Kensal Green Cemtery

Kensal Green Cemetery is just right for the real start of the project next Saturday. I went and had a walk round yesterday with one of the friends of the Cemetery. It is well tended but it also has wild areas where birds can nest and insects thrive. We saw one monument which has been colonized by bees. The trees are loosing there leaves and the sunlight filtered through there branches leaving dappled shadows.

Glen showed me his favorite graves. This one is soldiers grave it has a cannon on one side.


  This one is rather more unusual as it has rather a large snake around it.

This one is one of the most beautiful man made things there. It has lovely lichens growing on it yellow and white.

I do hope the sun is out when we make our visit on Saturday, the autumn colours of leaves could make it very special. 

Black Natural dyeing

In the summer I went on a summer school with Jo Budd, we did flour paste resist. Its a resist that I really like but I haven't been able to get fine lines. This is a new sample, with ferrous sulphate and tannic acid. I'm very pleased with the fine lines, it really gives a sense of texture. Its almost as though the fabric was peeling and it looks multi layered. The fabric is cotton sateen which does give a lovely finish.

A few weeks ago I couldn't make a black on cotton so I've done a bit of research and this is the result. I'm really pleased. It is a very old recipe. I have used the same ingredients but instead of just mixing them together the fabric was steeped in ferrous sulphate for 6 hours and then in washing soda for 10 mins and tannic acid for half an hour. It was tied round a cocktail stick and then over dyed with indigo.

St Nicolas Churchyard

I visited a Church yard near me this afternoon, it has grave stones from the century before last. There were lots of signs of nature at work. As well as yellow lichen and marks made by ivy that is long gone, there was this rather unusual one, its made of wood and has a metal canopy.  The metal has been weathered, I think the stains and graduations of colour are fascinating.


















I like the curved shape of this stone and the different textures, moss, this is rather fluffy, lichen, little and crisp and the hard stone. This area has had a lot of human attention and the grass was well manicured.

The Church yard also has some areas where nature is allowed full reign. I found this angel really hidden away, surrounded by greenery and bird song. She has lovely subtle colouring.

Tiny Things

Lichen are very small, they are one of the first things that begin to grow on stone. They often have a bright colour and a very interesting shape.
These white and yellow lichen are growing on a grave stone in Kensal Green Cemetery.

This is my interpretation of lichen highly magnified. It is silk organza that I have stitched to make shibori shapes, it is dyed with weld. It is on a background of crumple dyed silk organza over cotton dyed with iron and tannin.

Small is Beautifull

Images don't have to be large to be special, Things that might seem insignificant might be very beautiful.This photograph from a grave in Highgate is one of my favorites. It is bit eerie, but there is something almost ethereal and rather fragile about it. Everyone has different views about what is beautiful.    

Taking a walk

Last year I went on an Eco Retreat in Knoydart in Scotland, one of the last wild places in the UK, it a beautiful special place. I met Karen there, Karen shares my passion for nature and Eco things. For Secret Cemeteries I am having a walk in a Victorian Cemetery. Karen and I took a walk in Highgate Cemetery in August. This is one of the parts of Highgate that Karen really liked.  It really shows how nature can effect what man has made.
I hope that on my walk people will have all sorts of different things that inspire them, maybe poems or memories as well. Later we can use these images when we do dyeing with natural dyes.
I am planning the walk at the moment its to be on October the 3rd at Kensal Green Cemetery.

starting on the second part

I've got some news today about finishing the the first module for Secret Cemeteries. I was very pleased with the comments. Quite a lot of my time has been spent experimenting with natural dyes. I think they give a much more subtle effect than synthetic dyes but they can be more variable.
This is a close of one of my experiments, its indigo and iron with tannin on a silk fabric.
A bit later I tried another version on cotton, it wasn't so successful. I will have to do some more experiments.
This sample was based on cobwebs in a cemetery, I think the idea of nature, in this case spiders starting off new life is rather exciting. Now I have to start on the next part, setting up the community project and more experiments with dyeing.

Starting the Project

Secret cemeteries is Jenny May's project for a BA in Embroidered Textiles with the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts.
For my final year I wanted to do something that I am really passionate about. Recently I've got really excited about art community projects because they can combine my triple passions, textiles, nature and engaging people in something exciting and personally transforming.
For the last 3 months I have been visiting Victorian Cemeteries in north London, taking photo's and drawing, this is one of the left.
Cemeteries can be beautiful, tranquil places that have an amazing amount of wildlife small and large.
They offer an ideal opportunity to see the tension between man and nature. You can see clearly the effect that nature is having on what man has constructed.
I would love to have peoples ideas on these theme, as diverse as possible please.