Abundant Phineas
The Story behind “Batik IX: Abundant Phineas”
A door opens briefly:
“You can’t call an elephant abundant.”
“An elephant is large. But abundant has to do with amount.”
The door recloses.
A student must have left their 3rd grade classroom as the teacher helped students understand the concept of “abundant”, perhaps a vocabulary word for the week.
Now my mind whirs….Can I call an elephant abundant? Certainly I can list elephant abundances:
weight
wrinkles
mass
wisdom
years of living
food eaten
poop- food undigested
As I tell my husband about this highlight of my day substitute teaching, he says:
“But I want to name my elephant Abundant, Abundant Phineas.”
Five years later, Abundant Phineas the Elephant is still swirling in my head. With a new batik pen, it is time to create Abundant Phineas. After sketching my design with pencil on yellow fabric, I use my batik pen to outline and and embellish Abundant Phineas in wax. After dyeing the fabric in red dye, I boil the fabric to set the dye color and to remove the wax. When the fabric is dry, I layer and quilt Abundant Phineas. This project brings together three of my favorite things: dyeing, batik, and elephants.
