a grumpy prophet
of doom and gloom than bloom, India would have been better off launching that
snazzy range of silk PJs – or perhaps not teaching and publishing at all. She could have saved herself the heartburn. Once you release the work it's out there and in this digital age it reaches people like wildfire. The ecoprint has caught on as its methods yield fantastically beautiful prints, as well as, being ecologically friendly because you can use it on wool and silk without the addition of toxic mordants.
Provenance (from the French provenir
meaning ‘to come from’) used to refer to the chronology of ‘ownership’ for
art objects to authenticate the work, though these days it’s used in a variety
of disciplines, including science. In
most fields, the primary purpose of provenance is to establish or gather
evidence of the object’s passage in time and space, and the person responsible
for its creation or discovery.
Australian Aborigines have over 40,000 years of experience with plants,
including their use as medicine and of extracting dyes for their fibre art of weaving and basketry. They
don’t seem however, to have made use of the eucalyptus leaf to make a print or to extract dye,
perhaps because traditionally they wore possum skins with their individual stories burned into the skin, rather than cotton or wool. (We could note that contemporary Aboriginal artists are undertaking apprenticeships with elders to learn traditional methods before these pass along with them in death.) India Flint may indeed have
discovered the ‘ecoprint’ and documented it in her thesis. We can thus applaud her for showing us in her
publications and workshops how to extract colour from the eucalyptus leaf but
what we do with our extractions of colour is up to us – whether we print on
paper, fabric or felt, our own artistry and aesthetic sensibilities are also at
play. India Flint doesn’t own what others
make with the eucalyptus leaf print. When we look at the history of art we see that other
artists and other art have tended to inspire artists – some like Velasquez went so far as to ‘document’ his sources in his great self-portrait at court Las Meninas. He was paying outright homage to those that
had inspired. Likewise, each person who
makes a eucalyptus leaf print is also paying homage to India Flint, because without her research and teaching it wouldn't be possible. She has passed on the knowledge and you'd think she'd be pleased that there are those
who can shine, as well as outshine her, with the practice. I heard an architect express those sentiments in relation to an environmentally sustainable building he'd designed. 'I hope that this building becomes outdated and that others go on to do more with some of these principles...' An endorsement to extend on what has been given through what's been created or discovered - his 'provenance'. Such an attitude underpins all strivings to be creative.
We can
also consider the Romantic concept of art filtered through a temperament. Artists such as Gauguin and Van Gogh may sit side-by-side
painting the same scene with very different results. There could be thousands of us working with eucalyptus
leaves and producing very different ‘products’ because we are all different
personalities, with different inclinations. It's a lost cause to huff and puff on about being copied. I find those who whine boring. Is your own practice so stymied that you have to hang on to the provenance of a eucalyptus print or the shape of a hat or scarf? Imagine Polly Stirling claiming the provenance of Nuno felt (and there's no dispute that along with Sachiko Kotaka they discovered the properties of Nuno) and grumbling every time another fibre artist produced a piece of Nuno. There'd be no end to Polly's grumblings. Incidentally last time I ran into Polly at a workshop, she'd been extracting colour from plants...
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| My experimental piece that I keep overdyeing |
I have also extracted colour from the eucalyptus leaf because it is all
around me. I live under the eucalypts – what came to be called Mountain Ash
Gothick in 19th century Antipodes.
These are our cathedrals, as we don’t have the great stone masterpieces
of Europe. Our cathedrals are not only fragrant, but leave me with lots of debris,
which I either sweep up for the mulcher or dump in the rubbish. I swept up a heap of leaves and bark strippings last week, which left outside
the front porch has become my puppy’s toilet area when I take her out at 2 or 3
in the morning (Maudie’s urine is possibly adding a wonderful mordant to the heap
but I don’t know and don't care to explore). When I went to the
Creative Felt Gathering last year I wanted to take as gifts, pieces of my
backyard, so I wrapped up several Nuno felt shawls that I’d made with eucalyptus
leaves, bark and some rusty bits and pieces that I’d also found in the garden. I don’t use a dye bath but usually steam my bundles and my
backyard leaves are not the Argyle Apple (eucalyptus cinerea) which give that
wonderful orange tone that I love. Oh how I envy Irit her deeply coloured leaf prints. I don’t
claim to be a master or any sort of expert. The leaves and bark strips are around and I make use of them; but I admire
those who like Irit Dulman and Fabienne Dorsman-Rey are real masters at extracting the
colour from the plant - and who have made the technique uniquely their own through their individual 'expression'. That does not mean to say that the provenance of the ecoprint belongs any less to India Flint. But what stops her from saying 'I hope others go on to do more with what I've discovered'?
