It's mid-summer in the San Francisco Bay Area, and life is good! Every year about this time, I like to head to the cinema to watch fun, interesting, or inspiring movies, in which plants are the movie stars. For the past several years, I've been gravitating towards documentaries that cover topics related to "dyeing with plants". This year I'm doing the same, but for "dyeing with mushrooms".
Instead of reviewing a specific documentary, I'm sharing a couple of YouTube channels. I've been accessing this content as I research the topic of dyeing with mushrooms, and am hoping the links will give you a feel for some of the videos out there. Enjoy!
 |
| Wildcraft Dyeing provides a good video for dyeing with Boletes |
Myra Made Color: Cultivating a Creative Life - by Myra
I learned about Myra Made Color this year, while researching Mushrooms for Color, written by Miriam Rice and illustrated by Dorothy BeeBee. Myra is Beebee's daughter, but stands on her own as a dyer and creator. Myra helped organize the "Mushrooms & Color Exhibit" that I attended in March at the Mendocino Art Center (see Mendocino Mushroom Exhibit). Her fascination with dyeing started with the color produced by mushrooms, but soon extended from mushrooms to all things botanical; her interest in fiber arts includes dyeing, weaving, crocheting, and knitting. Myra's videos are well researched and provide clear instructions and guidelines.
I also appreciate the familial collaboration between mother and daughter and between Myra and her brother Martin. Myra and Martin produced the documentary, "Try It and See: The Story Behind Mushroom Dyes", in which they tell the story of their mother as a natural dyer, fiber artist, and illustrator for the original book by Miriam Rice, Let’s Try Mushrooms for Color. Following is an example video, How to Make Dye with Mushrooms: Dyer's Polypore (https://youtu.be/T4TjnxFO3yw?si=RXSGadZu37EvjL4O):
Learn More
Playlist - Mushrooms: https://myramadecolor.com/tag/mushroom-dye/- Documentary: https://youtu.be/Y6-OTBv0gNM?si=Ty6PaPFwiZfwrciM
Wildcraft Dyeing - by Zoe McDonnel
I've been watching Wildcraft Dyeing videos for several years now, especially the Mushrooms playlist. McDonell is a fiber artist and biologist. She has been teaching historical natural dye techniques and fiber arts for 25 years in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Her workshops cover foraging, natural dyeing, spinning, and weaving. She is interested in sustainable and historical techniques for creating vibrant colors. Zoe's daughter is often in tow as they forage for mushrooms.
Her focus is dyeing wool yarn. I'm more interested in dyeing cotton and silk fabric, but always learn transferrable information from her videos. She uses a technique of extracting color and dyeing that contains the dye source in mesh paint straining bags within jars. It is intriguing, but I haven't tried it yet (I did purchase some mesh bags). The technique works well for small batches, but would be difficult for dyeing something the size of a dish towel or Tee-shirt. Following is an example video, How to Dye Better Reds with Cortinarius Mushrooms (https://youtu.be/DLCuBX8QgzY?si=oXsO3afYK7gyeHGn):
Learn More
Playlist - Mushrooms: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN8jIaL4rHvZlIJMBYQjk5PVWyDZ4fcg5
No comments:
Post a Comment