It’s about time.
I’ve been making a variation of bogolanfini (mudcloth) for more than 10 years now and it is about time to do some scientific sampling of the process as I know it.
I’m always telling students that they need to give their cloth “time” for the color to bond to the cloth. I have just a couple samples – that were done almost by accident – that show the effects of time and heat. But still there is a lot of unknown about my modifications.
After the trip to Mali, I did go so far as to try multiple dippings of cloth into an old walnut extract that I had sitting around. This evening I mudded those dipped samples, plus a clean sample. I figure I want to do at least 20 samplings of the cloths: some without any heat applied and all rinsed at different times to see the effect of waiting.
I’ve got an Excel spreadsheet all ready to go. The cloths are cut into 4″ x 4″ samples. Tomorrow I start with the first batch for the 1-day effect. I plan on sampling for a year, but I expect I’ll have something to report before then.
Still want to try some other tannins and maybe a fresher walnut dye.
Good thing the spreadsheet can expand easily.