From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@attbi.com)
Date: 09/13/02-12:12:06 AM Z
FWIW
I've always been interested in dyes due, perhaps, to having taught color
photography and now working on digital printing. Though I know this is a
wild segue, a couple of nights ago I was @ a special ColorSync meeting put
on by Apple and others. All the experts on digital printing problems were
there including Henry Wilhelm. Color stability was part of the discussion.
On the other hand dyes, such as purple, have been treasured for millennia.
The Jews had a particular religious cloth/scarf (I forget the name of it)
that was dyed purple. Only in the last couple of decades (according to a
Scientific American article) has that dye been re-found. It comes from a
particular mollusk on the Mediterranean coast. The mucus is yellow but upon
exposure to the sun it turns this particular purple. The mollusk is not
found everywhere.
Druids noticed the forests of England, primarily Beech and Oak, were often
struck by lightning in storms, the Oak more so. Mistletoe is in a
parasitical relationship to the Oak hence it was deemed to have magical
power. You'll find it in the mythic tale of Balder. Further, those folks
knew the Oak held tannins and used that to fix animal skins to leather. The
Oak gall then ultimately an acid leading to pyrogallic acid which, ta da,
aided in developing the silver of photography. Today, we are returning to
this 'pyro' stained neg.
Okay, back to walnuts . . . there is a most interesting web site about
wool and cloth and dyes wherein alum is mentioned as a mordanting chemical
and there is a lovely history of dyes. All of this, in my mind, is related
to our recent discussions.
The site is:
http://cator.hsc.edu/~kmd/caveman/projects/dye/
Cheers . . have fun reading it.
Jack
> If any of the textile workers or chemists on the list have some suggestions on
> how to keep the reaction stopped I'd like to hear them. I am not up to
> building an inert atmosphere processing box.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Judy Seigel [mailto:jseigel@panix.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 9:06 PM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: Walnut Stain & selenium???
>
>
>
> On Wed, 11 Sep 2002, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>
>> No, this is stain produced from soaking walnut hulls in water. There was
>> convo on this several months ago, I think in June, so check the archives on
>> black walnut and you'll find the recipe.
>
>
> It's really dandy for home dying sweatshirts and things -- beautiful
> color -- but faded in the wash. What that might mean about archivality of
> the print.... maybe nothing, since you're not washing the print, but, who
> knows?
>
> J.
>
>
>
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