Jay Dion Smiths Posts

Indigo

This project weekend was a wonderful way to see the potential that these workshop events at the Smiths Storefront can have.  We began the first day by diving directly into the process of indigo dying.  The vat of indigo was prepared ahead of time and was waiting, warm and alive with a dark, dense, oily surface.  The dying process is one that cannot be rushed, and life of the vat and quality of the dye benefits from cooperation.  The oily film needs to be parted, exposing a surprising nuclear green liquid below.  Once the item is fully submerged, great care is taken to ensure little or no air bubbles escape into the indigo.  Indigo, unlike synthetic dyes, is done through a natural fermentation process, this process relies on a form of “reduction” meaning it is necessary not to introduce oxygen into the process until it is removed from the vat.  The Item is “massaged” underneath the surface of the indigo ensuring that the entire surface has been in sufficient contact with the live agents of the indigo.  A few minutes was enough time to allow the indigo to penetrate the fibers of the fabric, although in a workshop vat like the one that we were using, all of us beginners, it was inevitable that some air was introduced therefore lowering the potency and hence requiring some more time in the vat.  Again, care was taken to part the oily surface on the removal of the item being dyed.  This is the real magical moment of indigo dying.  The item emerges from the vat a bright neon green color, and as it has been “reducing” in the vat, the exposure to air quickly “oxidizes” with exposure to the air in the room.  This oxidation takes only a minute or so and we were able to see the  fruits of our effort and care.  The room quickly filled with items of all sorts, from shirts to books and all fibrous materials in between, all a beautiful rich indigo color.

With the room filled with shades of indigo clothing drying on lines, and our noses burning with the urine smell that powers the vat, we sat and together and talked about the process.  For many of us, this was the first time we had experienced indigo dying and therefore we were drawing comparisons with other processes.  For me, the process of reduction and oxidation provided a link to the ceramic process.  Removing the item from the vat and seeing the result felt as familiar as  opening a kiln after a firing.

On the second day of the workshop we opened the doors to the public.  This day was the most inspiring.  After the potential of the dye had been revealed to us, the potential of using indigo to create community became apparent.  We, after only one day of instruction and participation, were now teaching the public how to use and carefully maintain the vat.  We witnessed not only the strength of the indigo in its ability to breath new life into fabric, but its strength in bringing people together around a craft.

Beekeeping

This weekend provided an amazing look into the life and work of artist Mark Thompson.  Now a 40 year beekeeper, Mark’s practice has involved bees throughout in some very interesting and inspiring ways.  Together in conversation with J. Morgan Puett he discussed his various projects with an honesty and candidness that demonstrated his love and respect for the life of the honeybee.  The guests to the storefront were then treated to the west coast premiere of his 30 minute film “Immersion” in which Thompson’s head is entirely covered with bees.  The discussion following was dynamic and by request of the artist critiqued both the physical and social aspects of the work.

Letterpress

The letterpress event found us at M&H Foundry and Arion Press.  The foundry, located in the Preisidio in San Francisco, is the oldest and largest type foundry in the United States.  This is really a remarkable place!  To enter the foundry you must first walk down a long hallway lined with shelves filled top to bottom with boxes of type in stock or ready to be shipped out.  This gave us a sense of the production scale of this place.  the foundry itself consisted of about 12 or so stations and although none of the stations were running, a worker ran us through the process.  After a tour of the press itself and the bookmaking department, we moved on to the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley where artist and fellow CCA graduate student Nicholas Hurd guided us through setting our own type for a broadside to be used at the storefront.  We comprised a list of makers; shopkeeper, tailor, homemaker etc, and then began to set the type.  Nicholas helped us place the type on the press and prepare the ink and the paper.  Once everything was set up, the printing went quite quickly on the Vandercook Press. For those of us who have never used a press like this, the experience was very satisfying.

Revolutionary Ceramics

For this response, I would like to offer a brief description of my work which was included in the exhibition “Super Pop-Up Shop” at the Alameda Towne Centere which along with a tour of Heath Ceramics was part of our workshop weekend.  I slip-cast over 500 porcelain cups made from a mold of an aluminum can of food.  These cups were lined up in 16 rows of 32 on a freestanding wall in the gallery space.  Visitors were asked to bring in a can of food to donate and in return were presented with a gift of one of the cups.  All of the food generated was donated to the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland.  Cans donated by the public replaced one of the ceramic cups on the wall, allowing the visual component of the work to evolve over the course of the exhibition, and I spoke to each and every participant asking them to use the cup as a reminder of this act of generosity on both of our parts.  This work encourages us to look upon each and every member of our community as someone with whom which we have an opportunity to interact openly and honestly.  I have made a concerted effort to use generosity to locate this interaction.

Matt’s Response

Indigo.

As our first project, Indigo dying set the sights for where this class was to go, we followed it in to new worlds of shared experience.  As we placed our hand in to the dark waters we could only imagine what was going on under the surface. The millions of tiny living organisms reacted with the objects we gently placed inside, and when they were withdrawn a magical experience took place, as the air touched the surface the colors slowly shifted from a pale green to that of indigo. It took me back to the 80′s when hyper-color t-shirts were popular, they reacted the wearers body heat to create psychedelic patterns. The indigo experience was much more enticing know that it was a natural chemical change that is centuries old, rather than some dudes sweaty back.

Beekeeping.

We followed our second project with the preparation of bees wax candles for a communal dinner. The low light led to an intimate experience with talks from Mark Thompson and J. Morgan Puett. Both talked on the influence of bees in their lives and that of their art work. One of the most interesting moments was when Morgan’s brother skyped in from his bee farm in Hawaii. He filled us with knowledge of the actual workings of harvesting not only honey, but queen bees, and his struggle with the disappointing reality of colony collapse syndrome, that is destroying massive amounts of the bee population.

Letterpress.

This project was by far the most hands on. We started our day with a tour of M&H type foundry, they showed us the process of of making lead type that they ship around the world. The machines were quite fascinating, and they turned one on to show us how they worked. They ran by a printed paper ribbon similar to the ones in player pianos, and would print a line of type in seconds. What was more amazing were the ages of the machines some were around  100 years and still pumping. After we had a demo at Kala Art Institute in Berkley by fellow CCA graduate student Nicholas Hurd on the letterpress they have functioning there. We all took our own rolls as typesetters and printers as we produced a class broadside. The learning experience we shared in these demos made this a favorite project all around the class.

Ceramics.

For this project we toured heath ceramics facilities in Sausalito, and learned about their use of turning utilitarian objects into highly valued craft pieces. This brought up many different conflicts in our own minds about the purpose of craft as a work of art verses its functional value. We also took a class trip to visit Pop Up Shop, a show put on by many of our fellow CCA classmates, where they transformed a vacant mall store space in the Alameda Towne Center into a new venue for exhibiting art. The work was quite interesting, placing each artists interests inside of a space usually reserved for consumption. The show brought on many on lookers that are normally absent from viewing contemporary art, and allowed it inline their everyday tasks.

Letterpress

Blacksmith gunsmith tinsmith silversmith goldsmith wordsmith butcher baker candlestick-maker mad-hatter tinker tailor soldier sailor thinker talker inquirer theorizer typesetter grave-digger brewer blood-letter rain-maker question-smith cooker printmaker pamphleteer sign-painter shop-keeper window-dresser quilter tunesmith dreamer love-maker home-maker soothsayer fortuneteller risk-taker embroiderer seamstress lace-maker spinner…

Handling the type to create these words was perhaps more satisfying for me than the actual printing and final product. It necessitated thinking upside down and backwards, finding the type amidst a foreign system of organization, and eventually transferring one line after the other in preparation for printing. In pairs, we handled the type, searched for letters and punctuation, putting together a list of craftsman and fellow makers. My fingers quickly adjusted to the repetition and pattern, as I instinctively reached for letters in oblong cubbies, finding what I needed quickly and efficiently. After some time, my fingertips were coated in a dust of metal, and I found myself in some odd way akin to the process and material. What I have always loved about every aspect of printmaking, no matter the process or the materials used, is that there is room for a rigid technicality, but also for a meditative trance. Once familiarized with the practice, the body seems to usurp the mind, and the flow of actions helps to create a product somehow in tune with all the work that came before, but also completely unique on its own. Whether carving a woodblock, etching copper in ferric, or setting type, there is a wonderful relationship that occurs between the presence of the maker, and the opportunity in the printing process.

Bees

As opposed to the first event of indigo dying, our weekend theme of beekeeping left me with a lingering sweetness. The studio this time was obscured with the smell of beeswax—an earthy, sweet and mildly honeyed odor, as we moved among each other in unplanned unison, but in a motion that felt in harmony with the creatures we emulated. In numerous working stations, we either dipped wicks into wax with meditative repetition, or formed somewhat abstract forms of honeybees from twine and the very wax they created.

I still have images of bees bustling in my mind, clinging to one another, in a vestige of harmony and unison, in a skilled manor of compensation and cooperation. A united goal, an innate force of responsibility and constant motion, keep the hive in order, and maintain a life of controlled existence. And yet, even in the dedication and prescribed roles, I find the system akin to our own functions within society, within our smaller circles of engagement, and especially within our personal and private worlds of family and loved ones. Bees are creatures of nurture, instinct, community and love. They form chains to hold on to one another. Where the honeybees seem to be driven by an instinctive pattern and character, we seem to strive for the very harmony they naturally create and live by.

Mark Thompson’s film produced a lengthy, internal reaction—his beard of bees was a culmination of cooperation, stability, transference and love. There can be no existing moment of loneliness, as separate entities become one, and those identities are blurred and reformed. In constant motion, no moment is ever the same.

I found myself lingering on these thoughts and ideas, watching bees with a new appreciation, and imagining where the bee-line might be headed next.

Indigo

Perhaps the first thing to affect me was the smell—a burning, pungent smell that I felt slipping to the back of my throat. My eyes stung a bit, watering only when I lingered above the vat of indigo, but I was left seeing blue and smelling urine for days. The smell wasn’t enough, though, to curb curiosity or weaken enthusiasm, because the vat itself was inviting. The iridescent surface of the indigo, slightly shifting, frothy and speckled with residue, hid the liquid beneath. Parting the surface was akin to removing a veil—yet the face, the true characteristics of the dye, remained beyond comprehension still.

The first time, I used gloves when I dipped my hands and cloth into the vat. The pressure against the gloves, the warmth of the indigo, and the completely obscured process led me to shed the second skin. I wanted to feel it. As opaque as the indigo remained, when I touched with bare hands, experiencing the heat and fluidity of the liquid against my skin, nudity awarded a moment of harmony. Naked skin gave the gift of sight amid the shadowy indigo.

The “birthing bucket” lingered above the surface of the indigo womb, catching the newly transformed cloth as it emerged from the liquid, a startling, acid green that slowly became a tender, rich vein of beating blue. A quiet chorus of cloth, shirts, dresses, strings and ribbons, hang about the room in an opus of indigo blue, a testament to the living dye, the process that fosters motherly associations, and the beauty of transformation.

SMITHS as a new form of narrative technology?

It’s been said that the book is dying; that we’re moving into a new phase of literacy that nods towards hieroglyphics in its combination of text and image, and I’ve never been so highly aware of how many different modes there are available for the act of ‘telling story.’  As shopkeepers here at SMITHS, I propose that we’re in the middle of metaproject:  on the one hand, we’re striving to expand the definition of craft and showcase a variety of practices in which one can achieve SMITH-status (which I think will only get more exciting as time goes on), while at the same time we’re engaging in a 21st-century form of narrative transmission that, while it has its antecedents in structures like the general store and the meeting house, is also unique to both of those.  It’s a craft of its own, and I think it’s important that we acknowledge it (and perhaps even name it), if just so that we can begin to hone it, as any SMITHy would.  SMITHS could have taken the form of an oral history, a textbook, a museum, or a series of reenactments.  It could have been nothing but field explorations, or a curated list of different projects to consider within a particular theme (like SFMOMA’s Pickpocket Almanac).  Instead we are a location, a gathering space – the physical hub of a Ven diagram in which a group of individuals with individual practices and separate communities intersect, and into which hopefully anyone can walk.  We are also a website, a blog, a store, a class, and a private residence with a sometimes-public kitchen and dining room.  How can we harness this?

Coming soon….

…hand letterpress-printed by Danielle to celebrate the end of the 2009 SMITHS line up.

Midwifery

Indigo.  It smelled potent; I think we’ll all remember that.  A little bit like fresh barn.  But the weekend was sunny, and light poured through the windows, and with the door open what was sensually primary (the smell) became secondary and eventually tertiary, although I’ve heard that it has yet to fully wash out of what some people dyed.  Clotheslines hung between pillars with  variety of fabrics slowly dripping different shades of blue, all strangely complementary to the small part of the red floor left uncovered by the protective tarp.

Each immersion was a collaboration between two partners, doing what he or she could to support the (re)birth of whatever object had been placed in the blue-black water.  Besides achieving the darkest blue possible, the goal was to avoid introducing additional oxygen to the vat, for fear of exhausting the dye.  To begin with, one person had to part the sludge that sat on top of the rest of the dye so that their partner’s hands could plunge straight down into the depths without fear of ruining the protection that the sludge provided.  At the end of the process, you had to be on hand with a plastic bucket to catch whatever your partner had hidden in the depths, not too mention any excess slop before it could hit the rest of the vat’s contents.  Up to our elbows in blue goo, we made jokes about midwifery.

Reflecting back, did any of us know the reality?  Many cultures with indigo-dyeing traditions really do link the process to magic, to fertility, even to witchcraft, which manifests in all types of social strictures.  The one that I learned of, by happenstance and after the fact, is that of the Kodi, amongst whom only the women are allowed to dye, and even then only when they are not pregnant or menstruating.  The act of menstruation is thought to be powerful enough to ruin the vat; conversely, the vat is thought to be powerful enough to ruin the pregnancy.

The Kodi are not the only group for whom the vat mixture is a living being.  If cared for properly, it can last for generations, and we knew that much.  The contents of our vat that first weekend were about a month old, left over from a dyeing event with Travis Boyer over the summer.  Our vat was a newbie, almost a preemie, and by the end of the day I think we’d managed to exhaust it, probably due to excitement and poor handling.  We were enthusiastic midwives to our objects, but perhaps not as successful with the dye itself.  I’m curious, though…at some point, was one of us told about all the ways in which we weren’t the first to conflate tending the vat with the processes of birth and death?

Or did we just manage to come to those conclusions all on our own?

Movies with “Bees” in the Title

Movies with “Bees” in the Title Based on the Experience of Watching The Invasion of the Bee Girls at the SMITHS Beekeeping Event.  More Analysis to Follow.

Mean Girls, aka Queen Bees and Wannabes (2004).  The Secret Life of Bees (2008).  Bees (1998).   The Wild Bees (2001).  The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians (1966).  Bees Saal Baad (1962).  The Girl Who Swallowed Bees (2007).  Birds Do It, Bees Do It (1974).  Killer Bees (1974).  The Savage Bees (1976).  The Silence of Bees (2008).  The Deadly Bees (1967).  Valley of the Bees (1968).  Bees:  A Life for the Queen (1998).  Birds, Bees and Storks (1965).  Killer Bees! (2002).  The Bees (1978).  Three Daring Daughters, aka The Birds and the Bees (1948).  Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991).  Terror Out of the Sky, aka The Revenge of the Savage Bees (1978).  The Bears and Bees (1932).  Bees in Paradise (1944).  The Birds and the Bees (1956).  Killer Bees (2008).  Keeper of the Bees (1947).  Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Challenge (1972).  Girl Boss Blues:  Queen Bee’s Counterattack (1971).  The Bees’ Buzz (1929).  Vanishing of the Bees (2009).  August:  Bees in the Key of A (2008).  Bear and the Bees (1961).  Bedroom Full of Bees (2008).  Bees A’Buzzin’ (1943).  Bees and Honey (1913).  Bees in His Bonnet (1918).  Bee’s Knees (1924).  Bees on the Boat-Deck (1939).  Birds and Bees (2007).  Birds and the Bees (2009).  Busy Bees (2009).  Butterflies and Bees (1917).  Buzby and the Grumble Bees (2007).  Attack of the Savage Bees (1985).  Honey Bees and Pollution (1957).  Keeper of the Bees (1935).  Keeping the Bees (2008).  Queen of Bees (1977).  The Life of Bees (1911).  The Bees (1911).  Nicotine Bees (2009).  Queen Bee’s Revenge (1981).  Killer Bees (2005).  The Bear and the Bees (1921).  The Birds and the Bees (2001).  The Byrds & the Bees (2008).  The Keeper of the Bees (1925).  The Murmur of Bees (2009).  Unees-Bees (1980).  The Law of Life in a Colony of Bees (2006).

1) Percentage of the above which could be considered documentaries: 20%

2) Percentage which could be considered romance: 20%

3) Percentage which could be considered children’s films: 8%

4) Percentage which could be considered thrillers: 20%

5) Percentage which could be considerd porn/softcore: 8%

6) Percentage which could be considered “musical mystery thrillers:” 1%

7) Percentage which could be considered ordinary musicals: 5%

*) Percentage of overlap between Nos. 4 & 5:  100%

9) Percentage of this overlap released between 1970 – 1979: 100%

10) Percentage of films that include “Queen” in the title: 10%

11) Percentage that include “Birds” in the title: 15%

12) Percentage that include “Bear” in the title: 5%

13) Percentage that include “Killer,” “Savage” or “Deadly” in the title:  14%

14) Percentage that include the word “Nicotine” in the title: 1%

15) Percentage of No. 10 that are about teenage girls: 50%

Revolutionary Ceramics

This was a busy weekend…but less about ceramics than just plain fun.  Friday we kicked off with a tour of Heath Ceramics in Sausalito.  Most memorable was a lengthy discussion of what it means to say something is “hand-made” anymore.  Many hands touched it all along the way?  But multiple human hands touch objects, even at the most industrialized of factories.  Heath has a good eye on keeping to what they are comfortable with as “hand-made.” Even if there are a few machines being used for efficiency that may throw doubt on that term, there is definitely a feeling of pride and comradery in the place that brings out the hand made vibe.  The man in charge of firing the kilns was especially pride filled about his important role in the creation of these objects, and it was fun to hear the enthusiasm in his voice and stories.

As we finished up the tour, I kept thinking about the term “hand-made.”  It is something I have been thinking alot about in my studio during the past year in CCA’s graduate fine arts program as well.  Hand-made is very important to me, and figuring out why and what that means is therefore an important ongoing question and investigation.

I believe in the drawn line, and that there is a direct translation between the attention of the drawer, and the line that comes out the end of their hand.  If the person drawing is distracted or uncaring, I feel the mark carries less magnetic potential for a viewer.  And on the other hand, when a line is drawn with a keen attention, a real presence, then the most simple shape that that line forms carries a magnetic, often mysterious energy that draws a viewer to attention.  Drawing is communication, and I think anything done with the hands and body carries translates in a similar way into the world.

Walking around Heath, I became aware that absolutely everything is hand-made — from the cardboard boxes, to the kilns, to the 4X4 beams supporting the factory.  Hands made these things:  first thought up the idea, then made them.  It’s like turning on the magic when I can start to see the world in this way.  Every object begins to be a miracle.

So these cups on the shelf at Heath, yes they are a great design that seems to have a “timeless” appeal, but I think there is something about the quality of attention given to them that really takes them up a notch.  And perhaps not in every single one, even if they “look” the same.