The Art of Craft

Small craft advisory

As an artist, I aspire to be crafty.

Forget the misguided, and tragically oppressive Western narrative of ‘high art’ as somehow ‘enlightened’ and more valuable than the exquisite beauty found across all creative expression labeled as ‘craft’. 

If you can translate an idea from mind to hand, the material is immaterial – you are an artist - plain and simple.

My creative curiosity has led me down a crafty path or two, and I’m now enamored with one diversion so often associated with handiwork:  natural dyeing.

Some of my kitchen favorites for natural dye: avocado, turmeric, red cabbage and black bean.

While I could fight against the notion that this diminishes the value of my art, why would I entertain such a silly thought?

Nope.  I choose to celebrate, my artist friends, so let’s get crafting with natural color!

Color classics

Focusing on colors from nature in #The100DayProject has filled my fridge with an incredible rainbow of botanical dyes.

Dyes brewed from foraged plants and food scraps during #The100DayProject.

Every time I find a new plant to brew, I add to my collection.  When I see a color missing, I go searching for a plant.  It is a never-ending exploratory cycle.

10 dye plants foraged from Tambark Park and my garden waste to study local flora colors.

As I shared my project, and the art I created with these dyes, I could hear the buzz all around me as people became curious themselves.  Certainly interested, and maybe even inspired, to learn about natural dyes.

I get this.  I have a history of being intrigued myself.   It’s how this passion for organic color grew and how I learned what I know so far.  Ironically, it seems the more you know, the more you want to know.

Having had many of the same questions when I started my love affair with nature’s palette in 2017, I have been searching high and low for answers ever since.

When I learned from a Dutch artist that seaweed was a sustainable source of dye, I headed to Iceland to investigate.

And, because sharing is caring, I’m very excited to tell you a secret I’ve been keeping all to myself:

Starting in August 2020, I will be releasing short tutorial videos and mini-courses all about the incredible world of natural color.  My intention is to build a place where you can easily find the basics to get you inspired to add color to your life naturally.

Soon to be released YouTube channel, Cookin’ Color, with short video tutorials on organic dyes, August 2020.

The topic is HUGE.  There are so many options and different approaches to extracting color, plus a multitude of ways to use it.

For me, organic color has been an integral part of my installation practice, and more recently my mixed media work.  But a beautiful aspect of natural color is that it is available to everyone, no matter where you consider yourself on the art/craft spectrum.

Bioplastics cooked and cured with natural dyes in my kitchen studio in June 2020.

And, the botanical dye in my fridge right now is a perfect example of the countless ways we can weave natural color into almost everything.

Nature’s bounty

Finding a way to create color in an ephemeral installation without hurting an environment is how I got hooked on natural dyes.  But as my #100DaysOfNaturesColors meandered its way through botanical dyes and earth pigments, I could clearly see just how many different ways I have been exploring color from nature.  Maybe one or more of these will strike a creative chord with you too!

TEXTILE

Probably the most obvious and popular use of natural dyes is to create sumptuous hues for fabric.  With a growing interest of sustainability in fashion, botanical colors are popping up from head to toe.  If you’ve got natural fibers in your closet (cotton, hemp, silk, wool), you can dye organically – the options are endless.

Textiles of wool, silk, cotton and bamboo hand-dyed in Oaxaca exclusively with organic matter.

My first on-line workshop will be on how to create an ombre-dyed scarf from foods in your kitchen, and this fall, I will be teaching a similar technique using earth pigments.  Incorporating these rich colors into a wardrobe is a delicious way to get your art out of the house.

However, if knitting or weaving is more your speed, soaking yarn, string or ribbon in a batch of botanicals can create subtle sweetness.  Just look at the wonder of this wool I dyed in Mexico.

Wood hand-dyed in organic matter including indigo, muicle, pericon and cochineal in Oaxaca, Mexico.

While I preferred to use this fiber for installation, imagine a hat, scarf, mittens or sweater with that special colorful touch?

But who says you have to wear hand-dyed textiles?  My mom was an avid quilter which I’m certain has influenced my mixed media textile pieces and love of squares.

Naturally dyed textile piece, Blossom, created while on residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

How special it would have been to forage with my mom and organically dye fabric swatches for her to sew into her quilt creations.  Keep that in mind for the quilters in your life.

PAPER

Textile’s extended fiber family is paper.  The delicate translucency of paper has intrigued me for quite some time, both for sculptural and 2D applications.  In Oaxaca, I first tested how wet strength fibers like mulberry and tissue would hold the colors I had brewed, and it worked like a charm.

First time hand-dyeing paper with plant matter in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

So, one chunk of 10 days during #The100DayProject, I focused on creating collage with these dyed papers.  The variations of color, especially when layering, felt closely tied to the depth I love to create with overlays of silk in my textile pieces.

Hand-dyed paper collage backlit in Tambark Park, made exclusively from organic dyes foraged in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Feeling inspired, I foraged local ‘weeds’ in my beloved Tambark Park the last 10 days of the project and made a new rainbow stock of colorful paper from the PNW.

Paper samples of natural dyes brewed from foraged plants in my neighborhood. Only blue butterfly pea was from my kitchen!

What’s wonderful about paper is its versatility across several art disciplines, and a true staple in many craft projects.   Why not make hand-dyed paper with plants foraged from your neighborhood the next time the scissors and glue need some exercise?

INK

Dyeing paper is one way to spread some of nature’s colors around, but making ink turns just about any organic matter into a medium for drawing and watercolor fun.

I simply poured the dyes I brewed from foraged plants in Iceland and Mexico on paper, but learning how to make ink specifically was yet another way to expand my natural color wheel during the last 100 days.

Testing inks made from avocado skin and red cabbage during #The100DayProject.

I even made blue ink with my cherished blue butterfly pea blossoms for the first time, one of the most elusive colors of nature.

Watch out - lake pigments might be just around the next corner!

KITCHEN KRAFT

While all of the above may result in time at a craft table, a stovetop is still a critical element in a studio of natural dyes.  Therefore, it’s no surprise that crafts of the kitchen can also add a splash of organic color.

Much of my installation work was born in the kitchen - infused ice, mung bean and playdough have been some of my edible shining stars.

Mung bean string installation naturally dyed with kitchen scraps in Sayulita, Mexico, December 2018.

Brewing organic dyes as natural food coloring for baking, cooking and blended drinks is certainly a fun way to add color in the kitchen.  At the very least, you can start with next year’s Easter eggs having that natural color vibe.

This year’s Easter Eggs were dyed au naturel in turmeric, red beet, red cabbage, avocado and blue butterfly pea.

Plus, the kitchen is the perfect place to start playing with natural dyes in general.   So many fruits/veggies, spices and even food scraps can make wonderful colors with very simple recipes. 

In case you missed it this spring, download a copy of my Cookin’ Color brew booklet with a few of my favorite kitchen dye recipes, or better yet, sign up here for my 5 Days of Dye short video tutorial series releasing soon in a kitchen near you!

HEADING

Go ahead – call me crafty.  I don’t mind at all.

To be honest, I question why any negative association became attached to a word that honors the vision and skill it takes to create beauty with your hands.  To be an accomplished craftsperson is a lofty goal for any artist, and certainly one I aim for in my daily practice.

So, let’s keep spreading the art of craft in the world today!

10x10

Natural order

I’m a big fan of squares in my art.

To be more accurate, I should probably broaden that statement to say ‘I love parallelograms’ because rectangles and rhombi pop into my artwork as well.  Since a square is a kind of rectangle and rhombus, but neither a rectangle nor a rhombus is necessarily a square, I may want to be more inclusive of the linear shapes that have inspired me for decades.

All kinds of naturally dyed parallelograms playing on this canvas!

Side note:  Can you tell that I’ve been tutoring my son, Mason, in geometry this spring?

So, as I sat down to write this month’s Trail Tale to share my journey into #The100DayProject, I realized I was playing with squares again.  Only this time, in an algebraic way:  10x10=100, or more simply written 10².

Projection

When mixed media artist, Natalie Dadamio, suggested I try #The100DayProject this year, I thought it would be a fantastic way to deepen my commitment to my creative practice.  Knowing I would be grounded from travel, at least of the air variety, diving into 100 days of a focused art ‘project’ seemed like a wonderful way to enrich the time in my home studio.

We used to have a kitchen island, but that real estate is now gone, along with the dining room table.

But why 100 days, and how would this differ from the extensive hours in the ‘off-hours’ that I’ve already heavily invested in this crazy creative biz dream of mine?

Seems the consensus is as follows on the power of 100 days of focus:

• It is long enough to create a habit

• It is short enough to see the finish line

• It requires setting an achievable goal

• It demands planning to allocate time and space

• It is extremely helpful to break it up into manageable micro-steps

Coincidentally, three of my 2020 goals are hovering right now in the 100 day range.  Making healthy nutrition choices, increasing movement and meditating have become daily habits.  Ways of living that seemed to elude me throughout the years are wonderfully entrenched in my world today.

And, I’m at least 10x10 times happier.

All smiles on the cochineal farm in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

 100 days of art….bring it on!

Hash it out

First thing first was to decide what my 100 Day Project focus would be.  As you may have noticed, I suffer from a kind of creative distraction disorder.  My artwork crosses all kinds of discipline and medium lines as my curiosity drags me from one to another and back again.

So, how was I to choose just one of my many passions?

Easy:  #100DaysOfMultiPassion

But, in an effort to corral those multi-passions of mine into a more cohesive project, I needed a theme.

One idea came to me naturally:  #100DaysOfColorsFromNature

The rainbow of mineral pigments I foraged while on residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, March 2020.

Now, with not one, but two hashtags declaring my project, there was one tiny manageable micro-step I had to take.

Breaking it all down by 10.

Chunky monkey

As I hit publish on this blog, I’m about to celebrate my 25th day – one quarter done! For those of you following my adventures on Instagram, you have had a preview of where these 100 days are meandering.  For those of you on Facebook – sorry!

Breaking the project down into 10 days each of 10 different ‘topics’ surrounding natural color felt like the perfect solution to keep me on task.  Plus, I argued, it would allow me to truly explore all of the ways nature’s palette has inspired my art.

Pigment color studies from the regions of Peru where we explored and foraged in June/July 2019.

If you’ve read this far, you are in for a sneak peek of the full 10x10 plan.  Plus, I’ll throw in a little commentary and few more photos of chunks 1 and 2 (Days 1-20) which have already flown by:

Days 1-10: Natural dyes

• I may have started using organic colors in ice, but the list of materials I have dyed from nature also include textile, paper, bioplastics and even eggs.  I may have left out mung bean and dough in this project, but I added a new piece to the dye mix – ink!

Cookin’ colors in the kitchen to make inks from red cabbage, black bean, avocado skins and turmeric.

Days 11-20: Mineral pigments

• Over the past 1.5 years, I widened my color scope to include the earth beneath my traveling feet.  Each day, I shared some of the subtle hues I foraged from 7 unique locations:  Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California on the west coast, Pennsylvania to the east and Mexico and Peru to the south.

Pigmented stones foraged along Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, PA, July 2019.

Days 21-30: Textile colors

• I’m midstream in the 3rd chunk and creation is underway.  Every day I’m building a quick color study with textile remnants I have collected from larger pieces I built in Oaxaca.  The idea is to push the design from a limited natural palette in a small space.

Textile Stack Series of quick color studies during #The100DayProject. Drop me a line to purchase.

If you want a piece of the action, each one of these mixed media works on canvas is for sale at $40.

What a steal of a deal!

Now the next 7 chunks are part of the plan, but I reserve the right to make adjustments along the way:

Days 31-40: Installation – I will place 10 new naturally colored sculpture clusters within 0.5 miles of my house.

Days 41-50: Oaxaca Minis – I will build 10 new 8x8 textile works on canvas from the full Oaxaca color range.

Days 51-60: Bioplastics –  I will brew up all kinds of wonder with gelatin, algae and botanical dyes.

Translucency and botanical dyes all wrapped up in bioplastics.

Days 61-70: Monoprints – I’ve wanted to explore this technique, so I plan to create 10 pieces using only natural colors.

Days 71-80: Three shape challenge - Textile

Days 81-90: Three shape challenge - Monoprint

Days 91-100: Three shape challenge:  Installation

Let’s just say the last 3 chunks are meant to hold my feet to the ‘simplicity’ fire. 

The same artist who enticed me to join #The100DayProject (Natalie Dadamio), also challenged me to ONLY use three shapes in my work during the 100 days.  I figured 3 chunks totaling 30 days fit perfectly into the 3 shapes theme.

The 3 primary colors very cooly represented by turmeric, red beet and blue butterfly pea infused ice.

These three are for you, Natalie!

Cubism

Riding shotgun to my 100 days, Mason has found a teeny space for his geometry book on the dining table that is now smack dab in the middle of my studio, aka our kitchen.

We started solving for volume this past week.  All of the 2 dimensional shapes have introduced their 3 dimensional siblings:  spheres, cones, pyramids and cylinders.

 And yes, the glorious square is full of pride and flaunting its cube cousin just to make me smile!

My trusty installation travel buddies: earth pigment painted paper pulp blocks. Stack ‘em up!

I sure do love cubes…naturally.

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.