Entry 02: LIVING AND DYEING IN ARRAIOLOS

26/3/25 DYE JOURNAL incl. natural pigment experimentation from my studio at Córtex Frontal, Portugal.

After more than a year away from the exercise in patience that often ends up being my experience with natural dying, I returned to powdered pigments under particularly ideal circumstances. Arraiolos, a small textile village nestled in the hills of Portugal’s heartland, is sainted by rug-weavers and fields of passing sheep.

Naturally — while in residence at Córtex Frontal over the past month — my environment was practically sanctified by spirits bleeding a variety of traditional color dyes, extracted from the land since the arrival of the Moors some hundreds of years ago…

ARRAIOLOS WOMEN HARVESTING WOOL, AT THE LOOM.

TODAY … CENTRAL VILLAGE ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE CENTRO INTERPRETATIVO do TAPETE da ARRAIOLOS, feat. COLOR PRODUCING PLANT KNOWLEDGE. CARPET WOOLS HAVE BEEN DYED WITH COCHINILLA (CACTUS), MADDER ROOT, BRAZILLIAN WOOD, TROVISCO, INDIGO …

Here, a day passes like a week and a single afternoon like an entire day. At village pace, under a slow and steady sun, (with hands guided perhaps by the angels above) I managed to procure a full spectrum, sun-fade rainbow on a variety of textured textile in just one run!

But let’s start at the beginning:

MORDANTS, ALUMINUM + IRON, WERE INDIVIDUALLY MEASURED ACCORDING TO FABRIC WEIGHT AND MIXED INTO THEIR RESPECTIVE BATHS TO PREP TEXTILES. A VARIETY OF TEXTURES AND WEIGHTS WERE SPLIT BETWEEN BATHS; ALUMINUM SITTING FOR 1 DAY, AND IRON 20MIN

WITH THE HELP OF MY FRIEND ISABEL, I LEARNED THAT NATURAL (PLANT/ANIMAL) TEXTILES WORK BEST AS A COLOR ABSORBENT, AND MORDANTS ARE 1st STEP TO ABSORBING COLOR. IRON YELLOWS FABRIC TO A MARIGOLD HUE BEAUTIFUL ON ITS OWN.

These textiles were prepped with the intention of being a color base to my oil paintings, adding a new depth and richness of texture to a new series of portraits I’ve begun during this residency.

As I shared in my last entry, I’ve been particularly preoccupied by the irregularity of texture found in natural and urban landscapes through age and decay, and reference these textural phenomena through a variety of methods; rubbing during and sanding post-painting, as well as through dyeing (in reference to earlier works made under my project A.M.S.)

A.M.S. (2019 - ?) BEGAN AS A TEXTILE DYE PROJECT. FOR THESE EARLIER WORKS, I USED HOMEMADE SOYMILK AS A ‘MORDANT’ AS WELL AS FOR THE BASE OF MY PIGMENTS, CREATING A TONALITY MEANT TO FADE OVER TIME AS IF “AGED BY THE SUN”… BUT BACK TO TODAY…

2 SPOONS OF PIGMENT, BOILING UP TO 210 F.

This set of textiles was dyed with a variety of both pure and mixed pigments; selections leftover from a previous Córtex Frontal workshop with Saber Fazer (Porto, Portugal), including ORCANETA (Alkanet, a deep purple), RAIZ DE RUBIA CORDIFOLIA (Madder Root, a vibrant orange-pink), HENNA, and TUMERIC, as well as previously purchased natural pigments from Sennelier, Paris in both TERRA COTTA and CERULEAN BLUE (Thanks to my dear friend Inès for the perfect shop recommendation).

The results were as follows:

CERULEAN BATH IN THE SHADOW OF A BUDDING FIG TREE

INTERMISSION (COFFEE BREAK W. 1 OF SEVERAL MAIN SQUARE MASCOTS):

(ABOVE) HENNA TO CONCLUDE THE FINAL WASH: SORT OF INDIFFERENT BUT ADDED A SLIGHT PATINA TO ANY COLOR PREVIOUSLY BATHED.

FINAL NOTES AND MORTAR COMPARISONS: IRON MORTARED TEXTILES CAME OUT MORE VIBRANT THAN DID ALUMINUM ONES.

Bliss!

Over the past week in studio, I cut and prepped these new canvases with clear gesso, some of them first illustrated with a dyed underpainting to set my image. They joined an already wide variety of textural experiments using various thicknesses of primer and textile weights:

… MORE ON THIS SERIES IN ENTRY 03.

To conclude, I leave you with these images that I hope fill your mind with spring scents, orange blossom, the feeling of a day’s work ending. The satisfaction I’ve felt ending my days here is a feeling cut short only in that it can’t completely be shared - I’ll do my best here. x