Brian Slattery Photos
A dozen students gathered around a long table in a second-floor studio in Creative Arts Workshop on Thursday evening, busily preparing strips of white fabric with woodblocks, clothespins, and rubber bands. CAW instructor Annie Trowbridge moved from one student to the other, pouring on ideas, humor, and enthusiasm. On the other side of the room, smelling of ammonia, was a bucket containing one of the most well-known and beloved natural dyes in the world. Before the class was over, that color would transform several yards of fabric and maybe change a perspective or two.
The class was “Shades of Blue,” a one-session class that offered an introduction to “the ancient and beautiful practice of indigo dyeing,” as the description of the course put it. “Indigo traditions come from all over the world and have developed into countless complex and surprising patterns. Experience the process from start to finish, beginning with choosing a pattern and knotting the fabric, and moving to submerging, rinsing, and revealing your work. The organic nature of the dye makes for not only beautiful patterns and shades of blue, but the unique experience of working with a living material from the natural world. Join us … as we practice an ancient and lively tradition to make bold patterns and gorgeous shades of blue.”
Trowbridge recommended we dye at least two pieces — “a trial piece and a real piece” — and offered materials to make several different patterns. By folding the fabric like an accordion in either square or triangular shapes, then fixing the top and bottom of the resulting bundle with blocks of wood, we could make repeating geometric patterns. Elastic or rubber bands could be used to create stripes and circles. Clothespins could create small white rectangles in a pattern by blocking the fabric underneath from being dyed. “Anything where there’s a clip or a block will be white and the rest will be blue,” she said.
But she also offered wisdom leavened with humor. “You learn by the end of this session what you actually want to do — which is the worst feeling,” she joked. “The thing about dyeing is that it never turns out like you expect, which is the beauty of it.”
The students, mostly experienced crafters, but some novices (like this reporter), got to work on the first round of fabrics, everyone manipulating lengths of cotton in a spirit of experimentation. As we prepared our pieces, Trowbridge got the dye ready, which required combining indigo, extracted from the leaves of the indigo plant, with ammonia. “You’ll see soon that the dye really smells. It smells like pee,” she said. Traditionally in Japan, in fact, indigo dye was made using urine. Trowbridge also offered information that further prepared us for the ways in which our designs might not go strictly according to plan.
Indigo, she explained, “is a living organism. You actually have to feed indigo if you want to keep it alive.” Professional dyers keep their vats of indigo alive by feeding them sugar, and in return “the vat gets richer and richer blue over time,” she said. “There are vats in Japan that are 300 years old.” But even fresh batches of indigo dye could produce that particular shade of blue that, it was said, was the most calming color. And while the dye would lighten over the course of the class, she said, “it’s all beautiful.”
She demonstrated the living nature of the dye with a test piece of fabric, which she prepared and then dipped in the dye. When she pulled it out, the fabric was a light green. “It’s green at first because it has to oxidize,” she said, rinsing off the excess in the sink. “As I rinse it, it’s turning blue.”
Trowbridge handed out rubber gloves to the class. By then the students had gotten their test pieces ready and were eager to give it a try. Many experimented with different woodblock shapes and clothespins. I decided to try making stripes, using accordion folds and rubber bands. On a whim, I also only partly dipped the fabric in the dye, to see what the margin from color to color might look like. As we rinsed and then unfolded the pieces, revealing the patterns, the room filled with oooohs and ahhhhs.
This, as it turned out, was one of the main advantages of doing a dye class instead of simply getting dye yourself: it allowed you to see the results of multiple experiments.
Inspired, the class quickly got to work on the second round of dyeing. I had brought a pair of cotton pajama bottoms that I intended to create indigo stripes on. My system failed, and I ended up with a mostly uniform color. But even that had its own beauty, a mottled surface and that classic shade. Other students had richer successes. One participant used multiple techniques on a single shirt to produce a garment with a certain pattern of stripes on the body and a different pattern on the sleeves (“this is a whole frontier, you guys,” Trowbridge said). Other pieces of fabric emerged with startling geometric patterns on it. One student created a smoky mosaic of seemingly shifting patches of blue, white, and gray, that drew the admiration of the entire class. As the corner of the studio filled with that unmistakable hue, Trowbridge beamed.
“You can do this on your own,” she said, but “you learn by doing this with other people.”
Visit Creative Arts Workshop’s website for information on many other classes on offer. Trowbridge is offering another indigo dyeing workshop at MakeHaven on Sept. 7.
"Slavery wasn't even legal in Georgia until indigo became the main export in South Carolina," says Hardy. "The [British] governors in Georgia decided to legalize slavery to keep the indigo industry going."
Indigo cultivation carries so much historical trauma. Paying homage to the lives lost and lives ruined during this period is called for, because, if slaves had not cultivated this crop, this activity in this article would have never have happened.
Nobody is blaming anyone for the past, but ignorance of the past is what is off putting. Pay homage where it is due.