Learn to make dyes from local plants & print with them on fabrics

Join us at the beautiful Fibershed Learning Center on Black Mountain Ranch near Point Reyes Station for a two-day workshop with textile artist, anthropologist, and storyteller Karen Hampton. The workshop runs from 10 am to 4 pm each day.

In Karen’s words: “As a natural dyer and printmaker, I am interested in sharing printmaking techniques with natural dyes. In this workshop, we will make dyes from plants local to the San Francisco Bay Area and found within the beautiful natural landscape of West Marin County.

“A long time ago, I apprenticed with Master Dyer Ida Grae and worked in her dye garden, learning many of the secrets of the plants found in Marin. We will also discuss what you are growing in your garden and which dyes plants are light and colorfast. I will address the ethical issues of harvesting plant material from the wild vs. using extracts.

“We will use natural dyes to create surfaces on cloth and then print with thickened dyes. I encourage all participants to bring natural fiber garments or fabric to repurpose into something new.”

Enroll here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/400373145857

Fibershed Scholarship Program

Fibershed is offering two scholarships to most workshops; one scholarship if it’s a small class. If you would not otherwise be able to attend, and would like to be considered as a scholarship recipient, please answer a few brief questions on this Google Form. Responses will be reviewed by Learning Center staff and kept strictly confidential.

Karen Hampton

“As an artist of color, I have made a life long commitment to creating artwork that responds to the lives of my ancestors. My lens is anthropology and I study my own genealogy. I travel in my ancestors footsteps, I walk the roads where they lived, explored the plantations where they were enslaved, I am the storyteller. As their medium I provide a vehicle for my ancestor’s spirits to transcend history and remain as historical memory. My medium is cloth — whether digitally printed, hand woven or aged linens — pieces are imbued with the hopes and visions of African American lives, telling their stories from a maternal perspective.”

Karen was a speaker at the 2021 Fibershed Wool & Fine Fiber Symposium (see video here: https://fibershed.org/2022/02/18/fibershed-2021-symposium-presentation-by-karen-hampton-conversation-between-karen-hampton-and-teju-adisa-farrar/. When asked by writer Teju Adisa-Farrar why she picked textiles as a medium, Karen responded:

“Textiles were the natural thing. My grandmother had been a seamstress in New York, and my mother, who was an accountant, was happy when she was in the sewing room. As I child, I did anything to get into the sewing room. I was sewing my own wardrobe by the time I was in 9th grade. My ancestors picked me and put me where they wanted me to be to have the opportunity to learn to weave when I was 17. That was the moment when I knew I was going to do that for the rest of my life.”

Karen’s website: kdhampton.com

Images courtesy of Karen Hampton.
Top, left to right:

• Renda, 2016. Repurposed cotton textile, pigment, natural dye, cotton thread. 64” x 58”
• Karen Hampton
• The Dancer, 2016. Repurposed cotton textile, pigment, cotton thread. 64” x 58”
• Background above and in its entirety below: Prayers for Flint, 2017. Cotton, linen, synthetic and natural dyes, pigment, dye sublimation printing. 66” x 90”.