About India Flint

website: www.indiaflint.com 

instagram: prophet_of_bloom

India Flint is the original discoverer of the eucalyptus ecoprint, author of “Eco Colour” and “Second Skin”, and holds a Master of Arts [by research] from the University of South Australia (2001).

Her work has been described as using the earth as the printing plate and time as the press. Flint has designed costumes for dance (‘breathe’ for Leigh Warren + Dancers was included in the 2012 Edinburgh Festival of Arts; ‘debris’ choreographed by Frances Rings for the West Australian Ballet opened at the Perth Festival in 2007) and written books on dyeing and felting.

She exhibits internationally and has work in museums in Australia, the USA and Europe. While working on costumes at the Yamaguchi Performing Arts Centre in 2006, she cheekily gave the name ‘hapazome’ (kitchen Japanese that translates as ‘leaf-dye’) to the technique she was using to add colour to a 6 x 6 metre floorcloth, only discovering years later that there was already a Japanese name for the technique (tatakizome).

In 2018 she created the School of Nomad Arts, the art school she would have liked to attend herself, where an online community gathers around a virtual village well learning everything from eucalyptus dyeing to pattern cutting and string making.

About the day:

Following morning tea on arrival at 10am, we’ll gather flowers from the garden, then explore both fast and slow means of bringing nature’s colours into cloth and paper.

We’ll bundle a soft silk scarf with flowers in a preservation dye jar and then, while the jars are being procesed in the cauldrons; enjoy a long-table, garden-inspired seasonal lunch. After lunch we will use the leftover flowers to create a lightly fragrant concertina artwork on paper using hapazome and gentle abstract drawing techniques.

India will supply you with a silk scarf, string and a preserving jar as well as some lovely paper, ink for drawing and a cover cloth so that you can practice your flower pounding.

At the end of the day (approx. 4pm) you’ll take home your preserving jar…to keep for as long as you can bear…before opening!