I belong to a couple groups where artisans share their experience making contacts prints on cloth or paper with a variety of plant materials. These are commonly referred to as “eco-prints,” using the term India Flint came up with to describe her bundling and processing method. One of the groups recently got into a debate over who has the right to call their work “eco”-anything if they use store-bought toxic chemicals to enhance color or lightfastness or if they play with plastic wrap to achieve a desired design effect. Purity credentials demand upcycled cloth, native plants, mordants obtained only from old aluminum or iron pots, etc. But what about energy use? Slow steaming is part of the back-to-nature gestalt. But isn’t a microwave or a pressure cooker more energy efficient? [Continued here>>>]
