From the studio No. 37

We’ve come to the end of the year again and I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas on this shortest day, from deepest darkest drizzly West Wales.

It is the Winter Solstice - Embrace the dark and carry the light.

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It’s been a great year in the SARAH POLAND studio, not without it’s hurdles and losses. I’ve worked hard on building a natural dyed clothing brand and am looking forward to next year - I have a few exciting projects in the pipeline, including a natural dye collaboration and plan to get out and show at various events, including the Frome Independent Market.

I’d love to see you out there somewhere.

Building my website, brand and getting the Ande Bomber ready to launch have been some highlights.

The website has lots of new pages to view - Why I Natural Dye Clothing, Why I Make Clothes In The UK, Zero Waste and Meet The Designer. I also have Archive pages of paintings and prints from over the years.

Exhibition wise it was really exciting to get in to the Royal Scottish Academy AND sell my painting (below). The VAS 100 (Visual Arts Scotland) centenary exhibition did look fantastic in the hallowed halls of the RSA.

Prosodic Chapters Of Immanent Silence.

Oak gall ink on traditional gesso on birch ply panel.

60 x 91cm.

There’s so much to do to start a business, it isn’t just make some stuff and sell it to a shop anymore! To sell online you need all sorts of things in place, a website, branding (plus a rebrand, thanks J.D. Sports!), a privacy policy, a returns policy, product pages, selling paypoint, good photography, GDPR…the list goes on…and on. Put on the spot, I can’t even remember half of it. Responsible, ethical sourcing is BIG.

As I mentioned before, the hurdle to rebrand away from SONNET by Sarah Poland, because of JD Sports’ interference, has taken up some time. I am glad to have fully embraced the change and am going with simply my name, SARAH POLAND. I now have a new logo, garment label and event sign. The website merge with my artist site will take some time, it’s tricky - trying not to over complicate it.

Any thoughts are most welcome.

Here is my new branding:

My time mentoring on the year long course at Newlyn School of Art this year was so fun, finding myself working beside old peers from my time in Cornwall was a joy and taking part in their tutors exhibition an honour.

Fashion On Earth, Bristol Cathedral with Sustainable Fashion Week UK was a blast and what a deadline to work towards! Thanks to Sustainable Studio in Cardiff and St. John’s Hall in Bath for giving me space.

Thanks too to Helen Manley-Jones at Yr Oriel in Newport, Pembrokeshire for always showing my work.

A new gallery who has taken on my Moon Drawing, photographic and oak gall work, is Tides Gallery in Swansea and their new showcase space, Tides Uplands.

Here are some glimpses from throughout the year.

Thank you for following my journey.

Wishing you a warm winter holiday filled with love and friendship.

Keep in touch, my best,

Sarah x

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.

From the studio No. 35

I have been taking steps to potentially collaborate with an innovative bio-colour brand based in London, with the aim of working towards involving them in natural dye production for the garments. They use both natural dyes (plants), have pioneered microbial colour and are able to scale up to dye longer lengths. We got as far as sampling colours on the fabrics that I am using, but I realised a few weeks ago that they weren’t going to make the deadline for me to be able get the fabric sent off to the manufacturer to make my jackets in time for Fashion On Earth at Bristol Cathedral. Yikes!

However, commissioning natural dyes are costly and their lead time can be weeks or even months to dye the fabrics. The process of natural dyeing is both time consuming and the raw materials cost so much more than what we are used to with petro-chemical based dyes. So for now, as I build SARAH POLAND, the dye work will be done from my studio.

I’ve spent the last two weeks working 14 hour days to get this done in time, dyeing lengths of corduroy and rib. It’s been intense and heavy work too, lifting 1.5m of wet chunky corduroy and moving around heavy pots of water. I invested in another big stainless steel dye pot so it can be heated with gas outdoors - setting up the dye studio for mid-scale production is a step-by-step process, planning infrastructure and equipment.

When creating artwork dye irregularities doesn’t matter so much as it adds visual texture, plus I paint on top of the dyed canvas. But a mark in the wrong place on a garment can look like an unwanted stain. It’s one reason people combine tie-dye or batik with natural dye, the blemishes become disguised. But I want to create a different look than we are used to with natural dye - it’s a challenge to create an even colour - something more chic, by using interesting colour combinations (I’m a colour geek) and beautiful planet conscious fabrics. And let’s face it, there are after all, enough tie-dyers out there.

It’s all worked out and the fabric, grades (different size patterns) and trims have gone off to the manufacturer. It hasn’t been without hiccups, trip ups and hurdles though. One hiccup, was that I dyed 4 lengths of fabric (6m) and discovered that the new 100 litre dye pot that I had invested in, had several small rust spots. It was an expensive pot and when it arrived it wasn’t the quality I was hoping for, but with time short I gave it a go.

When ferrous sulphate (iron rust) mixes with tannin (inherent in certain plant colours) it changes the colour - this created unwanted spots and I had to start again with new dye extract and to heat up a new vat of hot water. I have had a refund on the pot and will use the fabric elsewhere but when time was short and a risk of not having enough fabric, it did ad an extra stress! The fabric won’t be wasted though, at a later date I’ll dip it in a dye pot again and modify the colour.

If you’d like to follow my journey to create a natural dyed clothing brand in the UK and hear about product drops, events and exhibitions you can sign up here: subscribe

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.

from the studio No. 34

On Wednesday 6th November, SUSTAINABLE FASHION WEEK hosted an event at Bristol Cathedral called FASHION ON EARTH. They invited me to take part in this exciting event which included a catwalk performance, makers market, exhibited pieces, live music plus other stalls including the Soil Association and GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard). It is an opportunity to discover some of the artists, makers and organisations working towards a better fashion future.

It’s going to be a really exciting event, not in the least, because artist Luke Gerram has created a large installation titled Gaia, a to scale, glowing sculpture of our planet Earth. It looks incredible and I can’t wait to see it. Gaia will hover above the catwalk.

I worked incredibly hard to get work ready for this event and it will be the first public viewing of SARAH POLAND the natural dyed, limited edition, UK made clothing brand. A launch of sorts.

I showcased a natural dyed corduroy bomber jacket in five different colours with a few one-off pieces - skirts and a kilt made from painted art pieces.

Sustainable Fashion Week UK says - 'The backdrop of Luke Gerram’s ‘Gaia’ serves as a provoking reminder of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. As with any resources our society consumes, the clothing and materials we wear and dispose of have a significant impact on planetary health’.

Launching the

Ande Bomber.

NATURAL DYED.

MADE IN THE UK.

MADE TO ORDER = NO SURPLUS, NO WASTE.

A natural dyed, limited edition, chunky corduroy bomber jacket. Lined in luxurious organic bamboo silk, five beautiful plant based colours to choose from, with contrasting coloured rib and a cheeky puff sleeve, corozo nut buttons and helping to clear plastic out of the environment, with a recycled plastic Vislon zip.

Lush.

Photography: Trevor Carty @tippee68

They also invited me to display one of my art pieces as a backdrop for my stall. My husband, Ben Duckworth, who runs Raven Roundwood Timber Frames, created a stunning exhibition stand for me using larch, oak, and bog oak. The natural beauty of the stand complemented my work perfectly and looked breathtaking in the cathedral's magnificent setting. It was a wonderful opportunity to showcase a large piece in such an awe-inspiring space.

A detail from Sarah Poland’s natural dyed hanging canvas installation Forest, displayed during her 2023 solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery in Swansea UK. The piece here uses madder, weld, chestnut and iron to naturally dye and paint on organic cotton canvas.

Gaia, by Luke Jerram 2024

We are critically disconnected from our clothing, how it is made, it’s natural source and the many hands each garment passes through before it reaches us. All the resources that clothe our bodies come from this Earth and how we choose to care for and use such resources plays a significant role in planetary health.

All clothing comes from the land. Farmed, grown, extracted, picked and cut - your clothing begins in the ground and should return to the soil at the end of its life-cycle.

FASHION on EARTH invites you to reflect on the relationship you have with your own clothing; to consider how connected you feel to the place and natural resources that are intrinsically linked to the garments you wear; and to imagine a fashion production future wholly connected to and respectful of the natural world.

Join us on Wednesday 6th November 2024 for a night exploring fashion that is created in harmony with nature.

Sustainable Fashion Week UK

Inspired by 1950s coffee culture (think Beat Generation), 90s London + an inner rock chick fused with the colours of natural dyes.

Coffee bar, intimate gig + cocktail cool, with quality + sustainability at its core.