To the Editor:

I have been so fortunate, these last three years, that Barbara Murphy, director of the Habitat for All Garden at the Valentine Farm, has encouraged me to work with people using natural dyes at the garden. With the help of the garden volunteers, the garden has provided Japanese Indigo for many of my art projects and the Monarch Festival.

This year, if you are indigo curious, we invite you to come help us with the Indigo Harvest Festival, Aug. 3 at the Valentine Farm, where we will be demonstrating how to use fresh indigo, make indigo balls and cellulose flakes, and do an indigo extraction from fresh indigo leaves.

The Valentine Farm is not able, with its beautiful small garden plots, make enough indigo, so we will also use plant-based indigo pigment (from India, named after one of the most valuable trade goods — indigo). I’ll bring vatted indigo to uplift your beloved, clean, natural-fiber clothing. We will make indigo water color paint from dried pigment, and ancient Mayan Blue pigment, the sacred color of the Mayan Indians (there’s that indigo reference again!), by sublimating indigo pigment into clay.

Indigo is the only natural dye that makes blue; it persists, makes fabrics stronger and last longer, and it is beneficial to pollinators. If you would like to learn more and consider growing indigo next summer, please join us on Aug. 3.

Please bring plenty of drinking water and a lunch, and a piece of clean natural-fiber clothing you would like to tie-dye or shibori.

Rebecca Zicarelli
Bethel