No Word for Purple

We all seem to love purple in our family. Someone always quips, "the color of royalty." A saying that spans generations. I remember my grandmother, who was from Bantry, telling me how purple was made in Rome with Mediterranean murex sea snail shells, but in Ireland—there were no murex shells, so the color purple wasn't the same. Closer to a drab brownish maroon.

She said that the sea snails had a little purple sack that was used, she also said that the tiny purple tips of certain seashells were ground up. I can't remember if she was talking about the Romans or the Irish. When I was in Baja, I found zebra murex, and they do have a tiny purple spot embedded at the tip of the shell. Whatever the method, it took a lot of seashells to make a small amount of purple dye.

Roman imperial purple (purpura) was called corcur in Irish. Plosive P was avoided, it shifted to hard C (k) in ancient Irish. My grandmother also mentioned that lichens were used to make a purple. In the Highlands, a claret color, or "corcur"–was traditionally made from a rock lichen that was steeped three months in urine, and fixed with alum.

Spiny dye murex, Bolinis brandarus —Wiki

Imperial purple was also known as Tyrian red, or Phoenician purple. Not much is known about the method for making murex dye. A "blackish clotted blood" color was most prized—perhaps by overdying the cloth—double-dipping it in two different species of murex dye vats. As early as 1570 BC, the ancient Phoenicians had the murex trade under wraps. Phoenician purple was a more vibrant color that intensified with age. And:

4th-century-BC historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor.^[1] —Wiki

My grandmother was born before aniline tar-coal dyes were invented, before there was nylon! The aniline age of coal changed the way we think of color.

What we think of as purple today was not the warm-hued purple of the ancients‚ which was closer to dried blood. Most reds and rose madder magentas were fugitive colors—they quickly faded with age. So a color that was stable, was highly sought after.

Saffron was also used to overdye cloth red, but it was an unstable color that faded to yellow. "In medieval Ireland and Scotland, well-to-do monks wore a long linen undershirt known as a léine, which was traditionally dyed with saffron." —Wiki

How on earth did the ancients discover how to make purple? The story goes that when Heracles was walking his dog along the coast of the Levant, the dog was snacking on sea snails and Heracles noticed that the dog's mouth was stained purple from chewing on sea snails. Luckily for Heracles, the pooch wasn't snacking on poop.

It seems the Minoans also knew a thing or two about purple dye as well. During the 20th–18th cs. BC, murex dye was found in Minoan clay pots in Crete, Asia Minor, and at Coppa Nevigata in southern Italy.

Byzantine Justinian I, in Tyrian purple 6th c.—Wiki

There's been much made of the eww factor associated with the ancient method of making purple. Thousands of shellfish were thrown in vats and either left to ferment or were boiled for days (skimming the critters out) to reduce, and extract the color. Much ado has been made of the seafood stinkum stew with urine added as a fixative. I think one would hardly notice the crisp ammonia smell of urine with all that rotted shellfish.

Though the making of purple was a closely guarded secret, Pliny the Elder described the production of Tyrian purple in Natural History: (NB I've shortened the rather wordy Wiki translation considerably).

The most favourable season for taking these fish [shellfish] is after the rising of the Dog-star, before spring….  the vein is extracted, to which salt (is added)… to every hundred pounds of juice.… leave them to steep for three days, and no more, for the fresher they are, the greater virtue there is in the liquor. It is then set to boil in vessels of tin [or lead], and every hundred amphoræ boiled down to five hundred pounds of dye, with moderate heat; …the liquor is skimmed. About the tenth day,… a fleece…is plunged into it … until the colour is found to satisfy… the liquor is kept on the boil. The tint that inclines to red is inferior to that which is of a blackish hue. The wool is left to soak for five hours, and then, after carding it, it is thrown in again, until it has fully imbibed the colour. —Wiki

Note that the only added color mordant (fixative) seems to be salt. During the long boiling process, mineral salts from the tin cauldrons would've leached out—tin is also a mordant. TIn, alum, copper, chromium, iron are all used as mordants on protein-based fabrics (wool, silk, parchment, leather). Other fixatives include urine (inorganic salts), tannic acid, iodine, potassium, and metallic salts. TIn is harsh as a mordant, it makes cloth brittle, so it's often used in conjunction with other mordants.

Fixatives set dyes on cellulose-based materials (cotton, flax, hemp) include: alkaline (base) fixatives; sodium, baking soda, cream of tartar, lye, and washing soda; and acidic fixatives: urine, tannin, vinegar, and lemon juice. Most modern accounts describe the use of urine to fix, or set the color but it was probably a mordant. A mordant chemically binds color to fabric (or pickles).

I know that plant woad dye is made with urine. My neighbor George, a rare rug restorer, received a present from a friend. Richard Beebee gave him some indigo flowers steeping in a jar of urine, we didn't ask whose (it's supposed to be camel piss). So George put his special rug-mending yarn in the jar and left it in the sun to ripen months to make indigo blue yarn. Ripen it did. Only thing is, when he took the yarn out, it didn't turn blue upon exposure to air and sunlight—as there were no indigo flowers in it. Alas, poor George was the victim of a perverse practical joke.)

Wool and silk can absorb both acid and base fixatives. Here's the thing, I doubt urine, or uric acid, was used as a fixative on silk as uric acid rots the silk quickly. Silk was far too precious to dye purple, then have it shred by next season. The ancients would've had to use another fixative. Flax, cotton, wool can handle uric acid, or potash as a fixative. But not silk. Wool, silk and parchment are protein-based—like our skin and hair, and so, require different fixatives. Alas, the recipe is lost.

Purple Byzantine silk from Charlemagne's tomb.

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“Gilding the Lily, Willy, Chilly”

This piece was once adorned in red hot chili peppers, it was for Sonoma State Art from the Heart auction. It did not sell. Nor did it age well. What you can’t see is that I used silver oil pastel to gild the lily. And of course, the title was based upon that rather bad pun. Maybe I should’ve said geld the lily. This piece was somewhat of a collaboration. I was up against deadline and couldn’t come up with anything. So I went to my neighbor, George Howell’s cabin and we came up with this ridiculous idea. It sure was fun and we giggled immensely. Maybe that was worth the price of admission. Ya had to be there. To be fair, I was still recovering from that horrid car accident in June and I may have been taking a break from Neil. I was his primary caregiver and I try to make a break of it a couple of times. But we needed each other to get through the dailiness and so I stayed. I found this piece of art in a cardboard mailer in August 2023. A bit of a shocker, really. I think I will pull the drawing off the board, easier to store that way. nota bene I seem to have three valentines posted for 1998. Clearly there are some wrong dates involved. Hopefully I will be able to untangle it at a future date.

Going away BBQ

I decided to throw a barbecue of sorts as my going away present to Steve and George. I started out by having dinner with Steve, and George. Then Paul came home and joined us, and Mark (who is Mark?) joined us too. Only Alastair and Sonny were missing from the home gang. Then Trygve pulled up on his motorcycle. Wow. Full house. Yeah, I liked the odds. I was holding court with five men, and Edwin had called today. My planets must be in lust.

Trygve and I went for a bike ride to the vineyards at Mark West Creek. Piper Sonoma, or Mark West Vineyards, some of those grapes go to DeLoach as well. Anyway, it was a chardonnay field. We parked the bike, after having ditched the helmets, we were riding free among the vines. Delicious chill of summer night against my skin. Here I am at 43 and a half, riding through the vineyards in the dark without helmet, without headlights, on a vintage Triumph, and having naughty bits.

Trygve dropped me off at the doorstep and I went over to visit Steve. I'd had a bit of wine. Wild Hog Pinot Noir and Foxhollow Cabernet, both good 1991 vintages. The Wild Hog was a light wine, with the Foxhollow being a robust fruity wine. It was one of those wonderful gossipy summer nights that makes California a special place to live.

I am no man's woman, and so I enjoy them all on one level or another, getting what I need from each man, not flirting, not acting coy, just being exactly who I am. No games no pretense. On my terms.

Then, on June 12 I'm off to Amsterdam.

Journal entry, 5/29-6/12/96 bbq long v.

5/29 my high school classmate, and sometimes boyfriend, Trygve Tryggestad came over on the 19th and we went for a long motorcycle ride on Willow Road, a dirt road that connects Coleman Valley Road to Highway 116 at Bridgeport, near the river mouth. It's a special secret road that I haven't been on in years.

I figured Trygve wouldn't show up again because I freaked him out last time wanting more than this mutual masturbation thing. And he so afraid of AIDS, so he says or is it also his way of non-commitment? Your Honor, I’m innocent, I didn't actually fuck her. Then, there’s the girlfriend.

I figure I wasn't all that interested in sex, but on a sunlit hillside meadow far from civilization, shades of spring, it seemed the right thing to do to roll in the grass. Hooray hooray, it’s 1 May. Outdoor sex begins today. We had a good day but I needed to work, and didn't succeed. I was so tired.

We went out to Goat Rock and Bodega Head. Each smell was sharp like a door opening into another world. New mown grass, fresh cow plops, amorous skunks, apple orchard in bloom, the odor after rain. Petrichor. One is so much closer to nature on a motorcycle. As we traversed the ditches and potholes, I realized it was somewhat like riding a horse, something that I missed terribly.

5/29 fragment from the Edwin Drummond piece, Stood Up

Trygve, out of the blue, came over an hour before Edwin was supposed to arrive, but I knew Edwin would be late. Trygve threw me down on the unmade bed as I was trying to clean the cabin for Edwin's arrival.

I was a little slow getting started and finished. Anyway Trygve got off quickly and there there are some advantages to walking off, but he thinks he needs me to get off too. Because I excite him when I touch myself. I must be putting out pheromones. Or starring in a porn movie. I was so horny in the morning I already got myself off. I, who can go for weeks and months on end without any interest whatsoever. Scary.

I am the wanton woman. I was too freaked to come again, and Trygve was laying around with his pants lost somewhere in the rubble of clean laundry, telling me how he much loved me. Yeah, lust wears many hats.

And when I said an old boyfriend was coming to visit, he wormed it out of me, he started saying he was going to hang around and bad vibe him. And I was feeling a bit frantic by then and I shrieked, You have no rights! And he said, I hope he doesn't come back for two or three more years, when I told Tryg the last time I had seen Edwin. It really was quite funny. Trygve finally leaves on his motorcycle. I needed a drink.

I barrel out of the cabin. My neighbor George snickers, and asks, The wrong one? as I run past him to take a quick shower. I laugh at my escapades and how it must look on the outside it's either all or nothing. 

6/4 I decided to throw a barbecue of sorts for as a going away present, as it were, to Steve and George. I will really miss these guys. I started out by having dinner with Steve, and George, then Paul came home and joined us, and Mark? joined us too. Then Trygve pulled up on his motorcycle. Wow. Full house. Yeah, I liked the odds. I was holding court with five men, and Edwin had called today. My planets must be in lust.

Trygve and I went for a bike ride to the vineyards at Mark West Creek. Piper Sonoma, or Mark West Vineyards, some of those grapes go to DeLoach as well. Anyway, it was a chardonnay field. We parked the bike and after having ditched the helmets, we were riding free and crawling among the vines. Delicious chill of summer nights against my skin. Trygve taking my breasts in his mouth, the hard green fruit on the vine like tiny nipples, with the promise of what was to come. 

Somehow, outside I don't mind this no muss no fuss, zip up and we're ready to truck. Here I am at 43 and a half, riding through the vineyards in the dark without a bra or knickers, sans helmet, without headlights on a vintage Triumph, and having naughty bits. 

Trygve dropped me off at the doorstep and I went over to visit Steve. I'd had a bit of wine. Wild Hog Pinot Noir and Foxhollow Cabernet, both 1991 vintages. The Wild Hog was a light wine, with the Foxhollow being a robust fruity wine. It was one of those wonderful gossipy summer nights that makes California a special place to live. 

I am no man's woman, and so I enjoy them all on one level or another, getting what I need from each man, not flirting, not acting coy, just being exactly who I am. No games no pretense.

June 12 I'm off to Amsterdam. A new adventure awaits.

The road to Hana, Haleakala, Hawaii Journal, 7/17/91

Yesterday we went to Hana, Hana means the end. As in the end of the world. As in closed. Pau. But the unpaved road itself, festooned with 7000 potholes, continues on eleven more torturous miles to the seven pools of the seven virgins. I took a photo of a young girl crouched at the lower lip of the last pool, appropriately called the Virgin.

It is a long ride back from Hana, in each canyon, the foliage is more spectacular than the last. Bamboo forests, Ohia, silvery and glistening in the mist. Rain shadow, This area gets 400 inches a year and keeps the green blaze verdant. We gaze out to a rocky settlement, where my neighbor George Howell’s uncle who was the island’s only doctor lived. He was overly fond of the drink so you took your chances with the relative sobriety of Dr. Howell.

I went out to the 16-mile marker from Paia where WS Merwin lives, remembering the road down the ridge to the sea. I found a stalk of tuberose that someone had left. A new grave at the top of the Pali, the only clue, a rusted chain and a heart-shaped metal Hawaii dog license. Someone’s beloved pet overlooks the ancient Hawaiian harbor that WS Merwin has protected from the world for so long.

This is the place that Will Staple took me to, where the deep music of the surf boulders rang a cacophony of bells beneath the waves. There is a leanto on the beach. Hawaiians still use this place, it still has the magic. Wild orchids tumble off the edge of a cliff, the blue surprise of tropical sea against the darkness of lava. In the mango forest there is an ancient Hawaiian village buried under dense jungle foliage. We explored it as we gathered mangoes. Clouds of fruit flies followed us, jealous of our bounty. The garden terraces were still growing stands of taro plant.

On the way to Hana I swam at a waterfall pool which was the perfect temperature, the water falling from the cloud forests of Haleakalā, mirrors the green harmony of the forest. And then a man named Michael who dove from the cliff 20 feet or more above me, led me to a secret hole behind the waterfall. I had to step in and down 2 1/2 feet, and then lean back up into the hole until I was behind the waterfall. The hole, small and dark, was filled with all my unknown childhood closet monsters.

Maui the Mischievous, fished these islands up from the sea. Haleakalā, house of the sun where Maui stood to share the sun and slow its passage across the sky so his mother, Hana could work the tapa cloth. Haleakalā peeks out once, on the way home, where the peninsula juts out into the sea.

When the fog lifted, revealing the eye of the Iao Needle, small white bird circled, giving a sense of scale to the West Maui mountains. I gathered fallen plumeria blossoms and tossed them into the rivers. Whitewater, Kea, as soon as the fog had lifted, the rains began, but paradise is like that, only revealing a fraction of her bounty at a time. You have to be ready for it To stare into that terrible beauty of Medusa turned men into stone. Her hair fell into the sea. This is how the coral came to be.

There are living stones wrapped in ti leaves at every site I stop at. I take photos, and I touch the stones for good luck. They are warm, like sleeping cats. Everywhere stray cats and warm stones. I carry peridot and olivine stones from South Point with me to Haleakalā. Is it is not from the volcano? Someone says the tears of Pele. I hope that Pele will understand my need for green stones. I will share them with the children. We will write poetry, adding to the deeper mystery of stone.

They say the stones speak guttural low whispers. Certainly they’ve taught the rivers here how to speak. Somewhere above me is Pu’u Kukui, it rises up some 5788 feet. Pu’uhonua, place or sanctuary of kukuis, oil for the bodies of the fallen Hawaiian warriors who fell, blocking the streams. Candlenut trees to oil the bodies of the ali’i, the royalty, whose bones still sleep in these mountains.

Some blue sky at last. Finally the voices are upon me and I feel the stirrings of a poem asking for the lips of speech. I am an imperfect receiver. Sometimes they come, and I cannot hear them, but I am mouthpiece, I savor the words in my mind, rolling them like small warm stones against the sea, polishing them until I can build a structure of language, of thought, a dwelling for the tired heart to speak to seek solace, or find refuge.

On White Hill Pu’ukea I created a circle, dropping the olivine crystals in the four directions beginning in the north, without thinking, it seems natural. Looking out over the crater, I see the bosom of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the long mountain, I can even make out Cook’s Bay, and Kealakekua. I think of Oleg and Eddie in turn.

Last time I was here, I rode up the mountain with Will Staple and Gary Snyder in the very same truck I was injured in. Sitting beside Gary Snyder was a trying experience as he tends not to relate well to women. However, his presence, the cold, is magnetic, powerful. We come to terms with it all.

Sitting zazen next to him in the Maui zendo, I lost all recollection of time—45 minutes, maybe an hour of my life disappeared. He drew me in along with him, on the powerful riptide of Satori. 

We dropped Gary off at Halemau’u trail, and we hiked down into the crater via the Sliding Sands trail. Sword plant was in bloom and all the cinders you could fix on in one crater, a lunar landscape—lava like the crest of a standing wave.

George Howell's Magic Carpet Repair Shop, The Paper, Nov 16, 1989

WOAD

—for my neighbor of 20 years, George Howell, 
one of the original Dharma Bums (really)

and his Romilar--swigging partner in crime,
Richard Bebe, a good lawyer who 

committed suicide after heart surgery

Wearing a sheepish grin, my neighbor
George who restores antique rugs
heads for the trash bin the back way.
Noting this, I ask, What's in the bucket, shit?
He says, Close. My friend Bebe's wife,
she quit dyeing a while back
and gave me this bucket of indigo
that Ricard had made for me.
If you know anything about indigo—
it's made with piss, fermented camel piss
and the temperature has to be exactly 83 degrees
for the best color, so I waited for the right day—
I sure as hell wasn't going to heat it on the stove—
and I'm out there dipping my wool into the dye
and waiting for it to turn blue…and waiting…
See, indigo is colorless. Only after the wool's
exposed to air for an hour does it turn blue.
Well, I waited for hours and hours.
The wool turned brown, a horrible brown, at that.
It was just a bucket of piss— all that wasted wool.
I guess Bebe had the last laugh on me after all.

revised ever so slightly 2014