Hemp elm healing chime
Sometimes we’re a little crooked and just need to be realigned. The story of a healing chime’s own healing.
The sweet video above chronicles the creation of the hemp elm healing chime, and our trusting each other to heal from being awkwardly crooked to being beautifully realigned.
EXPLORING NEW COMBINATIONS
The past few weeks I’ve been busy in my studio making quite a few more healing chimes. It’s been wonderful. I’ve kept a range of materials out on my studio desk to play with – combining and recombining new colors, shapes, and textures until some things started to come together and I could create new healing chimes.
Here’s the combination of elements that created the hemp elm healing chime:
Hmong hemp fabric swatch
From Luang Prabang, Laos in 2017, the fabric swatch is sand-colored from its natural thread and the wax lines are coco colored. The texture is stiff and scratchy. You can read more about the story of this swatch further below.
Dried elm leaves
Foraged in my neighborhood of Del Ray, VA on a walk, the leaves are a bronze-rust color and have a crisp, leathery texture. Their shape is elliptical, with serrated edges coming to a pointy end.
Dried eucalyptus leaves
Store bought at Trader Joes, VA, the leaves are a willow-sage color, and have a delicate texture. They’re small with a general oval shape and smooth edges.
Natural hand spun and hand-dyed indigo threads
Sourced from northern Laos, one is teal indigo, thicker, yet weaker, and was used for hand stitching the fly stitch pattern on the hemp fabric. The other is a light indigo, thinner, yet stronger, used for wrapping around the elm and eucalyptus leaves, through the hand stitched hemp fabric, and tied to the stick.
Found stick
Taken from the wild oak hydrangea bush in front of my house, its color is latte, with a dark coffee band. It’s straight, narrow, and hollow inside. The texture is smooth except for that one bump.
THE HMONG HEMP FABRIC SWATCH
I must say something about natural hemp swatch with drawn wax lines.
For some background, the Hmong in Laos are the only ethnic group which cultivates and processes hemp for thread. They then weave it into fabric, decorate it with traditional designs using the batik (wax resist) process, and hand-dye it indigo. The patterns communicate messages across villages. Long fabric is pleated into a swishy sashaying traditional skirt. For a good overview, there’s this article: Hmong hemp weavers keeping ancient threads alive in Laos.
In 2017, I took a half day workshop at an artisan handicrafts center, Ock Tok Pop in Luang Prabang with legendary Hmong batik master, Mae (mai) Thao (ta-oh) Zuzong (zoo-zong). She learned to draw batik at age 12.
The natural hand woven hemp swatch is a cut up sample of lines she had me draw in wax to practice.
I remember the sensation of holding the drawing tool which felt backwards, the attention to the hot to warm to cooling wax. And her stories and laughter.
I learned that a smooth round stone held in one’s hands is used to iron the hemp fabric flat. Heated beeswax with indigo powder creates the brownish color wax for drawing. A traditional pen-like tool with a copper metal tip is used to hold hot wax and apply thin lines to draw patterns onto hemp fabric.
I loved rediscovering this hemp fabric swatch and remembering Mae Thao Zuzong teaching me how to drawing those wax lines. Some lines were awkwardly crooked. And some were beautifully aligned.
“Hemp elm healing chime” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Patreon supporters in October 2020. Now it’s public and available to you, too!
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