On May 12th and 13th, join VisArts in welcoming seven guest artists from the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Each artist is a studio coordinator at Penland who will be taking over our studios and offering unique weekend workshops that bring new techniques and ideas to VisArts.

Experiment with indigo, an astonishing dye that can be built up in layers for variations in shade. We’ll mix a fructose indigo vat, then talk about how to start, feed, and maintain an indigo vat with different reduction materials. Next, we’ll mix a paste resist, which will block the dye from adhering to the fabric in the vat, but rinses away easily with water. The resist can be painted, stamped or printed onto the fabric. Indigo by itself is beautiful, but the combination with paste resist opens an enormous range of design possibilities. We’ll use a few different types of fabric to help us understand how weave, fiber and texture factor into the final visual effect. Finally, we’ll discuss how to neutralize the indigo and finish with a final boil.