Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts

In mid July I will be teaching natural dyeing at the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts, a summer camp for adults in the most beautiful place in the world; Vancouver Island. The programming at MISSA consists of various 2 and 5 full-day art classes that can be taken individually or one after another over the course of two weeks in July. For the full summer camp experience students are encouraged to purchase room and board in the beautiful ocean/woodsy location and there are opportunities for biking, kayaking, swimming, yoga in the mornings and you can even book a massage for after your day in class.

In my five-­day Natural Dyeing class we will work within a large range of natural colours including indigo on silk scarves, silk and linen yardage, as well as wool yarn. Students will learn about and practice mordanting, making natural dye extracts, immersion dyeing, shibori and  botanical printing as well as creating an indigo stock solution and preparing, maintaining and troubleshooting two kinds of indigo vats. Each day will be spent preparing and watching over our natural dye pots and indigo vats, and manipulating our fabric with resist techniques. Everyone will go away with a collection of yardages and scarves as well as a sample book illustrating the colours and techniques we applied throughout the week.

I have a couple of surprises up my sleeve, too. We are spending five-days together after all, so I'm bringing some extra tools and fun things for both during and after class hours. That's the only hint you get, hehe. It's going to be a lot of fun.

MISSA has not yet posted their summer 2016 classes, but I'm giving you a heads up since they will put classes up on the website on February 15th and they fill up fast. For early access to registration you can sign up as a friend of MISSA for $20 here. Friends of MISSA get class schedules and can register for classes before they are announced to the public.