Charllotte Kwon and Sophena Kwon – The Natural Dye Workshop – June 2021

Learn about mordants, tannins, dyes, exhaust baths, overdyes, iron shifts and indigo.

Learn to successfully mordant cellulose and protein fibres. Work with cloth and yarns to achieve vibrant, clear colours using classic natural dyes.

In this workshop students will make over 18 separate dye-baths on a variety of fibre types (including wool, cotton, linen, silk, and hemp/cotton). The results will be shifted with iron and indigo for a complex palette. Exhaust baths will be used and these will also be shifted with a modified indigo vat. Students will receive an introduction to shaped resist and indigo dyeing. Throughout the course students will receive professional instruction from Maiwa founder Charllotte Kwon and her daughter Sophena Kwon.

• 45 evocative instructional videos.

• Work with 11 natural dyes including indigo.

• Build dyepots from 18 recipes, shift colours with iron and overdye with indigo.

• Complete the course with close to 100 different colours … and a whole new appreciation for the magic of natural dyes.

Charllotte and Sophena Kwon. Together they are a dynamic teaching team with decades of natural dye experience and a long history working with artisan dyers.

CHARLLOTTE KWON

Charllotte is the owner of Maiwa Handprints Ltd. and the director of the Maiwa Foundation. Through Maiwa, Charllotte also runs a textile archive and research library located on Granville Island in Vancouver, Canada. Under her direction Maiwa has produced four documentary films and a number of print publications. She also guides Maiwa’s substantial online presence.

Charllotte travels extensively each year to research handcraft, work alongside artisans and master craftspeople, and to supplement her natural dye research. Always looking to extend natural dye use, she also teaches dyeing workshops with artisans around the world and has planned a series of natural dye master classes to bring exceptional artisans together.

SOPHENA KWON

Sophena grew up with Maiwa as the family business. She has learned much from the artisans Maiwa collaborates with (including master dyers in India, Africa, Peru, and Mexico) and from experimenting alongside her mom, Charllotte.

In 2009 Sophena studied with Michel Garcia in France. She has taught natural dye workshops with Charllotte (including at the Penland School of Craft and at Shakerag Workshop U.S.A.), and developed and taught workshops for the Maiwa School of Textiles. In an effort to bring natural dyeing to a new audience, she founded the immensely successful Indigo Social in 2015. In 2016 Sophena was invited to present at the Mood Indigo Exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. In addition to her natural dye work, Sophena is a skilled photographer and is the lead designer behind Maiwa’s clothing collections.