Sometimes colourful characters enter your life and leave an indelible mark. Amanda de Beaufort is one such character who stayed on my mind after meeting just once at a market in New York. And it’s fitting because her beautiful botanical dye work leaves literally indelible marks all over her collection of fabrics from bedlinen to sweatshirts and, more recently, face masks. We spoke to Amanda about her journey as a handmaker, and how her work connects her to nature’s true wonders.
1. Tell us about how you discovered your method of dyeing.
I’ve always had making in my blood. I went to art school and studied photography and printmaking. I am a lifelong crafter as well. I find the process in creativity fascinating.
When I discovered botanical dyeing I had been working in art, design, and architecture for the past fifteen years, but doing communications and marketing. The long hours staring at the computer screen had me craving getting my hands dirty and connecting to nature.
I first got interested when I read about Audrey Louis Reynolds, a natural dyer that works in the fashion industry. She sells dyes that are made with flowers, earth, and minerals— they are beautiful! So I bought a packet and was intrigued to learn more. My friend encouraged me to try dyeing with avocado pits and after that an obsession took hold!
2. Can you tell us a little bit about the process?
I work primarily with plant fibers—cotton, linen, hemp. I use foraged and homegrown dye plants, as well as dye extracts. Right now, I grow marigold, cosmos, scabiosa coreopsis, and black-eyed Susans that I use to make botanical color prints on cloth called bundle dyeing.
I grow Japanese indigo that can be used to make fresh leaf blues and minty greens. I also vat dye using indigo, immersion dye with various dye-stuff, and create botanical paints for cloth and paper.
One of the things I love about the natural dyeing process is that it’s slow. Dye baths can take more than a day to soak up all the color and get that beautiful varied texture. To create one piece can take more than a week when you factor in the scouring, mordanting, dyeing, curing, and finishing of each piece. This unique and handmade quality of natural dyeing gives it life! A piece that is hand-dyed with plants will change over its lifetime and, to me, becomes more beautiful.
3. What's the most bizarre thing you've ever used for dye color?
I love this question. I think the thing people are most surprised by is bugs. I use cochineal, a parasitic scale insect that lives on the prickly pear cactus. It gives bright pinks and reds that are a very strong and ancient color. I also use lac, which is a resin that is secreted from the scale insect, Kerria lacca. It also gives reds and pinks. Lac was used as far back as 250 AD!!
4. If nights are spent dyeing...what's your day job?
I work with the architect Daniel Libeskind doing communications and marketing in New York City. I having been working in public relations for nearly two decades now, before Libeskind, I worked primarily for art museums in the US and Europe.
