Friday, April 12, 2013

Dye Samples

Natural Dye SamplesNatural Dye SamplesNatural Dye SamplesNatural Dye SamplesNatural Dye SamplesNatural Dye: Cochineal and Sumac
Natural Dye Samples

Dye Samples, a set on Flickr.

Dye samples created by friend of Marafiki Arts, Hannah Wnorowski (Print Fellow at The Fabric Workshop and Museum) as well as Marafiki Arts Co-Founder Christina Roberts.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Gearing up for a spring of planting: Look for dye plants everywhere.

Verbascum Thapsus: Common Mullein & the dye plants underneath your feet.

*Note: I am still fixing a glitch with alternating font sizes in this post. Please forgive!*

The Crane Arts garden with the view of the stables.
Today I met with Nick Kripal, the gardener for the Crane Arts building in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. The winter's chill still lingered as we took a tour through the Crane's plantings, but the sun was no doubt shining. As could be gathered from the plants with bright green shoots beginning to sprout from dry, dead stalks littering the soil, spring is on its way. Nick Kripal could feel it too: he told me that he would be clearing away a lot of the dead plants to give room for bulbs to sprout this holiday weekend.

As we walked and talked, he pointed out numerous plants that Marafiki Arts had planted in the Crane's garden in years past, and how they had fared over the winter. The unassuming Lady's Bed Straw (galium verum) needs two years before the roots, which can be used as a madder-red, are harvested for dye. This plant's roots contain the same coloring agent as madder plants, but in lower concentrations. You can find this plant all over North America, but you have to know the proper amount of time to give it, what type of conditions it likes (full sun, moist, well-drained, sandy soil), and what it looks like in the first place to have any success in using it as a dye plant. Right now, it looks like straw, which to most people might seem completely useless. I was soon to find out that a lot of plants that look useless to the uneducated eye have much more potential than one would even expect.


As we continued, Nick pointed out a funny little fuzzy green plant that was pretty much growing out of the cracks in the pavement.

 

 


Common mullein

Common mullein, he told me. He said that his grandmother told him that pioneers used to use this to make tea. With some brief further research, I found out that this plant can be used topically as a moisturizer, in teas, as bright-yellow or green dye and to make torches with dried stems dipped in wax. These plants are often seen as weeds, and grow easily in the shade and are not very invasive. The fun part is that our tiny little fuzzy guy turns into something much wilder:

Mullein all grown up.
Because this plant is seen as a weed, it is not cultivated as much as its pretty (and arguably showy) sister species of the same genus, V. phoeniceum.
V. Phoeniceum, the popular child of the Mullein clan.
What's with that? I mean, it seems as though our love for color and beauty has made us biased towards certain plants over others. I am not saying that V. Phoeniceum is not beautiful- it's just that we love plants like this only for their face value. Our friend Verbascum Thapsus (common mullein), however, has properties that would not be known without word-of-mouth, trial-and-error, the study of history and the always helpful added spark of curiosity. Another fun fact: common mullein, according to Pliny the Elder in his “Naturalis Historia”, was thought to be linked to witches and widely held to ward off curses and evil spirits.

I am looking forward to learning more about what dye plants lie underfoot right here in Philadelphia. Marafiki Arts so far has confirmed collaborations with Crane Arts, The Longview Center for Agriculture and students at Girard College on growing dye plants and conducting workshops on natural dyes. So here's to a wonderful spring growing season and to learning something new everyday about what grows in the cracks in your sidewalk.  

Kenana Knitters make some thoughtful critters!

Marafiki Arts looks for any opportunity to affiliate itself with organizations that put skills into the hands of those who need it most with sustainability in mind. That’s why we are so excited about our recent partnership with Kenana Knitters.

Many similarities begin to appear between these two organizations: Both were started by native Kenyans, and continue to benefit other native Kenyan women. Both teach hand crafting and sustainable skills, and use the products made to raise funds to support the women who work with their hands. Both organizations seek distribution of the hand-crafted materials on a world-wide scale, which allows for a cultural exchange of not only goods but also values and education. Marafiki Arts and Kenana Knitters seek to use education on a global stage to bring awareness to issues present in rural areas of the developing world and to the interconnectedness of communities both on a small and large scale.

Kenana Knitters’ process of creating the toys, home decor, clothing and gifts made and sold through their organization starts from using wool sourced from local farmers. The wool is washed, carded, hand-spun, and often dyed with natural dyes made from local plants. These raw materials are hand stitched into products that carry the stamp of the individual in each stitch. Kenana Knitters’ hand-made toys carry a spark of individuality and attention to detail that make these products all the more personal and meaningful. These plush toys come in a variety of choices- from zebra and monkey cotton cuddly toys to lion and elephant hand puppets.

 What makes us the most excited is Marafiki Arts’ current collaboration with Kenana Knitters. The women of Kenana Knitters visited the women who work with Marafiki Arts in Wote, Kenya who are diligently carding and spinning yarn from our organic cotton. The Kenana Knitters were so inspired by the work of these women that they are currently making a new line based off of Marafiki’s yarns. This collaboration further solidifies both organizations’ goals of creating community through the production of sustainable businesses. Most importantly, the individuality of each organization comes through the hand work that makes each thread of yarn, and each stitch unique and full of positive intentions for the future.

An Introduction to Marafiki Arts

If you are visiting this blog, then you are probably someone affiliated with textiles and fiber arts, an artist, or someone interested in Marafiki Arts as an organization. You have come to the right place! Marafiki Arts has a few main goals that it reaches through its initiatives in Kenya and in Philadelphia. These goals include: -Sustainability: Creating unique, fashion forward products from organic, ethically sourced, locally produced materials. -Education: Both in Kenya and in Philadelphia. -Hands-on training: Teaching traditional skills in textile production and design as well as business practices to promote self-sustaining skills and renewable sources of income for women. -Revive Kenya’s once thriving textile industry from a grassroots level. Marafiki Arts remains focused on its intention of an educational and cultural non-profit exchange between artisans in Wote, Kenya and designers, youth, and the community of Philadelphia. Marafiki Arts achieves this intention of creating an educational and cultural exchange through various programs. The organization works with farmers in the Wote region of Kenya to develop the raw materials such as cotton or wool, which are then used at St. Patrick’s Vocational Training Center. A textile workshop in Wote, Kenya, St. Patricks’ provides training to women in screen printing on fabric, natural dyeing, paper making, and other ecologically-minded crafts. By both developing skills and using these items for sale on a global scale, the women involved are able to sustain long-term benefits from their training. Lucy Lau Bigham, the co-founder of Marafiki Arts, acts as a community leader in Wote, Kenya, as well as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Community in Wote is brought about by shared knowledge and the development of skills, while community in Philadelphia is brought about by an exchange of culture. Bigham worked in Philadelphia at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, as well in collaboration with fellow textile artists Cynthia Porter and Christina Roberts. Workshops with underprivileged Philadelphia youth with Porter, Roberts, and Bigham, as well as research and workshops in natural dyes by Christina Roberts have allowed the connection between Kenya and Philadelphia to grow. Marafiki Arts hopes to grow and continue to get support for its programs, and further make sustainability, education and cultural exchange possible.