The color of a weed workshop registration

The Color of a Weed: Intercontinental Workshop

Lisa Jevbratt and Helén Svensson

During an intercontinental demonstration/workshop we will dye wool with common plantain, Helén at her home in Stockholm,Sweden,and Lisa at her home in Santa Barbara,California. The audience is encouraged to follow along in their own kitchens, during the event or after. Afterwards,the audience is asked to post images of their dyed fabric/yarn/fiber. We will create a website with the images comparing the results.In the workshop we choose to use plantain because it is a “weed” with an interesting story. Common plantain, which has been called “the white man’s footsteps,”is a non-native plant in the US, but native to Sweden. Medicinal and edible, humans have brought it with them all over the globe.Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes about it with affection in “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.”To her, plantain is a model citizen, a foreign-born who is not colonizing.It’s a generous and healing newcomer, who is listening to its new land. The workshop would be the start of a collaborative database of colors from non-native plants and “weeds” from across the globe.