EXPLORING SEASONAL COLOR AND TASTE PALETTE WITH SASHA DUERR
*no experience necessary

Over three beautifully immersive days, we’ll experiment with and dye an array of naturally sourced colors and plant-dyed textiles, learning to cook with color from the unique early autumn hues we will gather and forage onsite at Black Cat Organic Farm.

Collaborating with local and seasonal sources of color from an abundance of bi-product edible plants, weeds, and food waste allows us to work with whole plants to create both taste and color palettes. We’ll make a very special seasonal color palette that speaks uniquely to Black Cat Farm, creating a full array of swatches for you to keep, as well as a collection of seasonally dyed linen napkins and a table runner for your table in celebration of slow textiles. Inspired by her latest books, Natural Color and Natural Palettes, Sasha will share creative plant dye processes, unique ways to create patterns with the dyes on textiles, and provide recipes to inspire you to make your own natural "color stories” with what you find in the environments that surround you. These natural color techniques and recipes can be used in an abundance of ways, whether in your own art and design practice, or to imbue your everyday textiles and garments with vibrant, meaningful, and unique colors through natural plant-based palettes.

In addition to exploring nature’s miraculous colors that can be found all around us, we will explore the flavor profiles of the edible ingredients we will be using for dyes. Chef Eric Skokan will guide us in gaining a deeper understanding of these ingredients as he leads tastings to experience them in various ways, and sharing his favorite ways to use them to create wonderful dishes.

Our workshop will culminate in a shared ‘Luncheon to Dye For’, celebrating the seasonal color and taste palette of Colorado and Black Cat Farm, and highlighting the biodiversity of slow food and slow textiles with natural palettes made with the very same ingredients. We invite you into a colorful, experimental, and beautiful experience that will deepen your appreciation and expand your mind to embrace the possibilities of what might be growing right outside your door.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

How to map and identify and forage for natural dye plants - including from seasonal sources, food and floral waste, medicinal plants, plus local and seasonal weeds.
Cooking with Color techniques to make beautiful natural dyes from scratch
Modifying and expanding our color palettes.
Surface design techniques
Shibori Technique
Steam Printing + Bundle Dyeing
Direct Application for Printing and Painting
How to create an installation for an immersive slow food and slow textile event
Regenerative and circular design methods - overlapping slow food and slow fashion and textiles.

VENUE
The workshop will be held on Black Cat Organic Farm, the most ambitious farm-to-table operation in the United States. James Beard Award finalist Chef Eric Skokan and his wife Jill have created a 425-acre organic and regenerative farm that supplies the bounty of their farm dinners, the downtown Boulder restaurant Bramble & Hare, the recipient of a coveted and rare Michelin Green Star, which honors restaurants that demonstrate true commitment to sustainability, CSA’s, and a Boulder Farmers’ Market Booth. Depending on the weather, classes will either be held in a renovated 19th-century cozy boutique barn that used to hold a community blacksmith shop, or on a brick verandah surrounded by gardens and acres of fields of vegetables, herbs, legumes, and grains. Mountains capped with snow for much of the year decorate the farm’s western horizon. The setting itself, however, is extremely pastoral, with sloping fields full of vegetables, fruit trees, a broad strawberry patch, and flowers everywhere when in season. Black Cat Organic Farm’s Toulouse geese, Akbash guard dogs, and strutting groups of chickens wander the property all day, evidence of the constant symbiotic relationship of life on a working farm.

CUISINE
Using Black Cat’s Certified Organic farm as a source of creativity, Chef Eric Skokan creates an award-winning cuisine vibrant with seasonality. The culinary team behind Bramble crafts our Black Cat Makerie meals, all of which closely reflect the seasons. The kitchen draws heavily from the farm’s more than 250 varieties of organic vegetables, legumes, grains, herbs and flowers, as well as its large flock of heritage sheep and its robust population of heritage pigs, paving the way for a limitless palette of flavors, colors, and textures from which to build each food experience. From artichokes to chickpeas, tomatoes to arugula, basil to wheat to winter squash and much more, Black Cat Organic Farm nurtures it all, transforming these stellar ingredients into gorgeous dishes. Each day of the retreat begins with a delicious homemade morning snack, followed by a hearty, fresh-from-the-fields lunch, and a delectable afternoon nibble. New this year! One very special farm dinner will be shared with our retreat community as part of the Black Cat Makerie experience. Surrounded by pastoral beauty and pampered with warm hospitality, guests who attend Black Cat Farm Dinners enjoy culinary experiences unlike any other in Colorado. The farm team devotes hours every day to harvesting these ingredients, then crafting them into outstanding dishes that mirror what is thriving in the fields. Many guests dine in private, glass-walled cabanas spread out across the farm, with views of rolling hills, organic agricultural fields and snow-capped mountains. We can’t wait for you to experience it all for yourself.