FEEDBACK FRIDAY Videos

FEEDBACK FRIDAY was a bi-weekly show featuring Botanical Colors’ President Kathy Hattori and Sustainability + Communications Director Amy DuFault. Every week, Kathy and Amy spoke with dyers, artists, scientists, writers and scholars about their favorite topic, natural dyeing and color.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY surpassed 130 episodes and went live in May 2020, two months into the pandemic lockdown. Both Kathy and Amy realized there was a need to gather community in a creative space with artists worldwide scared, lonely, quarantined and unable to take a class or workshop for inspiration. The result was overwhelming with well over 12,000 people having attended a presentation live at least once but many have been to more than half.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY presentations are now viewed worldwide as part of college and university curriculum, natural dye and fiber organization conferences, education for global brands and independent designers and Amy and Kathy’s favorite group, the attendees in different time zones who would set their alarms to wake in the middle of the night to watch it live.

Thank you so much for all the support you gave us during our show! You can watch all of the video recordings below or head to YouTube where we continue to download episodes.

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Social Artist + Activist Ellie Irons

Last week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY, we welcomed socially engaged artist and educator Ellie Irons. Ellie talked about her Feral and Invasive Pigments project, a public fieldwork, writing, and studio-based project that revolves around making watercolor paint from the leaves, petals, and berries of the spontaneous plant beings (aka weeds) who thrive in areas heavily impacted by urbanization, industrialization, and climate change. Watch the recording below. Links: Instagram Website About Ellie Irons: Ellie Irons is an artist and educator living and working on Mohican land in current-day Troy, New York, USA. From foraged watercolor paintings to un-lawning experiments, her work combines … Read more

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Maibe Maroccolo of Matricaria Maps Brazilian Dye Plants

Last week, we welcomed Brazil-based artist and educator Maibe Maroccolo of Matricaria who is mapping Brazil’s dye plants. Maibe’s most recent work has been focused on mapping and sharing both the wisdom of plants from Brazil and preserving the traditional methods of their uses. Her mapping project has become official as the Research Project of Flora Brasileira Tintorial. Watch the recording below. All links to Maibe Maroccolo: Website Instagram Facebook YouTube Pinterest About Maibe: Maibe is an artist and educator. She holds a masters in sustainable development from the University of Arts London. After a period of studies and specializations … Read more

VIDEO From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Marta Abbott

Last week was our 100th episode of FEEDBACK FRIDAY and we welcomed Rome-based, Czech-American artist Marta Abbott. Marta uses “organic, botanical materials to extract and convey that which she finds essential to the human experience of nature and beauty. Marta does this through combing concept with intuition, elements of control with those of contained chaos, and with eyes scanning both earth and sky, seeking ways to interpret that which links the two.” Watch the recording here: Marta’s website Instagram In the Studio: Marta Abbott Shop our dye inks here! ARTIST STATEMENT Marta Alexandra Abbott is a Czech-American artist in Rome. … Read more

Construction Techniques with Aboubakar Fofana: Create a Pair of Stripcloth Trousers

Video From Aboubakar Fofana (LIVE) Bamako Studio Tour!

Last time on FEEDBACK FRIDAY, we welcomed back Malian artist, educator, indigo farmer and friend, Aboubakar Fofana. Aboubakar took us for a live tour of his Bamako studio where we saw him harvest indigo, do some indigo dyeing, got to meet his artisans and see all the amazingness that is Aboubakar on his home turf. We received so many nice emails from people expressing how wonderful this episode was. You won’t want to miss it. More about Aboubakar and his summer residency with us: Botanical Colors is pleased to announce that we are hosting Aboubakar Fofana for a month-long 2022 … Read more

VIDEO From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Zak Foster Quilts

Last week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY, we had the amazing, thoughtful, community building, textile whisperer, Zak Foster of Zak Foster Quilts. Raised in rural North Carolina and now living in Brooklyn, New York, Zak is a self-taught artist whose work draws on Southern textile traditions while incorporating found fabrics and natural dyes with an eye for sustainability. He practices an approach to design that is intuitive and improvisational and he is drawn to preserving the stories of quilts and specializes in memory quilts and burial quilts. His work has been featured in various magazines, websites, and galleries. His online community, The … Read more

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Masagana Flower Farm & Studio

Last week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY, we had Manitoba, Canada based Lourdes Still talking about the Masagana Flower Farm & Studio. According to Here’s How It’s Done: First-hand Stories From Enterprising Women In Manitoba, “Lourdes Still is the first to admit it’s a winding road that landed her in business. She’s gone from big-city living in the Philippines to rural life in south-eastern Manitoba. From growing flowers on the balcony of her city apartment to launching Masagana Flower Farm & Studio. There’s no doubt that it takes ambition and a lot of hard work to run a small scale flower farm … Read more

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Fish Skin Tanner + Dyer Lotta Nelson-Rahme

Last week we welcomed world-renowned fish skin tanner and dyer, Sweden-based Lotta Nelson-Rahme. Lotta took us on an interesting journey into how she got into tanning and her travels around the world in search of knowledge. She also showed some leather work and a spotlight on an exhibition she recently made to honor and thank the women who share their knowledge with her. Lotta also went into more detail about tanning fish skins and how she dyes the skins using heather, rhubarb, pine cones and iron. We got lots of emails and messages on social media about how much you … Read more

Video From Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Carol Padberg

Last week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY we welcomed artist, writer, educator and founding director of the Nomad MFA Carol Padberg. Carol has an art and ecology studio where she weaves with living Oyster mushrooms, using yarn that is colored by plants from her backyard dye garden. She uses regenerative agricultural strategies to maintain a city micro-farm called Nook Farm House. Carol Padberg’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY presentation took us into the world of interspecies art, in which a flock of sheep, a dye garden, soil organisms, Oyster mushrooms and a human being weave their stories together. The resulting living textile art is designed … Read more

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: The Art Of Soil

On our last FEEDBACK FRIDAY we had Karen Vaughan of The Art of Soil. Karen is a researcher, educator, and creative who is passionate about sharing soils knowledge and beauty with all who are open to receive. She is a pigment forager and paint maker as well as an associate professor of pedology at the University of Wyoming. Karen has long been fascinated by color – from the information we gather from color to the way it makes us feel and the unique connections we all have with color. Through the Art of Soil, she crafts watercolor paint made with … Read more

Video From FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Shradha Kochhar

On our last FEEDBACK FRIDAY we had Shradha Kochhar. Shradha, born in Delhi, India, is a textile artist and knitwear designer now based in New York. Best known for her home spun and hand knitted ‘khadi’ sculptures using ‘kala cotton’ – an inherently organic cotton strain indigenous to India, her work is at an intersection of material memory, sustainability and intergenerational healing. Focusing on generating a physical archive of personal and collective south Asian narratives linked to women’s work, invisible labor and grief, the work is large scale and will exist beyond whispers over generations. Check out Shradha’s work on … Read more