Workshops

Cultivating Creativity and Community

My role as a facilitator is to gently invite participants to connect, play with materials, imagine, question, and learn through making.

We start with pulling at loose threads and unraveling the binaries. Creativity takes over and our hands start to speak in an ancient language of knowing. We leave behind judgement, perfectionism, rigidity, and the need to control. We embrace the unknown, the sensory, the fantastical, and the embodied. The plants and pigments are our guides. They remind us that we are them and they are us.

Workshops are 2-4 hours in length for in-person sessions and can be adapted to Zoom. Everyone is welcomed and honoured as an artist in their own right.

Plant Alchemies: The Natural Dye Workshop

Plant dyes have long been used by our ancestors as adornment, as medicine that is absorbed through the skin, and as social and cultural signifiers. This workshop will share stories of the deep spiritual significance of plant dyes on turtle island, South-Asia and the levant as well as the dark histories of exploitation of plants such as indigo, logwood and cotton. We will consider cloth, colour and the environment in our current global context, and how reclaiming natural dye knowledge can lead to more seasonal and cyclical textile systems embedded in our local ecology.

You will learn about the ancient magic and alchemy of plant dyeing on cellulose and protein-based fibres. Bundle dyeing is a simple, and versatile technique to create texture and imprints of colour on cloth. You will learn about the processes of mordanting cloth, preparing dye materials, and way to fix colour to cloth. We will play with flowers grown in gardens, plants gathered from the land, and food waste collected from our kitchens to bundle dye a cotton bandana. All materials are provided, however you are welcome to bring flowers or plant materials that you’d like to experiment with!

Contact Me

To book a workshop, discuss a collaboration or just to say hello.