September 6, 14 – Lust for Rust & Mark Making With Needle & Thread

Class Description: Rust is an eco-friendly, cost-free, and easy medium for dyeing fabric, leather, or paper. Any found object made of iron or steel can corrode to produce iron oxide, which results in interesting, often unexpected imprints. Colors can range from taupes to oranges and browns or transform already colored fabric into other hues.

In the first half-day session, we will repurpose used cloth (cotton and linen are best, silk and wool are not) by putting it through the rust process. 

During the week between the first and second sessions, we will experiment at home with how long cloth remains in the rust dye bath to achieve different depths of color. 

In the second half-day session, we will examine the shapes and colors that were produced, according to length of time spent getting rusted, and determine what kind of stitching will best enhance them. Our creations can be framed, adhered to stiff interfacing, added to quilts, combined with other artworks, or integrated into clothing.

List of items students need to bring, for session 1:
1. spray bottle filled half with white vinegar and half with water (preferably filtered or distilled)
2. cotton or linen cloth you no longer use: e.g., pillow case, sheet, clothing, dish towel, or scraps of fabric–preferably white, cream, beige and without designs, but you can also try colored fabrics. You can take out the seams to have a thinner, flatter fabric to work with or leave as is; you can cut up a sheet into smaller pieces. Wash all the cloth you’ll bring, but don’t worry about getting stains out; they’ll become another color with the rust.
3. metal objects that are already rusted. If you don’t have any, put nails, screws, washers, wire, screening, or any other metal pieces outside to rust naturally in the sea air. On your walks, notice rusted things lying around that you can pick up and use. If you don’t have enough time to rust objects yourself, I will have many to work with.
4. baking pan you no longer use for food and a plastic bag large enough to fit it into and seal so the wet cloth does not dry out. The size and depth of the pan will determine how much you can rust at a time.
5. a jar with a lid. You can also rust small pieces of cloth in a jar with small rusted items. If you use a jar, bring a few rubber bands as well.
6. needle and thread if you want to stitch cloth ends together

For session 2:
1. bring your rusted cloth pieces
2. embroidery floss of the colors you want to make marks (stitch) with
3. needles with eye that the embroidery floss can pass through (size varies according to how many strands you work with)
4. embroidery hoop (if that’s how you like to stitch)
5. small scissors or snips
BIO: Mirka Knaster creates 2-D and 3-D pieces in a non-representational style using textiles, paper, and other materials in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her award-winning work is in collections in the U.S. and England and has been exhibited internationally. As an independent curator, she has highlighted artists from other cultures and such issues as immigration and plastic pollution. Born along the Adriatic Sea and educated in the U.S., she earned degrees in three cross-cultural fields. Worldwide adventures deeply inform her sensibility and exploration of art. Nature, East Asian aesthetics, 20th-century abstract art, and meditation practice are her most significant influences and inspirations.