Local Dirt & Plant Dyeing DIY

February 11, 2017

Local Dirt Shop with Nance Klehm 

During the Local Dirt Shop workshop with Nance Klehm, participants learned several hands-on, no-cost methods of accessing their neighborhood’s soil’s health. It was asked of each of them to dive deep into their local dirt by digging a hole where they lived.  Everyone brought a cup of soil from their neighborhood with them. 

California Color 

Participants learned about the incredible range of dye colors that local plants produce and discussed the differences between invasive and native plant species and the best practices to harvest and extract the dye. Recipes, color palettes, gardening techniques, and more were shared to prepare people for a new world of color. Each individual dyed their own pieces of wool and walked away with a manual for local plant dyeing.

BIO

Nance Klehm cultivates and forages medicinals and edibles, keeps bees, has chickens and quail, co-runs a seed bank, and stewards Pachamanka, a 50-acre conservation property in the Lower Driftless. She is the Director of Social Ecologieswhich works internationally on waste stream revisioning and reallocation, soil contamination and fertility, and agroecological practices.

David Bryant’s practice engages the aesthetics of our local ecosystems that manifest in the patterning, coloration, and morphology of native flora and fauna. By dissecting and re-contextualizing the visual languages of a site, from the bursts of indigo on a California Dogface butterfly to the neon orange of indigenous poppies, he attempts to visually translate a region's inherent palette through generative works that use algorithms mirroring natural processes and structures. After working digitally, he returned to the landscape to bring these assemblages into a finalized form, using native dyes and earth pigments from the region to articulate his digital assemblages.