Something to think about, maybe a sign for Wilde Thistle.

“The way to beauty is not by the broad and easy road ; it is along difficult and adventurous paths. Every piece of craft work should be an adventure. It cannot be an adventure if commerce steps in and says “I will dye all your yarn for you ; you will always then be able to match your colour again ; there need be no variation ; every skein shall be as all the others ; you can order so many pounds of such a number and you can get it by return of post ; and you can have six or seven hundred shades to choose from.” It is all so easy, so temptingly easy, but how DULL! …
(Natural dyes) are as brilliant as the chemical colours, but they are not hard and unsympathetic and correct. They are alive and varied, holding the light as no chemical colour can hold it ; and they are beautiful from their birth to their old age, when they mellow , one with the other, into a blend of richness that has never yet been got by the chemical dyer and never will.”

Ethel M. Mairet, 1916 (A Book on Vegetable Dyes)
(Ms. Mariet was part of the founding tradition of the textiles program at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design)

I’m always thrilled to see my name on an exhibition roster of juried artists. Wish I could be at the opening but not this time.