It was a glorious three days in mid September teaching a mycology and color course at the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. They provide workshops, residencies and events for place-based reflection, inquiry and creation at the intersection of art and ecology.

There were so many highlights of this multi day workshop but one that will leave a lasting impression was the opportunity to spend time at Sitka Center's private, preserved forest with a lovely group of like minded mycophiles. Spending time amongst these old growth sitka spruce trees was magical.

In preparation for the course Jackie studied various dye mushrooms, making detailed, color illustrations along with identification information in her notebook. On our foray we were lucky to find a variety of dye mushrooms and were able to extract their colorants for use in the workshop over the following few days.

After a day in the forest, the next day we prepared the mushrooms and simmered the dye pots making an array of colors.

Everyone created their own color chart to take home as a sampler of the color they created.

On our last day of the workshop we spent time transforming the dyes into pigments, making paint for both fiber and paper. The little accordion notebooks served as a swatch sampler to take home.

Jackie took home a lovely shibori, mushroom dyed fabric sampler with her illustrated mushrooms.