sunday visit Archives - Page 3 of 3

Sunday Visit: Julie Beeler of Mushroom Color Atlas

For this week’s Sunday Visit we caught up with Julie Beeler of the Mushroom Color Atlas. Julie is a designer, artist, educator and Oregonian who grew up with a deep love for and curiosity about the natural world. Julie says she experiments with the unpredictability of plants and fungi by growing and harvesting, observing and foraging, as well as tethering herself to nature’s seasons. You might know remember Julie from her FEEDBACK FRIDAY presentation or her Mushroom Color Atlas poster and dye marks we sell. You might also just know here from taking one of her incredible classes. She has … Read more

Sunday Visit: Botanical Colors’ Lead Dyer, Kentaro Kojima

For this week’s Sunday Visit we catch up with Kentaro Kojima, Botanical Colors’ Lead Production Dyer. Kentaro is the color magician behind many of the projects we do with fashion brands and he’s also multi-talented. In addition to being born into a textile and dye family, he has carved his own artistic niche as a stone sculptor, educator and curator. We’re so proud to have someone as talented and kind as Kentaro on our team. Let’s learn more about him… Can you tell me a bit about your background as an artist and how you landed at Botanical Colors?I am … Read more

Sunday Visit: Hannah Regier’s Vermont Landcestors

For this week on Sunday Visit, we spend some time with Vermont-based fiber artist/land conservationist Hannah Regier. Hannah is a second generation professional craftsperson, a small scale homesteader, and “a third or more generation fiber worker.” She says her work is not about any “virtuosity of technique or adherence to current fashions” but more towards exploring how she can be of service to the natural materials she works with and the environment. Hannah will be sharing her practice and the evolution of her work this week on FEEDBACK FRIDAY focusing on her latest project, Landcestors which was supported by a creation … Read more

Sunday Visit: Exploring Korean Bojagi With Youngmin Lee

For this week’s Sunday Visit, we catch up with Youngmin Lee, a textile artist that uses the bojagi tradition and techniques to create her work. After she moved to California in 1996, she actively worked on preserving the Korean bojagi tradition that embodies the philosophy of recycling and up-cycling. She is currently working closely with the Asian American community on community engaged projects and workshops at the Asian Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Saint Louis Art Museum. Her new book, Bojagi: The Art of Korean Textiles with Techniques and Projects, is coming out in 2024. Obviously, … Read more

Sunday Visit: In The Mountains of North Carolina With Catharine Ellis

Thanks for spending some time with us today for this special Sunday Visit with Catharine Ellis. You might know Catharine Ellis as the author of what many call their “natural dye bible” The Art and Science of Natural Dyes: Principles, Experiments, and Results. Co-written with textile engineer and chemist Joy Boutrup, the book is a comprehensive guide that explains the general principles of natural dyeing. We’re excited that she just launched a companion to this in the form of The Studio Formulas Set for The Art and Science of Natural Dyes. Catharine has been a weaver and a natural dyer … Read more

Sunday Visit With Botanical Colors’ President Kathy Hattori

We are so excited to announce that Botanical Colors was awarded one of five technical assistance grants from Fibers Fund, a project of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) and Fibershed with Mission Driven Finance. All five grants were given to support and grow U.S. fiber, textile, and dye businesses. Botanical Colors joins Oregon-based Fibrevolution profiled in the SAFSF Fibers Roadmap Case Studies. Both businesses have helped inform the development of the Fibers Fund from the beginning. The next set of grants supports a critical new group of businesses for the Fibers Fund, the Black Fiber Cohort. This … Read more

A woman with dark hair sitting on a table, surrounded by green plants

Sunday Visit With “Ice Queen” Cara Marie Piazza

For this week on Sunday Visit, we catch up with Cara Marie Piazza, a natural dyer and artisan working in New York City. She creates one of a kind textiles only using natural dye stuffs such as botanicals, plant matter, minerals, non-toxic metals and food waste. She treats her fabrics through alchemical dye sessions, ancient shibori techniques and bundle dyeing, transforming each textile into its very own story. She also teaches workshops on natural dyeing for us at Botanical Colors as well as being our Creative Ambassador! We are so grateful she is working with us. She’s a busy person … Read more

Sunday Visit With Artist & Educator Natalie Stopka

This week for Sunday Visit, we caught up with artist and educator Natalie Stopka (the mad scientist of lake pigments), in her upstate New York studio. In said studio, there are jars and vials of unusual color and tools for making extraordinary art. Natalie is pretty darn clear that these jars aren’t for show. They’re not time capsules of color. They’re 100% for making art and pushing what color and pigment can do. And after following her for years, we also love the dichotomy that is Natalie Stopka. That she loves lightfastness and fading. That she can talk about synthetic … Read more