the dye garden
land really is the best art
-Andy Warhol
I had this dream of growing my own colors.
japanese indigo, madder, woad, hopi black sunflower, dyer's coreopsis, hopi red dye, tango cosmos, black hollyhock, queen red lime zinnia, dyer's chamomile, safflower, queen sophia marigold
persicaria tinctoria, rubia tinctorumisatis tinctoria, tceqa' qu' si, coreopsis tinctoria, komo, cosmos sulphureus, alcea rosea nigra, zinnia elegans, cota tinctoria, carthamus tinctorius, tagetes patula
I’ve always been interested in creating my own mediums from scratch. Each element of the piece holds importance, has a story. Where did manufactured paint or canvases come from and how did they get to the art supply store and then to me? What were the conditions like and who else’s hands played a role in this? And in what environment was the medium - that connects me to the place of making - itself created?
I grew up in a family that made homemade pasta every week and grew ingredients from scratch. In college, I made my own paper. I initially got into weaving to create my own canvas. I struggle with the idea of always taking and consuming and I’m growing this garden as an experiment in creating my own mediums.
Photos by: Chelsea Call
field studies
This series is the product of many months of tender care to the more than 600 plants that rooted at Reunity Resources during the 2022 grow season. Throughout the season, I made both prints and colors on-site and directly from the garden. It was an incredible experience to grow both the subject and medium of these works from seed and be able to capture some essence of the ephemeral garden within them.
