Do you have blue spruce in your neighborhood? If so, grab yourself a few boughs and chop them up in your dye pot! By adding iron water to your brew, you can coax out the bluish tint from this evergreen to create gorgeous cool grays. This tutorial will show you how to identify & brew dye from a blue spruce, shift color with iron water and the resulting color swatch samples (cotton, bamboo & silk) with various mordants.
Pine & Spruce Branch Dye
Picking up downed evergreen branches of pine & spruce trees not only cleans up your yard, but can be repurposed into some beautiful colors in your dye pot. The natural tannin in the branches will give you a beige color on textile, but with the addition of all-in-one mordant of alum & iron water, you can achieve olive greens and rich browns as well. This tutorial will show you how to brew dye from foraged pine & spruce branches and expand your palette with an all-in-one mordant technique, plus the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk).
Birch Bark Dye
Join me on a foraging trip (Part 2) in the beautiful mountains of Central Idaho to search for color from birch trees. Learn to identify and differentiate birch from aspen and how to ethically collect birch bark for your dye pot. The natural tannins in bark bond wonderfully with textile and create a range of beige and tan colors. After exploring the landscape of the Big Wood River in search of birch, this tutorial will show you how to brew dye with the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants. As an added bonus, you will learn how to create an all-in-one mordant within the dye itself to expand your color palette.
Pine & Spruce Cone Dye
Join me on a foraging trip (Part 1) in the beautiful mountains of Central Idaho to search for color from conifer trees. Learn to identify pine and spruce cones and how to ethically collect them for your dye pot. The tannins in cones bond wonderfully with textile and create a range of beige colors with orange and pink hues. After exploring the landscape of the Sawtooth and Boulder mountains in search of cones, this tutorial will show you how to brew dye with the resulting color swatch samples (cotton & silk) with various mordants.
The heART of Idaho
In the flow
Sunbeam, an old ghost mining town on the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River, is the geographical center of Idaho. What a perfect name to describe an area of the world that has been shining it’s light on my heART for 50 years.
Just up the river is a town called Stanley, a mere stone’s throw to Redfish Lake, a place where my family spent many summers exploring the pine forests and mountain trails of the Sawtooth National Forest. We were like the sockeye salmon of the past, the red fish, returning year after year to splash in its crystal clear waters.
Earth pigment paper pulp installed in Redfish Lake near Stanley, Idaho, August 2019.
If you keep swimming up the Salmon River to the south (yes, it primarily flows north!), the source of its bubbling coolness is hidden near Galena Summit.
Will always stop at Galena Summit to take this breathtaking view all in!
Carrying tire tubes around our waists and sneakers on our feet, we hunted down the perfect rapids to freeze our bums as we floated our way back towards Stanley.
Now, descending the other side of Galena, you enter the Boulder Mountain Range and the headwaters of the Big Hole River. Flowing right past Easley Hot Springs, our family’s cabin still stands among the trees, although we haven’t owned it for decades.
The rustic cabin my family owned near Easley Hot Springs where special memories were made.
That doesn’t stop us from still soaking in the mineral pool…
Mason and Zsofi having a soak with their cousins at Easley Hot Springs near Ketchum, Idaho.
Wandering up a nearby forest service road, you find yourself along Boulder Creek in the midst of an aspen grove. Among all of this endless beauty, however, this place is now where my heART of Idaho truly lies.
Mason out exploring the road that leads to my mom’s resting place near Boulder Creek, Idaho.
Colorfast
There is no doubt that installation would have taken me to Idaho one day, but to create artwork in loving memory of my mom and her resting place was a beautiful honor. With very little time to prepare, I let the earth be my guide: organic dyes I brewed from avocado and lichen, natural pigments from around the world and all kinds of stone.
Preparing installation of hand-dipped paper in home-brewed avocado and lichen dye.
As luck would have it, the natural color palette hovered in the ochre and hematite family: rich yellows, deep oranges and earthy reds. Ochre has a strong history of being offered to ancestral spirits for their journey in the after-life. My mom received the same beautiful offering.
Earth pigment paper pulp stacked on a boulder bursting with minerals, Little Redfish Lake, Idaho, August 2019.
Substrates of paper and it’s pulp, ice and river stone held each subtle color that nature provided for my mom.
Ice installation infused with lichen and avocado dye, Big Wood River, near Ketchum, Idaho, August 2019.
Rock on
From Redfish to Boulder Creek, I spent quiet reflective time exploring each site that has brought me so much joy and helped fuel my love of vast landscapes. My family, however, has always been by my side in Idaho, so sharing an installation that we could build together was the ultimate gift.
Collecting stone from the Salmon River with my loved ones, we each painted a personal creation with mineral pigment to leave by my mom near Boulder Creek.
River stones of the Salmon River collected and ready to paint. Can you see my heART stone?
My family gathered for an evening of river stone painting with earth pigments and walnut oil, Ketchum, Idaho.
Each step along the way held a sacred visual and emotional transformation.
The uniquely beautiful works of rock art by each member of the Willms Family ready for my mom’s memorial on August 13th, 2019.
The river stones will forever adorn the forest floor at the base of the small pine tree we planted for my mom’s ashes to nurture in the rich Idaho soil.
My mom’s resting place among the pines and aspen of Boulder Creek, Idaho, August 13th, 2019.
I left my heART…
For me, the heART and soul of Idaho is just up the river and over the pass from Sunbeam. The feel of ice cold water rushing through my toes, the smell of sagebrush warmed by the sun, and the sound of the wind rustling in the trees will always bring me right back. I’m forever grateful that my mom and her family brought me here so I could fall in love with such an amazing place and leave my creative installation behind.
My heART stone just for my mom, Boulder Creek, Idaho, August 13th, 2019. I love you, Mom!
Now I have the joy of returning to sit quietly with my mom under the whispering aspen and watch as her tree grows towards the deep blue sky.