I just completed a four month course on Natural Dyes from Maiwa School of Textiles.
I sing high praise for this amazing on-line class - with concise easy to follow directions and videos, easily accessible support, well written PDFs and community with other students.
I am grateful the Maine Arts Commission who supported my pursuit to learn a new palette with a Project Grant for Artists. As an experienced artist, it is daunting to take the risk to forge a whole new direction - and this foray into natural dyes is just that. Although as a young weaver/artist in the 1970s I did natural dyeing, it was a half hearted attempt with out the technical support and knowledge that is available now.
In a recent interview with Warp And Weft Magazine I explain my love for color, nature and woven threads.
https://www.warpandweftmag.com/field-notes/sarah-haskell
“Weaving answered questions that were elusive with painting, sculpture and printmaking. As a medium that is built with three dimensional lines (threads), weaving offered me a method to build texture, pattern and most importantly to manipulate color. Because weaving is constructed of many threads that intersect and over lay each other, I found that I could create a surface of pixelated colors that mimicked the multidimensional color I saw in nature. The natural world around me has been my inspiration, my teacher and my solace for as long as I can remember. With the language of threads and the structure of weaving I felt like I was finally able to bring what I felt and saw in nature into my art.”
The entire palette of over 80 dye samples.
My dye journal with notes and samples.
This palette feels like a home coming to the colors of nature that inspired my first forays into weaving - a return to my native tongue.
So now it’s time to begin a narrative with this palette… time to make art.