LÙNASTAL

Or Lughnasadh as it is more commonly known (lunastal is the name of the festival in Scottish Gaelic) is a Gaelic harvest festival celebrated on August 1, as it is the midway point of the Autumn and Summer Equinox. It usually is close to the new moon. It is one of the four Gaelic holidays, the others being Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane. Children conceived on Lughnasadh would be born on or around Beltane on May 1. The name comes from the god Lugh, a warrior, king, and master craftsmen in Irish mythology. He is a member of and Irish race of supernatural beings the Tuath Dé . A Christian festival called Lammas is celebrated on the same day .

My second block print. A stamp of my braided hair.

Torso painted from silver acorn ink that I foraged for along a path by the Prettyboy Reservoir. 

 

Pennyroyal Tea

 

This year I decided I wanted to grow mint. In my research, I became intrigued with pennyroyal and decided to grow some. Pennyroyal has been used since Ancient Greek and Roman times as an emmenagogue (more specifically an abortifacient) and a way to dispel afterbirth and dead fetuses. Unfortunately, over the years the abortifacient aspect got misinterpreted and amplified, resulting in many deaths. The most recent documented death occurred in 1994 in California. Also, there was a death of a 16 year old girl in Maryland in 1912 who took 36(!) pennyroyal pills to induce abortion. I can only imagine how many more women have died or been permanently injured. There are a lot of feelings and history (and poison!) in these little inconspicuous plants. I planted them on a waning gibbous phase of a cancer moon (I'm a cancer moon, but born under a waning crescent). Apparently, just a tablespoon of pennyroyal oil can cause a person to go into multi organ failure. 

An interesting article on pennyroyal from the Museum of Contraception and Abortion

"Drawing from a 13th-century manuscript of Pseudo-Apuleius's Herbarium, depicting a pregnant woman in repose, while another holds some pennyroyal in one hand and prepares a concoction using a mortar and pestle with the other. Pennyroyal was historically used as an herbal abortifacient.

Source: scanned from Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance by John M. Riddle." - from wikimedia commons

Palomino Willow

 

Dyed some antique linens with willow branches and leaves two weeks ago. Found a tree by a little stream on a back road to harvest from. I got this buttery soft palomino color.

I remember being little and driving past a Rutter's convenience store just over the Mason Dixon Line, and loved seeing this horse in the window. It is now a Palomino from the sun. 

Mugwort Dye

 I watched both sessions of the Baltimore Natural Dye Symposium last weekend, put on in conjunction with the Maryland Institute College of Art Fiber Department. The first was "Indigo Shade Map" https://youtu.be/z-BdjM0PAfA featuring Gasali Adeyemo, Brittany Boles, Wang Sik Kim, and Kenya Miles, moderated by Rosa Sungji Chang. The second, and the one I was very inspired by was "Korean Natural Dyes: Traditions Meet the Contemporary and Beyond"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukw2DwscCQg  featuring Dr. Heo, Buk Gu, Prof. Cho, Mi Sook, Kindigo, and Aimee Lee, moderated by Rosa Sungji Chang. Though indigo was the focus of both sessions, after watching the Korean Natural Dye session, a link left in the chat to a Korean artist, Yang Soon Ja, who dyes with persimmon  http://www.jejucatalyst.com/479-2/ put me on to dyeing with mugwort (Ssuk). I have three bushes growing in my garden-though I think it is a different type of Artemisia (artemisia vulgaris) than is used in Korea. 

I got this light, silvery green sage color, which is quite pretty. I want to use more mugwort next time to get a bit more of a saturated sage color. 

The Turn

 The sun is love. The lover,

a speck circling the sun.

A Spring wind moves to dance

any branch that isn't dead.

*

Something opens our wings. Something

makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us.

We taste only sacredness.

*

Held like this, to draw in milk,

no will, tasting clouds of milk,

never so content.

-The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks

Whirling Dervishs in black walnut ink

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

 

thou wast mild and lovely Appalachian Murder Ballad

Another version a hymnal:

New Bag

 

I just made this bag using a pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's book 'Everyday Style' that I checked out from the library. I've been looking for something to use these canvas remnants I bought a few years ago for. A year or so ago I took some of my mugwort leaves, laid them on the canvas, and sprayed them with bleach. I like the ghostly leaves that remain. I used the "Wilma" pattern. I ended up running out of fabric that fit the pattern pieces, so things got pieced together. I am happy with how it turned out. 

Large Charcoal Drawings and St. Augustine

 

Thinking about old drawings and my favorite old apartment in St. Augustine. Circa 2011. The height of my large charcoal and ink self portrait phase. Rare captures when I didn't have charcoal on me.  I still have the shorts. The walls of this room were covered with large drawings in this style. 

Apple Tree

 It's been one year since I met my one true love in the backcountry of the Cambrian Mountains. The Wise Old Wild Apple Tree of Bwlchystyllen. 

Hip Dips

 

Hip Dips (Coffee, Black Walnut, and Sumi Ink on paper)

This past fall I got into dyeing with black walnuts. I have stared at a black walnut tree out back for years and never picked up any of the fruits to dye with. Yet this year I did, and especially got into making black walnut ink. I found a great book in the library called "Make Ink: A Forager's Guide to Natural Inkmaking" by Jason Logan, and went off of his recipe. This painting of my hip dips is one of the results that sprung from one of my little ink batches.  

I made some short videos for the Baltimore County Public Library on how to forage and dye with black walnuts. The virtual services department edited them together and gifted me a squirrel. I made a little mistake when talking about ripeness of fruit-the more brown the fruit the more ripe they are. But super easy recipe and pretty results. Black Walnut Dye

[Your breath was shed]

 Poem [Your breath was shed]

Your breath was shed

Invisible to make

About the soiled undead

Night for my sake,

A raining trail

Intangible to them

With biter's tooth and tail

And cobweb drum,

A dark as deep

My love as a round wave

To hide the wolves of sleep

And mask the grave.

from The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1946 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Author Dylan Thomas

-via poets.org

Saint Pomegranate

 

"..The pomegranate tree had borne fruit, it was in fact laden with pomegranates. The pomegranates had ripened and cracked open, and their shining red seeds shone in the golden-bright sun. The woman thought that this was the truth, the pomegranate seeds. She had received a vision that truth, the truth which she did not know and yet had spent a lifetime guarding, was born of Saint Pomegranate."- pg.323, Touba and the Meaning of Night by Shahrnush Parsipur

I dyed another linen of my grandmothers' with pomegranates- this time with dried rinds. I cut open another pomegranate and dried the skin in the oven. Then I let the pieces sit in my bathroom under the skylight for a week or so to further dry. Once dry enough, I boiled and left the rinds soaking overnight, took them out the next morning added the fabric, simmered it, and let it sit for four days (I believe). The results are very similar to using freshly harvested rinds. 

The Witch

 

I made 'the Witch' for a Halloween decorating contest at the library. She's got a dried yellow rose tucked up in her logwood dyed alpaca hair. She sports a lightly pokeweed dyed top tucked into a logwood skirt and belt. She herself is a lovely shade of black walnut. Her pointy hat is sumi ink on felt. Every witch needs their familiar, and her kitty is a grey (like mine) from tea/iron dyed muslin. Every witch also needs their broom. Hers is made from some of my dried mugwort, willow, river birch, and black walnut from the woods out back. And, yes, I did just find the broom stick woven in vines waiting for me in the grass, already magical on its own. She surprised me when I finished her. (I also won Halloween)