Indigo

[asakiyume]

The sunken walls of Firelei Báez's vision of Sans-Souci Palace are decorated in blue to recall the indigo dye used in West Africa, and at the end of the installation, in a separate space, is a giant painting by Stephen Hamilton, celebrating the use of indigo in textiles:



There are also samples of indigo-dyed fabrics created by Agnes Umeche, based on traditional designs.



And this informational plaque tells you a little more about Agnes Umeche and her work. (To read the text you'll have to click through and embiggen.)



Interestingly the indigo used in West Africa (Lonchocarpus cyanescens ) is different from the indigo used in Japan (Persicaria tinctoria), and both of those are different from woad (Isatis tinctoria) which also produces a blue dye. (Thanks goes out to the ninja girl for conveying that fact to me--I wouldn't have known!)

Here's some Japanese tie-dyeing--interesting to see the similarities with the West African tie-dyeing.


... and I happened to be using my copy of Lloyd Alexander's The Fortune Tellers as a hard surface on which to write a letter the other day, and I noticed that Trina Schart Hyman had made indigo borders around the edge of the cover design. NICE.

Comments

[shewhomust]

I didn't know there were multople sources for indigo.

My favourite indigo fact is that it elbowed its way into the rainbow purely to make the colours up to the magic number of seven (as in, you wouldn't distinguish blue from indigo itherwise).

[asakiyume]

I always wondered if it was to make the sayable acronym/mnemonic "Roy G. Biv" (though I hear other people learn it the other way, "Vibgyor," which seems less like a name and therefore less memorable, but...).

Similarly, why "violet" and not "purple"? I guess those are just two alternative names for the same general color...?

[nineweaving]

It was Newton who decreed seven colors, to match the seven notes in the diatonic scale. For all that he came up with the law of gravity and invented calculus (neck and neck with Leibniz), he was a magical thinker.

Nine

[asakiyume]

Scratch us, and I think we all color up a little bit magical-think-y.