The Dyer's Art: How and Why to Create Natural Color

In this 8-credit summer intensive, we meet three days a week for four weeks and learn how to safely create and use plant dyes in our kitchen. We also learn some of the environmental and social reasons for doing so. Specifically, we use locally available living plants as well as globally sourced natural dye materials that are important historically and used in many of our own heritage traditions. In addition to the basics of choosing and preparing fibers (including both fabrics and yarns), we learn to create eco-prints (printing directly with leaves and flowers) as well as to use shibori/tie-dye techniques. If Covid conditions allow, we meet periodically in The Longhouse Ethnobotanical Garden. In addition to dye workshops, learning activities include lectures, films, reading, writing, maintaining a ‘color journal,’ and creating a ‘dye sample book.’ At the end of the program, we choose a simple dye or research project that can be carried out in the time available and share it in the last class. We leave the program ready to continue cultivating ‘the dyer’s art.’

To successfully participate in this program, students need a computer with reliable internet access for class sessions on Zoom and program engagement on Canvas. Class sessions will be recorded for students who must periodically miss class.