Neolithic in Technicolor - Ancient Designs on Modern Cloth

Ancestors around the world carved designs into rock - documenting important ideas for the generations to come. We are their future. Using tools from the natural dyer’s tool kit we will paint and print images from rock art onto cloth - transforming them into polychromatic splendor in the dye pots. Using some of the same dyes worn by the carvers themselves drawing these designs opens us up to mystery, evoking questions around meaning and our place in the cosmos. Students will make samples and a large piece.

Students are encouraged to research rock art found in their ancestral landscapes to work with.

Iris Sullivan Daire is an artist and naturalist dyer who uses site specific pigments and dyes to add new layers of meaning to the narrative of her work. She relishes using science, metaphor and story to bring the materials to life while teaching.

Iris lives with her family next to the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. She grows traditional dye plants and has been quietly mapping the hidden colors contained within the native and invasive plants of the North Oregon Coast. She holds a BFA in fiber arts from University of Oregon and has been teaching for over 20 years.

• Note-taking supplies

• Apron

• Exacto knife

• Images of rock art that hold personal meaning

Optional:

• Waterproof indelible pen: like black Sakura Pigma Micron Pen

• Erasable fabric marker like: Dritz blue Mark-B-Gone Pen

• Paint brushes - multimedia brushes are good

• Cloth

• Comprehensive packet

• Plant based dyes and required auxiliary materials

• Dye pots and equipment

• A variety of paint brushes

• Stencil materials

• Selection of design images from European megalithic sites.