ACCEPTANCE. That's one of the greatest things we learned from mother nature.
In our much earlier practice, we were so thirsty for various colors to be available in front of us. We saw certain color and leaf prints made by ecoprint artists in another continent and we wanted to achieve THAT very color. We "forgot" the aspects of climate and regionalism -- native vegetation, soil and water condition, season, weather, etc.
Soon we learned of how unhealthy and unconscious it was, to "force colors" to be available for the sake of beauty. Doesn't sustainability also mean circular thinking -- of sources?
We explored more and keep learning about local + native dye plants that are available in each season. Now it has been a crazy looong dry season in Bali and many other parts of Indonesia. So right now we don't have abundant teak leaves that create stunning prints with vivid purple, but we have been gifted with guava leaves galore which can result interesting range of colors like yellow, green, grey and black. We are still waiting for the syzygium berries fruiting in our studio garden, but we have plenty of discarded onion skins that we've preserved from our kitchen.
The limit amount of dye plants, in fact, has enhanced our skills and creativity in working on the surface design.
This picture was taken during our mini Poetry Cloth workshop at Canaan Bali. We did bundle-dyeing and used dye plants that were available in our studio garden, our neighborhood, as well as dye plants that we sourced from local gardener. Cockspur thorn, marigolds, guava leaves, rose leaves, sea hibiscus flowers, mangsi leaves, and a few teak leaves that we've preserved from the last season.
It didn't lessen the beauty. Instead, each creation of the participants represented radiance in acceptance.
We made a series of "yellow-glow" that morning. In fact, Tiya, one of our participants, joined the workshop in all-yellow wardrobe, saying, "When I woke up this morning my instinct said to me that my day will be yellow." 😍🌿☀️🌻💛