fiber & dye plants
WORKSHOPS
Natural Dye, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, 2025
An overview for understanding mordants, tannins, iron blankets, immersion dye baths and best practices for safety when using metallic salts. Steam is utilized to bundle dye with fresh plants. The group is encouraged to play with surface design.
Aerobic vs. Anaerobic: Ways to See the Color Blue, GreenThumb (NYC Parks Dept.), 2023
A two-part workshop at CUNY’s Graduate Center for the 39th Annual Grow Together Conference and Prospect Heights Community Farm. Participants create an anaerobic woad vat using fructose, dye fiber and learn the basics of warping and weaving.
Monoprint Using a Plant-Based Resist, GreenThumb (NYC Parks Dept.), 2022
Pressed flowers shape a layer of resist. As the garden wakes up to spring, we scavenge for remnants of the past season: plant tags, produce stickers and seed pods to fill in negative space. Participants review how to scour and mordant cotton, harvest madder root and keep dye bath temperatures in a range for the color red.
