Local Color — A Natural Dye and Permaculture Course (May-October 2024)
(or 5 x $175.00, see below for monthly payment option)
Exploring the art of natural dyeing from seed to harvest.
Join Mariah Palmer from Local Earth and Kareen Erbe from Broken Ground as you embark on a journey of deepening your connection with the local landscape through the art of color, community, and permaculture.
In this 6-part series, we will follow the seasons and learn all about growing and foraging for local plants to produce color for natural dyeing. This series will cover everything from using a permaculture approach for site selection to planting and growing dye plants and working with those plants to discover a wide range of colors. You will also learn about ethical foraging and the benefits of clearing invasive plants as a way to both honor the plants and support native species. In addition to learning the foundations of natural dyes, we will study various design techniques, including bundle dyeing, eco printing, and printing with direct application of mordants. Working with these various techniques will give you a hands-on, in-depth understanding of the relationship between fiber, plant, and mordant.
Join us for an immersive, hands-on experience this growing season!
This is a six-part in-person series that includes video recordings and written documentation for each lesson. While the course is designed for in-person instruction, you will have access to every lesson via video, written course materials, and quizzes. If you are not able to make every lesson in person, you can easily catch up via our online Teachable platform. You will also have access to all the materials in perpetuity, so you can go back and review the course long after the session is over. See the full schedule and itinerary below.
Space is limited, so register early!
6-part series
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Planning Your Dye Garden
Location: Local Earth Studio (Kelly Canyon, Bozeman MT)
In this class, we will discuss how to incorporate a dye garden into your existing growing area, highlighting how a dye garden can enhance your food production or how to start from scratch.
This class includes:
Site planning
Seed selection
Fundamentals of permaculture and how to plan for maximum connectivity
Step-by-step guide to starting your own dye garden
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Planting Your Dye Garden
Location: Local Earth Studio
This class will cover a demonstration of prepping and planting your growing area.
This class includes:
Building a flower garden bed
Water capture
Soil health
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Wild Foraging and Foundations of Natural Dyes
Location: Local Earth Studio
In this class we will gather to forage St. John's wort and discuss the benefits of working with invasive plants as well as how to forage ethically. We will use the plants we have foraged to demonstrate immersion dyeing. This part will cover the foundations of natural dyeing including mordants, fiber types and what makes a plant a dye plant.
This class covers the following:
Ethical foraging and working with invasive dye plants
The foundation of natural dyeing, including mordants and fiber types
What makes a plant a dye plant
How to create an immersion dye bath using plants that we have foraged locally
How to achieve a range of colors from just one plant
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Harvesting and Eco Printing
Location: Local Earth Studio and Kokoro Flower Farm
This part will focus on harvesting and storing plants and two design techniques that involve using fresh plants.
This class includes:
A visit to Kokoro Flower Farm
How and when to harvest plants and different possibilities fresh vs. dried
Two techniques using fresh flowers: bundle dyeing and eco-printing
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Weekend Intensive - Printing with Natural Dyes and Harvest Meal
Location: Local Earth Studio and Broken Ground Garden
This will cover more in-depth printing and dyeing techniques.
This class includes:
How to create prints using direct application of mordants
Tour of Broken Ground permaculture garden and food forest
Further exploration of permaculture principles and creating a self-reliant life
Harvest meal featuring wood-fired pizza with topping from the garden
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Saving Seeds and Prepping for Winter
Location: Broken Ground Garden (Bozeman, MT)
This class includes:
How to save and store seeds
How to prep your garden for winter
About Mariah
Mariah is a nature-craft artist with an endless fascination for natural dyes. She works with local and homegrown plants she grows or forages and especially loves working with invasive plants. In her latest endeavor, she co-founded Wilder Goods — a shop and art gallery in the Emerson Center for Arts and Culture. In that space, she began offering workshops, which sparked a move away from retail and into teaching and hosting workshops rooted in connecting with the land. She now teaches and creates under the name Local Earth in her home studio outside Bozeman. Over the past few years, she has pieced together the school of her dreams by attending workshops that centered around nature and art, including a Master Naturalist certification through the Montana Outdoor Science School, Resilient Homestead, a permaculture course with Broken Ground–as well as various dye courses, including Screen Printing with Natural Dyes in Brooklyn at the Textile Arts Center, Printing with Natural Dyes with the Maiwa School of Textiles and The Chemistry of Natural Dyes, also with the Maiwa School of Textiles. She lives and works outside Bozeman with her husband, 10-year-old daughter, and animals, both domestic and wild.
Testimonials
“Thank you so much for an incredible workshop! It was such a lovely way to spend a weekend - learning a skill, meeting new people, and getting to creatively experiment - all in a gorgeous space. The written info provided is an incredible resource as well that I am thankful to have for the future. I had a great time!”
“The natural dying workshop was great! Mariah provided the exact right amount of information that made learning manageable, and most of all, the community I felt within the workshop was powerful and uplifting.”
About Kareen
Kareen, owner of Broken Ground, is a garden design consultant, homesteader, and educator. For over a decade, she has helped thousands of people in cold climates grow their own food through consultations, design services, her signature Resilient Homestead Program, and her YouTube channel. In addition to being a Master Gardener and Master Composter, Kareen is certified in permaculture design, a whole-systems approach to land management and sustainable living. She is on the faculty of the Permaculture Women’s Guild, Green Path Herb School, and the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute. Kareen lives with her husband on a suburban homestead in Bozeman, Montana, with a greenhouse, pond, vegetable gardens, a food forest of fruit trees and berry bushes, a flock of chickens, and her blue heeler dog Beni.
Testimonials
“If you want to learn how you can personally be a confident and compassionate steward of the natural world and humanity then let Kareen Erbe be your guide. ”
“Kareen provided incredible guidance and information, but she also put me in the driver’s seat and gave me the confidence to envision and build my new garden space. ”