A collaboration between the Indigo Mind exhibition and Workshop Residence, San Francisco

Join artist Rowland Rickets as he leads two fresh-leaf indigo dyeing workshops hosted by Workshop Residence in the Dogpatch. Using fresh indigo plants provided by Craig Wilkinson at DaVero Farms + Winery in Healdsburg and Fibershed in West Marin, participants will transform sheets of silk into bright, cyan hues.

Morning Session - 11-1pm

Afternoon Session - 3-5pm

Indigo Mind references Oliver Sacks’ autobiographical story, “Altered States,” (Hallucinations, 2012) in which he describes two rare moments of perceiving the truest form of the color. In both occurrences, Sacks enters an elevated mental state of indigo, describing the experience as  “luminous” and “numinous,” filling him with a sense of “rapture.” Indigo Mind relates this state of mind to that of the artist’s creative process—clarity, rapture and focus.

Dying silk with fresh indigo leaves produces immediate visual and tactile stimuli, much like Sacks’ sudden encounter with indigo. This process transfers dye from the leaves of the indigo plant to the lustrous fabric, resulting in an electric, cyan-turquoise color. The process is direct and simple, offering an “ah-ha!” experience as participants understand first-hand the nature of the relationship between the color’s materiality and it’s abstract, symbolic associations.