Our last FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with textile artist and natural dyer Sara Goodman whose textile background is pretty prolific including helping to get the Symplocos Project off the ground in Indonesia, serving on the Board of Directors of the Goodweave Foundation and teaching for decades the art of weaving and natural dyeing. Sara talked about her work and travels in pursuit of textiles around the world and now as Dye Studio Manager at New Hampshire based Sanborn Mills Farm’s being part of a team teaching traditional crafts and farming methods. Did we mention she also just co-founded the Northern New England Fibershed?
2022 Fiber & natural dye classes at Sanborn Mills Farm
Watch the recording below.
About Sara:
Sanborn Mills Farm, Loudon, New Hampshire
Sara Goodman is a textile artist with a studio in Center Harbor, New Hampshire on Squam Lake. She has been working with Sanborn Mills Farm to establish the natural dye studio at the farm since 2018 and will be its lead teacher. Over 17 years ago Sara stopped using chemical dyes and dedicated herself to using only natural dyes in her work. She felt the times demanded a closer examination of process and an effort to do whatever she could to work sustainably in terms of her methods and materials.
Her work has been featured in major textile art publications and shown in national and international exhibitions such as Julie’s Artisans Gallery in New York, the Cambridge Artists’s Collective in Massachusetts, the Textile Society of America conference held at SCAD in Savannah, Georgia and Living with Craft at the Sunapee Craft Fair in New Hampshire. She is a juried member of the League of NH Craftsmen.
Sara has traveled throughout the world in the pursuit of textiles: to Guatemala, Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, Nepal, India, and China. This travel has eventually involved her in projects with local artisans; for example helping to get the Symplocos Project off the ground in Indonesia.
Sara served for six years on the Board of Directors of the Goodweave Foundation — an NGO dedicated to eliminating child slave labor in the handmade carpet industry in South Asia. After her board term ended in 2012, she was invited to design a collection of handwoven carpets, based on her original shibori designs, for Khawachen Inner Asia in Hanover, NH. Then in November of 2014 she attended the World Shibori Conference in Hangzhou, China where she delivered a paper entitled, “Weaving Hope: Goodweave Certified Shibori Designed Carpets”. Three or her pieces — two carpets and one handwoven, shibori lined coat — were in the exhibition held at the National Silk Museum in Hangzhou.
Sara enjoys teaching, initiating young and experienced makers to the deep satisfaction that comes with making something by hand. She has led workshops at the Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN; at the Maiwa School of Textiles in Vancouver, B.C. and at the Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island in Washington State. For 8 years she has taught a beginning weaving class for the League of NH Craftsmen in Center Sandwich called, “Five Warps in Five Days.”
FEEDBACK FRIDAY
If you are not familiar with FEEDBACK FRIDAY, every week we speak with dyers, artists, scientists and scholars about our favorite topic, natural dyeing and color. Curated by Amy DuFault, Botanical Colors’ Sustainability and Social Media Director and presented by Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori.
We even have our own theme song thanks to musician Jimmie Snider (click here to hear more of his music)!