aboubakar fofana

Botanical Colors is pleased to announce that we are hosting Aboubakar Fofana for a month-long 2022 artist-in-residency here in Seattle! Aboubakar will be teaching classes of West African traditional dyeing and stitching techniques as well as hosting a community indigo dip, farm talk and a public trunk show of his goods. “Born in Mali and […]

Last week, we had The Color Association of the U.S. (CAUS) plus an Aboubakar Fofana trunk show! Leslie Harrington, Executive Director of CAUS and Tess Murdoch, Senior Trend Analyst gave us some background history on CAUS and talked about how forecasting is changing and also, how they just launched their very first natural dye collection […]

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with indigo master dyer and multidisciplinary artist Aboubakar Fofana. Aboubakar is based in Mali and France and updated us on his latest projects including cotton cultivation in Mali. He also talked about his indigo farm, exhibits and the workshops he is teaching with Botanical Colors this spring and summer. Watch […]

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with LaChaun Moore on Ethnographic Fiber + Dyes From Black & Indigenous Farmers. Watch the video recording here: Some links from the presentation: Gist Yarn & Fiber’s Weave podcast, co-hosted by LaChaun Moore LaChaun’s articles from the Tishman Environment & Design Center Kathy and Amy who were interviewed on that […]

Donate to our Dye Hard T-shirt Fundraiser Collaboration with The Toronto Ink Company to help us provide scholarships to workshops with cultural treasures and natural dye masters. We’ve wanted to collaborate with Jason Logan, the founder of The Toronto Ink Company for a long time. What started out as an inside joke about his “dye […]

Indigo gradation from Aboubakar Fofana’s workshop on indigo.  The vat is a 7gpl fructose vat. Diving into indigo blue We have been working with the 1-2-3 indigo vat for nearly 10 years and over time made some adjustments to the original recipe from Michel Garcia. Here we share a recent experiment where we set up […]

Adire Eleko, 20th century Nigeria, Yoruba Factory woven plain weave cloth, cassava paste resist with indigo dye Gift of the Christensen Fund, Seattle Art Museum FEEDBACK FRIDAY has meant so much to Kathy and I, and we know it means a lot to you too. We so appreciate all the emails and notes you send […]

This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Aboubakar Fofana. We got to take a walk through Aboubakar’s art and life’s work through a visually stunning slideshow as well as a mini-film featuring his farm in Mali, West Africa. We’ve never had more emails thanking us for giving access to such an […]

This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring natural dyer and artist Cara Marie Piazza. Cara took us through her process foraging for and utilizing flower and food waste in Brooklyn. We also just opened up registration for two online classes with Cara Marie Piazza taking place June 6th and June 27th […]

This week: scouring, reducing, hydrating and are fresh flowers better than dry flowers for natural dyeing?