S
he was one of a number of individuals charged with
passing the ancient craft to the next generation. 6
I’ve known about natural dyes for a long time because of
traditional artists’ pigments, due to my love of the luminous
glazes in old masters’ paintings.
When an organic dye, say the red from the root of the
madder plant, is fixed onto an inorganic base, say chalk,
the result is a type of pigment called a “lake,” in this case
“madder lake.” It’s similar in the way that mordants work
to attach dyes, with no innate affinity, to a fabric fiber. The
old masters’ red glazes were made this way.
I’ve used the convenient store-bought synthetic dyes in
the washing machine a few times, but the closest thing
to natural dyeing was tea-staining. Then last year I
happened to meet Leslie Stamoolis, Assistant Professor
of Theatre and Dance at Gonzaga University, who
also heads up the costume shop. It piqued my
interest to learn that she was using natural dyes for
theatrical costumes and we began talking. Leslie has
made a comparative study of natural and synthetic
dyes on different natural fabrics and produced two
(unpublished) booklets for reference purposes. She
explains her reasons for preferring the former in terms
of the nuances of color possible with natural dyes and in
ecological terms.
A page from the Leslie Stamoolis’s Natural
Dye Book showing several samples dyed with
cochineal extract.
The popular pre-packaged dyes you can find at the supermarket are
“all-purpose” and, according to the instructions, can be used for
“cotton, rayon, nylon, ramie, linen, silk, spandex, and acetate,” and
even polyester blends (though not 100 percent polyester). To achieve
this requires the addition of various chemical additives (unnecessary
if you’re dyeing cotton) that end up in the same waste water stream.
Actual cochineal bugs.
Indian Collecting Cochineal with a Deer Tail José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez.
From Essay on the Nature, Cultivation, and Benefits of the Cochineal Insect
[Memoria sobre la naturaleza, cultivo, y beneficio de la grana], 1777.
The art and craft of natural dyeing doesn’t share this problem
because it is fiber-specific: dyeing protein fibers like wool is
different than dyeing vegetable fibers such as linen. It works with the
same mordants and follows the same principles and procedures used
by the great medieval dyers. It’s a simpler technology that doesn’t
depend on the industrial chemical industry.
General John Burgoyne
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
1766
Oil on canvas
50 × 39 7/8”
Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1943
Accession number: 1943.1.149
The dye used for the famous red of The Redcoats are Coming was cochineal, from
the insect of the same name that was grown in Mexico and cultivated and collected
by natives, since ancient times, from the prickly pear cactus. Cochineal, also known
as carmine, was one of the most famous dyes in history, along with indigo and Tyrian
purple. It can still be acquired today, either as an extract or as the actual bugs.
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