I am just beginning to “unpack” the content and experiences I had last week at Arrowmont in Catharine Ellis’ Natural Dye workshop. The volume of information we were introduced to, along with the actual practices we were absorbing, was tremendous and overwhelming – towards the end of the week it was almost as if a bomb had exploded in my brain – an indigo-cochineal-weld-ferrous bomb – shaken, stirred, dissolved, precipitated…I feel like the cloth we worked with – now primed to soak up as much as I can following this most intensive week of learning! I am so grateful to Catharine for making the space and providing the energy for this experience…I am also indebted to the fabulous workshop participants whose individual contributions to the body of understanding were, for me, an essential part of the process. I am overflowing with joy and an urgent desire to get to work!! First up: my organic indigo vat. Meanwhile, here are some images from the week (click on a thumbnail to open the gallery). Many thanks to Jane Cooper for supplying a few of these images.
Early Stage of our organic indigo vat
Indigo Vat “Proofing”
Dipping Cloth Into the Vat
Immersion in a Test Vat
Pre-Treating Cloth in a Tannin Batj
Dried Weld
The weld pot (from dried plant material!)
Glorious Weld!
The Cochineal Pot
More Immersion (Madder on the left)
Printing with Thickened Dyes
Mordant pastes (Cochineal in distilled water)
Cochineal precipitate for painting
Laura Sims’ meticulous records of our bound pigment work!
What a great summary of our week of natural dyeing. It is overwhelming and exciting when I imagine the possibilities of what you can do. I agree that going through the process and steps in a group atmosphere made the experience much more meaningful. It was such a nice constrast to working on a painting alone in my studio- though that can be rewarding too at times. Thanks for posting these pictures.
It’s nice to have a balance — I tend to be “hermited” in my studio, too, and I forget how important it is to make contact with the creative community – that workshop reminded me of that in a big way!
Kathy Colt 
What a great summary of our week of natural dyeing. It is overwhelming and exciting when I imagine the possibilities of what you can do. I agree that going through the process and steps in a group atmosphere made the experience much more meaningful. It was such a nice constrast to working on a painting alone in my studio- though that can be rewarding too at times. Thanks for posting these pictures.
It’s nice to have a balance — I tend to be “hermited” in my studio, too, and I forget how important it is to make contact with the creative community – that workshop reminded me of that in a big way!