With my sister, Nef, coming to visit, Dorothy scheduled a two day class for them in February. I thought of joining them, despite the cost (over $250/person), because I like sharing experiences with Dorothy. I did the woodcut and alebrije classes with her after all, and those were pretty close to only fun for me because we did them together. I would certainly have never done them alone.

Dorothy explained that while the other classes were primarily for amusement, she was taking this class as a practitioner (Dorothy is an experienced dyer/painter from her time as a costumer), and while I was welcome to attend, I would be dead to her.

That didn’t sound like much of a shared experience, especially for the money, so I bowed out. Plus, truthfully, two consecutive five hour days of hardcore science didn’t sound like nearly as much fun as writing. Which is what I did while they scienced. What they did, in addition to all that learning, was take pictures and notes. Which is how this post happened. “As told to…”

Clockwise from top left: Pomegranate rind, indigo, brazilwood, and cochineal. Cochineal comes from Oaxaca and nearby areas, and is pretty much the same whatever its origin. Indigo, on the other hand, comes from many places, and varies based on the source. For example, Oaxacan indigo is bluer than Japanese indigo, which tends towards navy. We made sure to get some of the local indigo before we left Oaxaca.

The wool had already been spun into thread, but Dorothy and Nef had to wrap 18 skeins each to prepare the wool for the different dyes they’d be creating. The pink at the top right is a sample of cochineal dyed cotton.

The mordant is used to prepare the fiber so it will accept dye. Here, the wool is being soaked in a bath so the mordant permeates the fibers. Different mordants are used for different fibers, with plant and animal fibers requiring very different mordants. For the wool, which is an animal fiber, they made a mordant that was 10% of the weight of the wool in alum, 5% of the weight of the wool in Cream of Tartar.

Elsa referred Dorothy and Nef to Maiwa for supplies, but they also have a wealth of detailed technical information on how to use different dyes.

Once the mordant has set, the fiber is ready to dye. The left pot is wild marigold, which creates a golden yellow color. The right pot is dried pomegranate rinds, which creates a green yellow color. These are two of the primary base colors used to create other colors by overdying.

Next up was creating the indigo solution. Indigo is a pigment, not a dye, the difference being that dyes are soluble and pigments aren’t. Some extra work is necessary to get wool to take the indigo.The first step involves…

Oxygen in the indigo solution reduces the pigment saturation, which is why you dip material into the indigo, rather than stirring it, which oxygenates the solution. So a key part of the solution is to use an oxygen reducing agent, such as fructose. That makes sure that the indigo is as saturated as possible. That matters because indigo is an expensive material, and you have to get the most from it.

What better source of fructose than overripe bananas? I suppose commercially produced fructose would be pretty good, because it’s a measurable, known substance. One teaspoon of fructose will deliver exactly the same dose as any other teaspoon of fructose. How much fructose is in a hand of bananas? Why is a raven like a writing desk? Imponderables. But you use what you have, and in this case, that’s bananas.

Limestone is used to create a base environment, which is necessary for the fructose to activate. Because science. The crushed limestone will be added to the indigo vat with the banana fructose & water to create the indigo solution, ready for wool.

Indigo is activated by exposure to air. You don’t leave it in longer to get a deeper color, you dip it multiple times. The wool gets dipped, the excess pigment is squeezed out (so it stays in the pot and is reusable), it’s exposed to air, which activates the color, and then it gets rinsed. It can then be dipped again to deepen the color, or overdyed in a different color to get a completely different result.

Dorothy and Nef also created cochineal and brazilwood dyes, but I think they were blinded by the chemistry by that point. No photos. But here’s the full spectrum of the two days effort, all 18 colors.

After ten hours of grinding and dye vats and whiteboard formulas, Dorothy and Nef were more dazzled than dazed. They were energized, pingponging ideas back and forth on how to put this new knowledge into use. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and I can’t wait to see what they produce.

Alebrijes are dream creatures that originated with famed Mexican cartonero (papier-mâché artist) and legend, Pedro Linares. Linares already had an established career as a master cartonero, specializing in large public installations, when he fell ill and hallucinated wild hybrid animals shouting “Alebrijes!” When his fever broke, he set to work. Because when I have a dream, the first thing I do on waking up is try to make it real. So other people can see it, too.

Later, a Oaxacan wood carver named Manuel Jimenez picked up on the idea, and thus was born the Oaxacan tradition of fantastical carved wooden creatures, still known as alebrijes. For some obscure (to us, at least) reason, the village of San Martin Tilcajete, about an hour south of Oaxaca de Juarez, has become the center of Oaxacan alebrije production.

Before we got around to making our alebrijes, all of this background, and even more cultural context, was shared by our teacher. As it happens, none of it was necessary. We own two Pedro Linares pieces, a fact that surprised the staff at Tlayudona. Our very first folk art purchase was years ago at a shop in Manhattan, the day after a pretty serious bender. We saw this crazy imaginary creature, looked at each other and said, “Do you see that, too? I guess we’d better take it home.”

We named him Santa Tequila, the Patron Saint of Roaring Hangovers, and he has been with us ever since. More importantly, he set us on a lifelong journey of exploring art from all over the world. In some way, I suppose, he planted the seed for our current adventure.

He is, obviously, socked away in storage, and this blown up, blown out picture is the only one I could find of him.

These last two are also from our 2019 trip. They represent the work of Jorge Mendez, scion of a well established family of alebrije makers, whose commitment to adding a modern gloss to the traditional art form caught our eye. We came within a whisker of purchasing the deer, but couldn’t quite believe that it would arrive unbroken, despite assurances. Plus, it was hella expensive. That’s how we wound up with the porcupine, which was from a different workshop.

The class itself was most entertaining. It had a low-key, let’s-just-have-fun vibe that mostly got me over the tension I feel whenever I have to do something even vaguely artistic. Dorothy can imagine an outcome or effect and her hands will make it happen. I have trouble with the imagining part from get go, and I have the eye/hand coordination of a man twice my age. I tend to avoid activities like this, to keep my fragile self esteem intact, but on this adventure I’m trying to embrace the moment. Even if that moment involves making something so primitive, well, it just had to be intentional, right?

They had little pre-carved animals to choose from. Dorothy chose a fox and I chose a rooster. I chose the rooster because it was the largest option. On the one hand, more to paint. On the other, no tight little spaces that required fine detail. My style of ham-fisted sloppy needs room to breathe.

The teacher and staff were delightful, and I’m sure that wasn’t enhanced in any way by the mezcal they kept pouring. I’ll go on record here that the marijuana-infused mezcal had nothing to do with the warm feelings that suffused me, almost as if I was lit from inside.

Fox and Rooster (curiously, best of friends) in hand, we bade our teachers goodbye. But on returning home with our new companions, Dorothy decided that she wanted another go at it. She’d felt constrained by the time limitations (whereas I was just grateful it had ended), and wanted to repaint her fox with more time for both thinking and doing. I went along, not because I believed that what I needed was more time to nail my vision, but because I didn’t think I could make it any worse by starting over.

Et voilà! Dorothy has, as usual, rescued me.

Not so easy under our current lifestyle. She brought a sewing kit, but unless I’m willing to let her hem me repeatedly we need another solution. Thankfully, many of the places we’ll be going specialize in some sort of art or craft that can be learned. In the case of Oaxaca, a major regional art center, there are many art forms and many options. We started with a class on woodcut prints.

Mexico has a rich history of woodcut printing, going back to Posada and before, and Oaxaca has been a center of printing and graphic design for a very long time, with a specific bias towards political and protest art. If you don’t think you’re familiar with this style, you are.

Our class was at a local studio called Subterraneos. It was $500 Mexican for the two of us to take a four hour class taught in English, or about $12.50 each. There were five other students learning with us, so we weren’t alone. We were given homework, which was to come prepared with an image we wanted to use to create our woodcut.

Naturally, Dorothy drew something that looked like something, and I drew something that even a proud mother wouldn’t hang on her refrigerator. My goal was to do some kind of repeat that a) wasn’t representational, so couldn’t be wrong, and b) something that was just lines and didn’t require making, you know, shapes. The palsy must be respected. Palsy wrapped in mittens. Like a turducken of eye-hand uncoordination.

Class started with the teacher inspecting the drawings everyone had brought. She then picked up mine to show to everyone else. I wasn’t expecting to be called out for the excellence of my work, and I wasn’t disappointed. She explained that this was fine, but was too complicated to execute. My heart sank. I had literally drawn what I thought was the simplest thing I could carve out of wood, and if that was too complicated, I was just fucked.

Dorothy offered the kind of encouragement you’d offer a toddler who’d melt down unless they got that participation trophy. She suggested helpful ways the design could be simplified to make it more practical, and I shoved my board at her so she could draw it for me. I know when to redefine victory.

Eventually, she was able to hand it back to me and work on her own. Against all odds, we both wound up with drawings, ready to actually carve into wood.

Oddly, once I started carving I was fine. The drawing part made me want to vomit, but the carving was something I relaxed into. Other than making my delicate pink hands sore, I really had fun.

Et voila!

Now, time to go to press.

I’ve seen presses like this referred to online as etching presses, but they may have a more specific name. Their common adjective, however, is always either ancient or antique, which sounds about right. They couldn’t be simpler mechanically. You use a hand roller to apply black ink to the completed wood cut, and then place the plate face up on the press. You lay a piece of paper, we were using newsprint, gently down on the inked plate, and then carefully unroll the padded top so you don’t move the paper and smudge the ink. Then turn the big wheel to run the roller over the print, transferring the ink.

That’s it. Nothing left to do but admire your handiwork.