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I'm Katie West I'm an artist and injure
any woman of the PivotTable ants with a
strong sense of home in no you would and
no no what logic country currently
living on Lauren Gerrie country living
in Melbourne there's still some quiet
and bushy parks along the rivers so I'll
walk along the arrow through the area
where the bat colony is is actually
great there's a few pita trees and you
do at moments feel like you're not in
the city anymore
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I've been experimenting with natural
dyeing since 2015 it became important to
my practice when I was thinking about
how we might go about cultivating a
sense of connection to the places we
live in Australia so the natural dyeing
process I use is bundles dyeing
technique and I use native Australian
plants
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I go for a walk and clicks leaves the
bark that have already fallen onto the
ground so the day after a windy day is
pretty good so it is totally up to
chance what happens to be on the ground
some of the plants that I look for
eucalyptus you can get a nice gold color
from that and it can turn gray or purple
when you have iron and vinegar added to
the necks
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also wattles as well sometimes you can
get nice purples from wattles and then
eucalyptus but because you get a really
nice orangey or red kind of dye with
that so I've laid out all of the plants
that I want to get some color from I
fold the fabric in layers and when you
fold over the plants a couple of times
you start to get mirroring effects as
well and now I'm rolling it all up
together the same way you would roll up
a tent or a sleeping bag and then
wrapping it really tightly so when it's
really tight you can get impressions of
leaves and the bug on the fabric
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few years ago I made a work called de
colonists which was thinking about
meditation practice as a way to address
trans generational trauma so there were
naturally dyed pieces in it and also a
video work that was like a guided
meditation thinking about our history
and also the difficult parts of that
history about how we might find ways to
create a space of calm so we can discuss
our history and also think about what we
want our shared culture to be going into
the future so in making that work I was
starting to do natural dyeing because I
felt like the work needed to have place
infused into it somehow and as I was
doing that process I was walking and
collecting plant materials and then
finding that process in itself was
really calming and meditative and also a
way to become familiar with the place
you're actually living in you start to
notice the birds and animals that live
close to your home and the plants that
surround you
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the school season is called Mullah in in
trendy language so when the weather is
cool and it is alright to have a fire
I'll do a hot Dame process so that
involves boiling up a pot of boiling
water I want a hot plate or if I'm lucky
outside on a fire and get the pot
boiling and leave it in there for an
hour or longer to get the colors I put
rusty objects into the pot for the iron
and that causes a reaction as well I've
started experimenting with the water
from previous days so I have some that
already has vinegar and rust in it and
also eucalyptus and it's a much darker
color it creates kind of purples and
blacks occasionally and I'm gonna add it
to this bundle here and kind of let it
seep in a little bit and hopefully that
makes some of the colors of little more
intense in ninja Randy language the hot
season is called Darwin when the
weather's hot and it's too hot to have a
fire I will do solar dyeing solidyne
involves the same collecting the process
but I will bundle up smaller pieces of
fabric and put it into a jar put in the
water and then leave the jar in the Sun
so the dyeing process happens over a few
weeks or a month a much slower process
it's much subtler and I'm not adding
vinegar or iron so I'm really just
letting the Sun and water and plants do
the work so the fabrics that I'll die
with I'll use calico Coleco has become
important because there's a ginger and a
word for calico or cotton and that's
here alone I also use silks because it
is a little bit easier to get color into
silks because of the proteins and the
fiber so I'll do a bit of both calico is
great because I do
pieces that people are actually going to
be interacting with like the cushions so
it's a bit sturdier
a couple of years ago I was invited to
do a residency in Reuben which is the
town where my mom and grandmother are
from so I was working with jeweller walu
aboriginal corporation and I was invited
to share my natural dyeing practice so
it was really nice to be able to connect
up with younger Randy mob and go walking
and collecting the materials and try
dyeing with plants that I had never
tried before so
Mulla Mulla and sturt desert pea
different kinds of acacia and we did a
few experiments with these plants from a
hot dry climate instead of this cold
climate that I'm used to so going on
this residency was the first time I got
to go back to Roban and meet many people
as an adult and it was a really
incredible experience to make that
connection again and it's something
that'll grow for the rest of my life but
the other part to it was I had the
experience of driving through that area
and looking out the window and feeling
like I know nothing about this place and
feeling a heaviness and a sadness with
that but being able to walk and learn
about different plants and their names
and how they're important to injure
brandy that weight lifted so I really
think there's so much to be gained in
plant knowledge in connecting to
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you
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you