We had such a great response to John’s two workshops that he’s graciously agreed to add a third workshop experience.  We are thrilled to host our dear friend and natural dye collaborator in a rare in-person appearance and invite you to experience his humor and artistic expertise with Japanese textile and dye techniques.

Experience The Colors of Tangier at The Mothership.
In this workshop you will be immersed in Moroccan culture, textiles, dye plants and in free creative play. You will be guided in a methodical approach to color building, using the natural dyes growing at the Mothership in Tangier, by Cara Piazza, a New York City based natural dyer and artist. In addition, you will have guided studio time for interdependent creative exploration of natural dye techniques. You will also have ample time to experience and explore the city, including visits to markets, artisans’ coops, and meeting local artists. She will be accompanied by Megumi Arai who will be assisting as part of the Botanical Colors team. Through this experience you will leave with a knowledge of how to extract color from raw natural dye stuffs, mordant (pre-treat your fiber to be able to take the dye), mix natural dye colors to make new exciting hues and leave having created your own swatch library testing the colors of Tangier. Cara will also cover how to shift your natural dyes you forage from the land with pH modifiers along with demonstrating eco – printing & how to make cosmic prints. 

Description Sign up for The Nerd’s Guide To Mordants on the Sanborn Mills Farm website. $700, Aug 14, 2024 – August 18, 2024 (9am – 5pm) This is the nerd’s guide to mordants – what they are, why they are important and how they are used in natural dyeing. Everyone wants to create long-lasting and beautiful plant color and the best way to do that is to mordant properly.  The class will experiment with the most popular plant-based tannins and alum accumulators, mineral salt mordants and other binders to see the effects on animal and plant fibers. Each mordant variable will be dyed so that we ... Read more