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| Warm Springs Creek on a fall morning. |
Last week I spent a couple of days in Warm Springs, VA to take part in some workshops presented at the Bath County Plein Air Festival. I was curious about the festival, which I'd become aware of the previous year, when I was at the Red House Artist Residency.
I arrived on Wednesday afternoon to take part in the Eco-printing workshop with Nancy Buchewicz at the Old Dairy. As I entered the large room where we were going to work, one of the assistants was laying out a variety of leaves and flowers on a couple of tables in the back.
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| Flowers and leaves for eco-printing |
The process for this type of dyeing directly from plants is actually a bit complicated, but Nancy had streamlined it a lot for the workshop. I'm waiting to get a copy of the complete process written down, since she didn't have a handout, but it seems the results are not always predictable, which is part of the fun.
She had prepared the fabric (silk) with a mordant beforehand, in order for the fabric to absorb and set the dyes. Each student was provided with a cloth soaked in tannin, which would give a subtle ash-brown color for the background, a plastic sheet to wrap around the scarf after we had laid out our leaf/floral design on the scarf, and a rigid rod to wrap the scarf tightly around. Those who wished to keep the natural color of the silk for the background didn't use the tannin blanket, and simply rolled their scarves in the plastic sheet.
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| Nancy (second from right) turning to instruct workshop participants. |
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| Students laying out plants for eco-printing scarves. |
After we had the scarves ready, we wound them tightly with some flexible cord and tied them. They were now ready to go into a steam bath. Nancy had two giant steam kettles for the prepared and wound-up scarves, and she put those using leaves in for a full hour. Those with only flowers, for a half an hour. At the end, we each retrieved our own scarf and unwrapped it to see the results. Some turned out fabulous, though I must say mine was a bit disappointing--some of my fern leaves didn't leave as much of an imprint as I had hoped. I imagine if one keeps experimenting, eventually one learns which leaves are more suitable, and what colors of dyes one can obtain from them.
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| Anderson Cottage, east side. |
After the workshop was over, I headed to check in at the Anderson Cottage, the B&B I had booked for my stay. My two-room Tavern suite on the west side was in the oldest part of the house, built over two hundred years ago. The house itself has a fascinating history, some of which was written down on an informative sheet in my rooms.
Later I met up with my friend Amanda, the lady who offers the Red House Artist Residency where I spent four weeks last summer, and we had a wonderful dinner at the Waterwheel Restaurant, down the street from the Anderson Cottage.
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| Front porch at the Anderson Cottage |
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| Warm Springs Creek |
The next morning I went out to look at the garden in back, and found this lovely view of Warm Springs Creek. It was quite chilly, and there was vapor wafting over the creek, which flows from the springs at about 98-102 degrees. I would have loved to take the time to do a small watercolor of this charming view right then, but I had signed up for a foraging workshop in the morning, and needed to get out in time to be at Chimney Run Farm for "Off the Eaten Path." The young couple who ran the B&B were kind enough to serve my breakfast a bit earlier than usual so that I could have enough time to enjoy it without rushing.
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| Presenter Allan Muskat (on the left) with foraging workshop participants. |
Our "Off the Eaten Path" group consisted of about 15 people, and thank heaven the owners of the farm, Leigh and her husband Bill, had extra coats and gloves for those who might need them. I'd forgotten to bring my gloves, and it was so cold wearing my light fall jacket, that I took them up on the offer--I don't think I would have lasted the hours outdoors without those!
I was a little disappointed that the workshop was more about the philosophy of foraging rather than the practical information I was seeking, but be that as it may, Allan was very entertaining as he pointed out ordinary garden weeds that are edible and can be used for flavor or seasoning. We tasted yew berries, taking care to not ingest the poisonous seeds.
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| Jack O'lantern mushrooms |
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| Jack O'lantern mushrooms |
I think many of us had hoped for some edible mushrooms, but we found only one exhuberant patch of Jack O'lantern mushrooms in the area where we were. Despite our having signed releases that we wouldn't sue if something we ate didn't agree with us, I think Allan was concerned that later on someone might eat poisonous mushrooms that had not been properly identified, so he stayed away from that subject.
The gills of the Jack o'lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius) are phosphorescent in the dark, and although we couldn't appreciate this phenomenon during the daytime, he showed us some photos he'd taken at night, where you could clearly see this. This is the origin of "foxfire," that mysterious glow that can be found in certain places in dark woods.
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| Preparing the foraged foods. |
Toward the end of our workshop, a table with an electric skillet had been set up, and Allan had some of the ladies in the group chop up the greens we had foraged on our walk with some black walnuts, sauteed it all and then served this on a cracker for each of us to taste.
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| Allan Muskat cooking foraged food. |
In the afternoon I did a small sketch of an antique child's wheelbarrow at the Anderson House before I attended the artist talk. I was hoping to find at least one watercolorist among the group, but the artists who presented were all oil painters. I did learn the one watercolor artist in the group used very heavy paper (300#) which he then sprayed with some sort of impermeable varnish, and his pieces were not framed with glass, which I suppose makes it easier to frame quickly. Although I liked his work, it wasn't traditional watercolor.
In the evening, I attended the foraging lecture, where we heard more about Allan's philosophy as a forager. An interesting man, I learned that he's the son of Cuban Jews who came to the U.S. about the same time that I did and settled in Miami. We chatted about our mutual Cuban roots after the lecture, when the Warm Springs Gallery presented us with an amazing spread of exotic foraged food: pawpaw custard, pine needle sugar cookies, chocolates made with wildflowers, so many unbelievable treats! There wasn't much room for a regular dinner after that, but I decided to go to the Warm Spring Inn for a light repast anyway--it wasn't very good, the dish was too salty for my taste.
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| The back yard at Anderson Cottage |
The next morning I got up early to do a little sketch of the creek, but the conditions were a bit different. It was not as cold, but cloudier, and the beautiful effect of the vapor over the water was not there. Still, it was fun to paint from the little bridge over the water to try to capture the scene.
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| Sketch of Warm Springs Creek. |
I started my drive back after breakfast, hoping to get home before the rains from hurricane Ian arrived in our area.
