LisaRuth Creates

LisaRuth showcases fresh indigo dyed fiber above indigo plants at Rainbow from the Dye Garden workshop, October 2021. Photo by Michiyo Toya

In 2021, my forays into using plants as dye stuff really blossomed!

2021 saw the introduction of a dedicated space at Alemany Farm for growing ancient dye plants. In addition to my role as a longtime farm volunteer, since 2017 my fiber art practice has included using foraged plants from the farm and hillside to dye fiber for color experimentation and to use in my weavings. Building a close relationship to—and investigation of—place is very important to me as a guest on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. Learning about native, cultivated, and invasive plants through my art helps ground me in gratitude and informs my stewardship of this place.

I have offered several workshops at Alemany Farm since 2018 introducing others to the basics of dyeing with plants—mostly using foraged plant matter and kitchen scraps. As my practice has expanded, I have become more and more curious about cultivating specific dye plants.This year, my desire to know more coincided with a plan to move the medicinal herbs to a more protected area set farther back from the roadway nestled at the base of the farm’s northern hillside behind the Willow. At the beginning of 2021, this opened up the area at the farm’s front entrance totally dedicated to color.

In the spring, with herbalist Bonnie Rose’s oversight, the “Chamomile Crew” (medicine garden interns) transplanted medicinal plants from the front area of the farm near the tool shed into the newly terraced northwestern hillside. This cohort of herbalists also helped me in February with the propagation of weld (reseda luteola), woad (isatis tinctoria), indigo (persicaria tinctoria), coreopsis (coreopsis tinctoria), and marigold (tagates erecta), plants which we grew in the greenhouse. In April I began to shape a circle for the dye garden, laying irrigation lines, integrating curved outer pathways, and slowly planted out the growing plants in May. Weld and woad went in first, along the front pathway across from the box where Musette’s madder was planted many years ago.

Pollinators on Alemany Farm dye garden plants, 2021.

As I planted, I left the volunteer plantains as guardians around the pathway edge, and lupine and borage as pollinator attractors. Leftover from the medicinal crops, mullein plants became yellow flamed candelabras as sentries. Coreopsis starts and indigo plants went in at the center; the scarlet sage bush was pruned back, and the iris bulbs thinned. Finally, several varieties of marigolds were planted along the pathway edge across from the pond filling out the dye garden. Regular support of watering during the week by our farm interns helped this collection of plants flourish.

The emergence of blooms in late spring showed a range of shades of yellows and oranges, and then pinks in the late summer.

Dye garden plants on silk L to R: madder, coreopsis, fresh indigo, August 2021

But what colors result on fiber when these plants and flowers are used as dyes? The answer: A rainbow! Madder root gives reds and pinks and oranges, coreopsis gives golden yellows to deep oranges, weld leaves and flowers give yellows, marigolds give yellows and shimmery golds, and fresh indigo gives light blue/teals (further exploration of indigo for deep blues is coming in 2022). One of the more exciting results comes from a single plant’s dye pot, with yellows, oranges, and pinks varying due to fabric type (e.g. wool, cotton, silk, bamboo cloth). A friend sent a photo of the Bayeux Tapestry, embroidered in the late 11th century, which he had recently seen in person in Europe. It turns out that the ten colors used to illustrate the historic battles on the tapestry are made from just three plants—madder, woad, and weld—and all of these are growing in the Alemany Farm dye garden.

LisaRuth pointing out dye plants for SF Recreation and Parks Dept. summer camp youth during color walk of farm, June 2021

LisaRuth with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Dept. summer camp youth in the Alemany Farm dye garden, June 2021

This summer, for the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department summer camp kids, I led color walks of the farm’s plants and introduced the dye garden. The walks preceded their dye experiments in the Alemany Outdoor Kitchen, so they were an introduction to the magic of creating color, as they got to see the wide palette that comes from mostly green things. In early October, the dye garden got even more beautiful and colorful: Bonnie Rose made beautiful signs to identify each distinct plant variety to match those in the Medicine Garden. In the middle of the recent October rains, the dye garden itself was a technicolor landscape. The quality of the light and absorption of water made the indigo plants even more red (stems) and pink (flowers). Late afternoon light made the volunteer lupine and the mullein candelabras radiate beyond the purple and yellow of their respective blooms.

Also in October, I brought my dye studio to the farm for the workshop “A Rainbow from the Dye Garden” to share the art of using plants, flowers, and leaves to create unexpected color on textiles. Each attendee was given a notebook with instructions and bibliography, as well as a leaf or cone or flower when they arrived. To start, we walked around the farmscape to find each participant’s chosen plant, and see what color they make on fiber. It’s always fun to introduce people to the farm as a color palette, as well as a food growing space, urban vineyard, medicine cabinet, habitat restoration space, and a place teeming with winged ones (the dye garden alone is host to butterflies, bees, moths, hummingbirds, snakes…).

LisaRuth’s farm dye studio for Rainbow from the Dye Garden workshop at Alemany Farm, October 2021. Colors from L to R: madder root, coreopsis flowers, marigold.

Rainbow from the Dye Garden workshop plant dye results on silk and bamboo (with weld standing in for marigold in upper right corner!)

And, using three dye garden plants—madder root, dried coreopsis blooms, and marigold flowers—we harnessed the first three colors of the rainbow.

Rainbow from the Dye Garden workshop participants hold fibers dyed from fennel, bay laurel leaf, yarrow leaf, loquat leaf at Alemany Farm. Photo by Valerie Reichert

One workshop attendee reported: “I loved learning about native California species* that make good dye plants like manzanita and ceanothus, along with weeds like oxalis and horsetail. And I’m now in love with the beautiful smoky pinks produced by Turkish bay laurel. Reminds me of [dyeing with] avocado [pits]. Also smitten with the oranges and golds I came home with courtesy of the farm’s coreopsis.”

LisaRuth among coreopsis blooms, August 2021

It’s been such a fun project—and a steep learning curve—to create this garden. Journeying this year into planting, growing, and using cultivated dye plants—and sharing it with others—has been so very satisfying! Stay tuned for more workshops in 2022, and opportunities to volunteer in planting and tending next year’s dye plants.

*Please note: I only do dye experimentation with routine prunings of native plants from the farm and my own garden.

This is the story of the journey of a father-daughter collaboration to create an illustrated poetry book.

In 2009, my dad came to me with a collection of haiku he had written almost daily about the birds he observed in the backyard and along the river bank of my family home in Washington State. Together we have enjoyed sitting along the riverbank observing the bird activity, and over the years the bald eagle pair and their offspring in the cottonwood trees across the river have become part of the extended family I regularly hear about in our weekly phone calls. He asked if I would illustrate the birds in the poems and would I like to create a book out of it. I decided to use my preferred medium of paper collage to depict the birds. Using a torn paper mosaic style also had the effect of giving a “feathered” look to the birds.

At the time I was helping out a papermaker/book artist/printer with some of her book projects. I began to imagine typesetting the poems and printing the book by hand. Aside from the painstaking process of creating the birds, without any experience in bookmaking, it took quite a while to decide which format the book would take. Consultation with a couple of friends who are book and layout experts helped me get farther along. From the perspective I now have post-completion, I realize that making an artist book is a complex equation of trigonometry, geometry, and algebra combined, with serendipitous discovery along the way. Finding a hardbound book, A Net of Fireflies: An Anthology of 320 Japanese Haiku containing haiku paintings solidified the book’s form. The book was not bound using signatures, instead the folds are on the outside edge of the pages. Utilizing this format offered the convenience of concealing the relief from the typeset pages, as well as the possibility of adding another Japanese book form to complement the haiku: a stab bound spine.

I selected a smooth, off-white Mohawk paper from the incredible selection at FLAX Art & Design, which I cut down to print size and then later cut to half that size for binding. The setting of the type by hand—by me—and printing—by the paper mill—was done as a trade for my creation of a paper mosaic at the entry to the paper mill where the lead type, Kluge printing press, guillotine, and other tools were available to me. The paper mosaic features several types of paper made by the mill: from cotton rag and cat tails. The light blue—and a limited number of dark blue—cover papers of the book are made from denim and cotton rag, made in part by my friend Drew Cameron of Combat Paper Project. The silk thread used to bind the books was hand dyed by me with natural indigo, in vats I had access to as an artist/weaver in the Berkeley Art Museum show, “The Possible” in 2014.

I chose six birds from the 21 species my dad wrote verses about, reluctantly not illustrating a few favorites like the pileated woodpecker, mergansers, and the eagles. Because I wanted the birds to appear as close to life-sized as possible, these three birds were more complicated to imagine as part of the project. I started with the Washington State bird, the goldfinch. Definitely included were other bright birds like the western tanager and Steller’s jay. My father’s favorite, the mourning dove, had to be part of the mix. And a couple with detailed plumage like the northern flicker and cedar waxwing made the cut. A sketch based on photos sourced online became slowly filled in with color from saturated magazine pages. I worked from the bottom up, so the paper pieces would lay on top of each other as the feathers do on a bird. Each dot on the flicker’s white feathers were cut out individually. The original collages were reproduced on Hahnemühle rice paper as high quality digital prints by LightSource SF, whose staff really helped integrate the illustrations into the project beautifully.

Ultimately, all the pieces of the book came together in June 2018, nine years after my dad suggested the idea. There were several life projects that came in between me and finishing the collages and figuring out the complex math of putting the puzzle pieces together. The ultimate wrench in the works: being forced out of my home in 2013 by the wave of economic changes in San Francisco. I believe that if I hadn’t been looking for three years for a home starting that year, I would have completed the project several years ago. Now, cozily settled into a cottage perched on the slope of Bernal Heights, with all my supplies around me and space to create available, I have the ability to assemble and bind the edition.

The book, 28 Days in May: avian observations, by Len Elliott, and illustrated by me, LisaRuth Elliott, is an edition of 50. As of March 2019, 42 of these have been sold or given away. A percentage of the sales was presented as a donation to the Rainier Audubon Society in King County, Washington in January 2019.

As we were discussing the printing of the book in 2013, my dad sent this observation, a 29th poem to add to the collection here:
Curled around feeder,
Pileated woodpecker
Gobbling up suet.

Here’s a photo chronology of the projects we’ve worked on thus far at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive “The Possible” textile studio weaving workshops. I might find a moment to say more about the past couple months, but I’ll let the weavings tell the story for now.