Today, I attended a virtual natural dyeing workshop hosted by CultureHub. The purpose of the event was to educate participants on the uses and history of natural dyes, as well as have audience participation in collecting and processing invasive species to be repurposed for dyes.
Although I am a computer science major with no experience or former interest in this topic, I have always wanted to become more creative in a hands-on manner. I have dabbled in creative writing, music, etc, but never much with visual arts or those with physically tangible outputs. Mediums such as embroidery, textiles, and dyeing seemed interesting, so this workshop caught my eye immediately.
Several of the attendees were environmentalists, artists, and educators who had a background in either natural dyeing or ecology, so I definitely was in awe of the amount of knowledge being introduced in the introductory conversations. In addition, I found some of the opinions voiced on sustainability, inequality, and the politics of invasive species to be extremely interesting.
For example, one attendee worked in Denver, Colorado, as a noxious plants specialist, but she spoke passionately about how the city's classification of "noxious" depended on the economics of the flora. She was often tasked to remove certain unsightly plants but felt it was a waste to uproot life because of human preference, and how the workshop piqued her interest because it would allow her an avenue to make use of the "unwanted" plants. To paraphrase the conversation: invasive species are not inherently bad, they are just better at surviving than the native species they compete with.
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| A terribly blurry picture of one of the presentation slides. As you can see, the workshop encouraged conversations about the motivations behind designating certain species as endemic or invasive. |
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| An image of kudzu, a classic example of an invasive species. |
Another facet of the presentation that intrigued me was the knowledge the hosts had about both the science and history behind dye-making. They summarized the most common plant dyes used by early civilizations, as well as how they were extracted. When the hands-on portion of the workshop began, they were asked about the hypothetical effects of adding vinegar, lemon peels, rum, or even baking soda to the simmering pot of plant fibers. It turned out the optimal pH of the solution used to boil out the colorants varied from plant to plant, and they ran through a variety of color palettes and the specific conditions that would generate them.
I found this workshop to be very helpful in my understanding of the applicability of class material. Although quite a few artists were in attendance, they pursued scientific knowledge to better the intensity of their dyes, or the efficiency of their processing. The woman from Denver, who seemed to have a background in ecology or botany, benefited from the artistic bent of producing dyes, as it balanced out the pragmatic nature of the science that culled invasive species for profit. I think this experience reinforced my belief that science and art are a package deal. Science may drive human progress, but art gives humans a reason to want to keep progressing.
Image Sources
Dyes: https://ignite.hepl.lib.in.us/natural-fabric-dyeing/
Kudzu: http://musingsofabiologistanddoglover.blogspot.com/2011/07/invasive-species-kudzu.html
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