Offered: date to be announced
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Rebecca Burgess

If you are a knitter, weaver or clothing maker and would like to dye yarns or fabric with local plants, this workshop is for you! Experience how modern dye recipes of our most common and abundant local plant species can be used to create beautiful and elegant color.

Dye colors will reflect the time of year, and the place in which they were dyed. Coyote brush yellow, toyon orange, black walnut brown, aspen leaf mustard, Japanese indigo blue, pokeberry pink…. The plant colors will breathe a new, local, and beautiful aesthetic into your fibers and cloth. 

Land-use history, fibersheds, and dye gardens are overviewed in the one-day workshop.

Read more about the Fiber Arts track of RDI's Re-Skilling series!

Workshop Instructor: Rebecca Burgess

Rebecca is a fifth-generation Marin resident who graduated from UC Davis in art history and nature and culture. While in the central valley, she spent time studying at DQ Native American University. Searching for art outside the academic canon, she found a Native American basket weaver.  The artistry, ecology, and function of the native baskets became her inspiration.  While traveling throughout the United States and Asia she found remnants of ecologically focused textile art traditions.  Through each investigation she became increasingly inspired to begin a local tradition within her own bio-region. Ecological Arts was born in 2004: an organization dedicated to creating, reviving, and teaching art forms that use resources to promote thriving eco-systems.  Read more about Rebecca.

Workshop Fees

Class size is limited - register early!

$95 class fee