Over hill and dale

Art, Aspen, airplanes, apple trees, campfires, cows, chickens, sheep, horses, pigs, mountains, hot springs, farms, family, and fried foods.

2 weekends, lots of travel, people, and places – a good rousting change of scenery, a momentary respite from the corporate grind, and a spinning wheel of new perspectives and gratitude. 

1 of 3 hot springs pools at avalanche ranch

The natural colors of Avalanche Ranch

Inspired by the red earth, the healing hot springs, and the plethora of plants and trees (the ranch not only has the full menagerie of farm animals, it also has apple and plum trees), AND having brought along my fabric, thread, and paper to prep some book pages for dyeing, the thought presented itself – why not capture the memory and essence of this space/place by creating a book, dyed with plant materials found onsite.

book bundle

And so it was.  A first (for me) stitched paper/fabric artist book bundle, pages with milk mordant-painted marks, sandwiched with plants gathered from around the ranch, dyed in a bath of local mineral water and bark from the trimmed apple tree branches, cooked over a wood campfire under the cool starry night.

Another first for me – creating a video.  Lots of learning in the past couple of weeks!  Here’s the reveal of the Avalanche Ranch eco-dyed book pages:

Eco-Dyeing at Avalanche Ranch from Ayn Hanna on Vimeo.

Here’s the whole group of pages laid out together (front and back sides):

Next I’ll be working on these some more to extend the story of place and deciding how to bind these together, all in good time.  It may take awhile and that’s OK. 

The stillness, the quiet, the healing of this special place is all wrapped up in my memory and good feeling of savoring the burst of healthy creativity that grows from slowing everything down.