Dying to learn
Today class you get a snippet of art life.
Most of us in the biz teach. At some point, in some way, we pass along our carefully cultivated knowledge like intellectual herpes. Some of us do this person to person by giving tips to other artists, some of us make videos, or write articles, and some of us actually solicit students and request payment for mass transference of this knowledge.
This weekend I am teaching an indigo dye workshop. I know enough to be dangerous and not nearly as much as the lady I learned from who can probably cause unicorns to burst into sobs at the utter perfection of her rainbow skills.
Because it has been awhile since I have had a studio for wet work (heh) I thought it would be good to break out the supplies and get a vat going this week and bust out some fresh class samples to reacquaint myself with more than just the basics. (Put dye in vat, put fabric in vat, make colors.)
When I went to try and actually do this however I discovered an alarming thing, that will only make sense with a bit of background. There are two types of indigo for dying, the ground plant powder, and a pre reduced for that has been chemically processed and concentrated to a 60% greater potency than the plain old plant itself.
My recipe, and most of my experience are with the plant type. I have a sachet of the super concentrated stuff. This is not a huge deal honestly, except for the part where you use very different chemicals to active the two types. You need a reducing agent and an alkali. I had one of each from both recipes and the plain powdered indigo would not have shipped in time to be of any help, even though it’s constituent parts were easily obtainable.
For the simple centuries old version you take the powdered indigo and whack about 40 grams of it in a glass jar with about a half a cup of warm water and some marbles and shake it vigorously. This produces a slurry that helps it disperse in water. For the reducing agent use 80 grams of pickling lime, put this in the five gallon bucket that has four gallons of 90-110 degree water in it. Add the indigo slurry. While all of this has been happening you have thoughtfully put three chopped up apples, or any kind of fruit but citrus really, in three ish cups of water and cooked them down to right before the fruit disintegrates. Pour this into the vat through a strainer and store it for a minute or so, reversing direction at the end to settle the vat. It should go lime yellow green in about 30 minutes and be ready to use. Super easy right?
So the chemical version is a much easier/harder beast. The pre reduced indigo does the same job at 20 grams, but you need sodium hydroxide, or Thiox (50 grams) to activate it. Put both in the jar with the marbles and shake in hot water. Add to vat as above. Then in act two you take 100 grams of soda ash and dissolve it in boiling water. Helpful tip. Do not put that in a glass jar and shake it. It hurts. Stirring will suffice. Add to vat and treat as above.
You can see here, that those are not really shelf ready chemicals, but they will last in powdered form for decades. The pickling lime and fruit can be had at just about any grocery, but the actual indigo powder is almost always a mail order only kind of thing. So I was a bit stuck on a Saturday with no major dye houses to be had. Luckily I already had the sodium hydroxide, and the local art store had soda ash in stock so we got it solved. But it was touch and go for a few hours, and I had to sit and swear for about twenty minutes. It was required.
Check back this week for How the actual dying goes.
I’m sure it will be hilarious.
