Regular ‘get creative’ readers may remember a book called ‘Eco Colour’ that we reviewed in the July 08 issue. This month we have the great pleasure of interviewing the author, India Flint, internationally renowned dyer, costumier and artist. We met her at the Geelong Forum run by TAFTA - The Australian Forum for Textile Arts - and were blown away, once again, with her work.
Accomplished in the fields of fashion design, writing, felt making, cloth colouring and costume design, India says it’s not easy to make one’s living as an artist. Therefore she’s never put all her eggs in one basket so to speak.
“It’s been a long hard road and only in the last 10 years have I really begun to keep my head above water. 2004 was the first year I could say that the work of my mind, hands and heart was supporting me and my three children,” she explains.
Nevertheless, while she says she has “dabbled” in painting, it is the excitement and satisfaction that comes from sewing and dyeing that really captures her imagination. “Making dyes using plants has been the most exciting adventure... and even were I to restrict myself to working with only one plant for the rest of my life I suspect the potential variables could be limitless,” says India whose maternal grandmother dyed faded garments in various combinations of tea leaves, calendulas and onion skins. For the artist herself, however, the discovery that eucalyptus leaves could print brilliant colour onto cloth in the form of the ecoprint was “simply astonishing”.
“The intensity and depth of the dyes available from eucalypts continues to amaze,” she says, “and then applying the ecoprint technique to other plants has opened up a huge field. Whenever I’m out walking I collect windfall leaves and take them home to experiment with ecoprints.” Based on a farm with plenty of access to natural resources including the wool she felts with, India says she sometimes finds herself “hopping out of bed at 3am to make notes about a work in progress” and is fortunate to have a broad space to work within. “Often daylight hours are taken up with sheep work... my dye workshop is in an old blacksmith’s cottage on the property, situated next to the wool shed. If I have a large feltwork to make I’ll often take over the wool table in the shearing shed (traditionally used for skirting wool) for that. Sewing and pattern drafting take place in the house itself, in a suite of rooms that were formerly used by my late (paternal) grandmother.”
Like many artists who are also mothers, India says the night hours were often taken up with work when her children were much smaller. She would work “after the last story was read and the lullabies sung” but these days life is a little more flexible. “That said,” she concedes, “the trouble when you work from home is that you never really leave the work at the end of the day. Weekends and public holidays don’t make much of a difference either, although I must admit I let myself have a sleep-in until about 8.30am on a Sunday morning... bit of a luxury.”
Also something of a musician, India loves to play her saxophone which she does each day before commencing her work. “Jazz and swing are high on my list, followed closely by old Broadway tunes,” she says,. “Occasionally the theme from Mozart’s concerto in A major for Clarinet will find itself wafting out through that big bell... very cool on sax."
As well as being an artist and musician, India is also a teacher and, of course, now an author with two books, ‘Eco Colour’ and ‘Handmade Style’ under her belt. Such exposure must surely have altered her career. “Eco Colour has had a huge impact, I think. I get so much mail through the website from people who have bought the book and realised you don’t have to be a dye specialist or buy expensive processed dyes to make exquisite complex cloth... and by extension sales for ‘Handmade Style: Felt’ have benefited as well.
“There’s a big demand for workshops, but I’m being sensible and limiting
teaching so that the work (and the quality of teaching) remain fresh. I feel so fortunate to have good work to do that I think is useful in the world; I’m not rolling in loot, but we have enough, and that’s all that’s needed. Being more well-known enables me to get the message out to more people about how important it is for the world and for ourselves to consider sustainability in our craft practice. Ultimately what we do to the world, we do to ourselves and more importantly to our children. This is serious business!”
India has been teaching “one way or another” since the early 1980s, initially helping rural communities create professional exhibitions of work by local artists. She also taught T-shirt painting workshops along the East-West rail line, taking exhibitions out with the Tea-and-Sugar train and teaching workshops along the way, together with friend and colleague Yasmin Grass.
“There was a wee break while my children were young and then it took off in earnest again in 1998... workshops in feltmaking, r(eco) fashion, eco colour or various combinations of these subjects. Sometimes I wonder why I’m sharing my precious dye secrets and then the answer is, of course, that I’d rather my fellow textile workers make beautiful colours without poisoning themselves.
“I get a bit concerned when ex-students exhibit workshop samples without acknowledging the true source or when, after one workshop with me, they decide they are qualified to teach techniques it has taken me 20 years to perfect but I guess that’s life and you just have to be a bit philosophical about it. In the end, although I don’t subscribe to any religion in particular, the Buddhist ethic of doing the most good and the least harm works for me and so I teach.”
When we interviewed her India was working on ‘planeta’ a two-hander exhibition with friend and colleague, Anette Blæsbjerg Ørom. “Planeta is a Latin word meaning both ‘world’ (as in the planet) and ‘to wander or journey’. It is also the title of an exhibition arising from a seven-year conversation between Anette, who is from Denmark, and myself that began in Zvartava, Latvia, during the white nights of the northern summer of 2001. The title also embraces the journey of making that is undertaken when work is created.”
Together the collected works reflect the artists’ perceptions of being and of wandering as well as their love for the world and their concerns for the earth. (Note: ‘planeta’ opened at the Ararat Regional Gallery, Victoria, Australia in February 2009 and will be at the Møstingshus Museum in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark in January 2010.)
Our creative teacher
India Flint
Her specialty
Textile art, clothing, botanical dyes
Where she teaches
Australia & abroad
Find her at [indiaflint.com]
www.indiaflint.com [indiaflint.com]
www.prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com [prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com]
PO Box 209, Mount Pleasant
South Australia 5235
Step into India’s world:
• See her work at the Adelaide Festival Centre for the OzAsia Arts Festival. The exhibition will be installed by September 26, with the official opening probably in early October. It runs until mid November.
• In July (12-17) India is convening a Bush textile symposium looking at sustainable practice in textiles.
• In 2008 India began a nation-widecommunity project called ‘Tinctoria Australis’. This is an open-ended dye project whereby people around Australia work with the indigenous plants in their own region, documenting the results and posting them on the Tinctoria blog. Anyone can join the group, just drop her a line at mail@indiaflint.com to indicate interest.
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