souvenirs

the dresses have been made & dyed & we’ve been led to this place.  

i’m craving a sentiment that i can’t quite put my finger on.  it’s a certain mood that erases the boundaries of time.  who knows when the buildings started to crumble, the spirits left, or the roots took back their territory?  who inhabited this space before?  it’s not that i don’t have expectations, but it would be impossible to predict how today will unfold.  no doubt, there will be many offerings of place & light, but it is up to me to capture the right ones. i must wait patiently for the light.  i hope that the sunlight at the end of the day will reveal our colors of the earth … they are barely there, echoes of plants & earth.  perhaps they drew us there.

where do ruffles come from?

they are a sentiment

almost always made from simple, pure fabrics,

wavy shapes cut on the bias

laid down on curvy lines

colored & laundered & softened &

left in the sun

stitched by curiosity & not intention

by hand & by machine

there is an aesthetic that guides what they become

they start to look right when they’re a little tattered & maybe even dusty &

have become companions with the earth 
~they unlock a way in the world, 

a nostalgic view of things to come

marked with light and remembered.

FORAGING

i’m not sure where i walk

or what i expect to find,

but i always anticipate

some treasure

just ahead

or maybe beneath –

next to a root or in the dark & damp,

what will its use be outside the woods?

a piece of my old oak tree,

bark that can be boiled –

my souvenir.

TERROIR

 i like to think of HOMEFROCKS  as “clothes with terroir”,

 not implying that every aspect of a piece is from

 santa fe ~ our fabrics come from farther afield ~

 but that each creation is informed by the
 history & landscape of the place i live.

 i am trying to create authentic pieces
that reflect my life experience & place in the world ~
the community, the weather & the sunlight,
pieces with quality & spirit ~ 
the clothes that i want to wear.

 something compels me to photograph

 our collections amidst remote & ruined places ~

 a path is always unfolding that i try to follow as

 faithfully as I can. pairing our clothing with

 tattered haciendas throughout the southwest & colonial mexico,

a sense of high desert history seems to have emerged.

~ nancy

COCHINEAL BEETLE DYE

native to mexico & the american southwest,  the cochineal beetle lives on

the prickly pear cactus.  if you’ve every seen prickly pear fruit, you know

the amazing color of cochineal dye ~

a brilliant pink that evokes the north american desert lands

here is the recipe we use to dye about 8 lightweight silk garments:

to make the dye ~

plan to use a 15 gallon pot for dyeing

first, add 2 oz of cochineal beetles to a 1 quart pot of water

boil for 30 minutes & strain off dye,

repeat 4 times,

add the dye liquid to the 15 gallon pot filled with water

boil your premordanted frocks ~ ( i boil the fabric or clothing in a potassium aluminum sulphate solution the day before ~ 5.5 oz in 15 gallons of water ) in the dye for 1 hour

sometimes we add vinegar to the dye bath & this yields a less bluish pink that reminds me of the shade used in south american textiles

~ nancy

BLACK WALNUT DYE

the black walnuts i use are gathered
 at my family’s farm in pennsylvania
 every fall i look forward to the variations
 of each season’s harvest 

different shades of rich amber 

influenced by the water, the sun, & their age

an authentic resonance with the natural world

they are a personal connection 

to preserve the walnuts, i dry them in the sun

to make the dye ~

boil 15 pounds of walnuts in 4 gallons of water for about an hour,

then strain the liquid into the dye pot 

do this 6 times to fill a 15 gallon dye pot

walnut requires no mordant, but i sometimes pre-mordant with alum,

 especially if i'll  be using additional layers of botanical color

boil the wetted & cleaned fabric for about an hour, then rinse 
to see a beautiful earth & brilliant botanical color

~ nancy 

VERSO A VERSO

there’s a lot we still don’t know about how a dress comes into being. modern life obliges us by delivering a bolt of silk organza paper - wrapped to our back room, and we acquaint ourselves with it, we ruffle, we tuck, we ruche, we share the fate of the fabric. forty - three spools of silk ­ thread are waiting at my right hand, to be transformed, our future.

but the dresses don’t exactly start with us, any more than a poem starts in print. the dresses don't begin when our package arrives by post, or even when i put pen to paper to trace a flutter, a flounce, a gather. but what is gathering the fabric before cloth is even involved? it is like a rhyme turning over in my mind, and it's not even words yet, just the shape of a sound, or the rhythm of a few sounds together. nothing is out loud yet. it might never be. maybe one word emerges.

i suppose the dresses can go on like that for quite a while before really getting my attention. a persistent dress eventually puts a pencil in my hand. on paper the flyaway notion approaches a phrase. to follow its meter faithfully, i need needle and thread to stitch the dress into spoken language. every flounce and pin-tuck has its origin in a stitch, no matter how tiny or hidden.

so maybe a series of stitches is becoming a slip. its progress may be mysterious. it may have to serve as its own incomplete map. i might see that a ruffle wants lengthening one minute, and the next moment i may face the flapping fabric of an immense dust - swept plaza in mexico.

the thread is still in my hand.

have i let a dress take me too far afield? it was a whisper, and nothing more. it was a couple of pretty words tacked together. it was an innocent turn of phrase. It was a couplet, a flight of fancy, and it has landed me here among the marquesas and a million barrels of mescal.

tremendous doesn't begin to describe the hacienda. abandoned doesn't quite capture it, either. inside, the hacienda is inhabited by its own winds, layers of paint and paper revealed by the breezes of time. a dusty refinement pervades.

the caretaker is in with the winds. he always finds something to sweep away. the caretaker is listening to a whisper, too, and he has made his own capture: on the display of his phone, a few delicate flourishes are visible in the dark, not much more than a flounce. he doesn't know who she was, is. she must have been of this place. or maybe this place was of hers. was, is, was. she appears to be of the same stuff as the ruffle. i try to see the photo on his phone again. just like the ruffle. a little longer, maybe, than i pictured, but as ethereal, as far - off. as near.

for me, this is an unexpected meeting. i traveled a great distance to come here. i certainly was invited. but there is no invitation to show, no formal names in antique longhand, no seal.

the thread is here, however, and the dress, and a woman wearing it. she might not know any more than we do, what we are invoking. we will be happy if we can capture even a handful of the images that turn within these colossal walls. most images are elusive! you can’t harness them. they wait for us, just out of view. they hide in time’s wrinkles!

likewise, how many flutters and seams suggest themselves to me and disappear? i can only capture a few dresses. they must be the devoted ones.

carolyn

POLVO

you thought we had space and wind in new mexico.  but we still have a schedule here.  we have plenty of deadlines and appointments, the website to update, the frocks to be dyed ... the patterns to be drafted.  we have all these windbreaks up here.

our windbreaks fell away on the road to the hacienda.  the road seemed straight enough when we turned onto it from the highway, and anyway i had a map in my hand, but as soon as we left the pavement, it went all figure eights - it was like following a fox back to its den, we were both predator and prey, trying to stay on track, and trying to lose the busy grid from home.  it had followed us from airport to airport to be sure.  it followed us to the hotel and down to the hotel bar-cafe, where we were too tired to stay for more than a few minutes.  it followed us out on the street in the morning.  it followed us onto the road to the hacienda, but the dust kicked up in earnest from behind our car. 

we were to meet the scenery, the caretaker and our models, and we had calculated time and distance, in order that we meet our best angles of light prepared.  we figured two hours from town to stage set.  the driver, so jovial while we packed up the car, said little once we left the highway.  the driver said nothing of being pursued by what we could not see.   the driver drove according to a mirror image of the map i was following.  my frustration mounted.  if i called "derecha" from the back, she braked gravel-shrill to slow, and turned left.  every time it was like that.  coasting into a cloud of dust, she required a cigarette break, she assured us we needed an agua fresca break, none of was to pass up a cervezita at her cousin's comedor.  the driver had to loop and double back more times than we would have thought imaginable, to lose facebook, to lose mapquest, to lose whole foods.  she stopped fast and swerved to lose wikipedia, to lose the weather underground.  she mopped her perfectly made-up brow, and slowed down, to lose photoshop, to lose amazon, to lose twitter.  she turned off the engine, to lose pinterest.

two hours were not enough.  the driver stopped every fifteen minutes to step out of the car and poll the passers-by, are we lost yet?   every time we were still filthy with the stain of 2013.  we still wondered if there wasn't a GPS in the glove compartment.  we didn't have enough dust in our teeth yet, our hair wasn't ratted with the winds yet, our eyes still tried to fix on which souvenirs would suit which friends back home.   

we had barely left home.  the people shook their heads:  todavía no.  the people shook their heads.  pointed somewhere, pointed nowhere, didn't tell us which.  the people pointed.  the people gestured with a shoulder or a nose.  the people smiled the brilliant smiles of those with nowhere particular to go.  the people shrugged.  the driver continued her survey, never leaving anyone out.  she consulted small children.  she consulted dogs.  the people were vigilant:  they looked at us and shook their heads.

until we were pleading, until we gave up, until they recognized something in our eyes that they agreed with, that the road was not in our hands, that the road was open only to surrender.  and then, after three hours on the clock, the hacienda chimed on the horizon ahead of us, sudden, unlikely, wraithlike in its clouded majesty.  the hacienda arose like an offering, where we had seen only dust, once our eyes adjusted.

the caretaker's lip curled a little while he watched us unloading the camera gear.  he was missing a tooth in front, so he lisped more than a spaniard.   i thought i must have imagined him saying "more interesting is the photo inside of the photo".  i shifted a little closer to him to hear.  he carried a rectangular black cellphone, incongruous in his hand, which was busy with wrinkles, alive with almost as many memories as the great hall he showed us into.  there was something in his carriage, in his aspect, in the simple formality with which he handled this relic of modernity, which made me wonder if he had ever been the marquis himself, if he had not hosted many a waltz in this salon de baile.  the thought surprised me.  i credited the wind, and fumbled in my bag for a bottle of water.

he looked straight at me and laughed, as if to say, not exactly.  he laughed like a child who is about to tell a story, like a child charged with making his story good enough to be believed.

"only once," he said.  "i caught it here."  tapping on the display on his phone.

my confusion was apparent.

"to see them."

to see whom, specifically?

pues, ¡los habitantes!"

i looked around.  photographer, models.  us.  you mean...?

a peal of laughter.  "Los habitantes actuales," he explained, too patiently.

i hesitated.

"sí, los habitantes," he repeated, complicit, but casual.  "you can see them.  you can, come to know them. them."  he had the same way of indicating with his head that we had seen along the road.

“lo invisible."  he rolled his eyes.  i rubbed mine, and squinted at our host.  too much dust.

"lo cómo?" i attended, politely, casting a glance at the photographer behind me, setting up the lights.

"o sea que," lisped the caretaker, and his face changed.  he looked down and his features escaped from the light.  "you can see all that you would like to see."  when he raised his head again, the light returned to his face, exploring the wrinkles around his eyes.  "it is only the fear of the present-day. that makes the people blind.  they stopped seeing." 

he stretched out his hand, which suddenly captured the dusty white afternoon light.  even this."  

at the last emphatic syllable, the rafters released a great rush of doves.  they flew in an arc, a fount of white across the clay-coloured walls. i stole a hurried look at the photographer behind me.  she was checking exposures.  i thought maybe i could use an agua fresca after all.

"¡por eso!" cried the caretaker, for the first time raising his voice.  he hadn't moved his hand.  his hand remained illuminated by the hazy light, a testament at the end of his arm.

"you see, señora, don't you?"

he drew his hands together and continued, "es un pecado, señora, to abandon the vision.  as the people have consented to give up the vision, we have no more future.  our future became impossible.  in this place, they produced mezcal, and gunpowder.  our history is here.  today's news is here.  tomorrow's news is here.  they try to look after us, señora.  they allow us to see them.  how generous they are!  they would dance with us.  only look closely, señora.  mira bien, vecina, our country, gone blind."

i thought i heard very faint strains of music.  wasn't it some kind of waltz music?  it seemed to be getting louder.

"¡bueno!" hollered the caretaker into his phone.  "yes!  tell me!"

 ~ carolyn