Sandra. I am a textile designer & natural color specialist. My 30+ year artistic journey has taken me to the US, North Africa, SE Asia & East Asia to study, teach, explore & research hand crafted textiles & natural dye practices. I am happiest on the road meeting fellow artisans, collaborating on social projects & exploring tea traditions!

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Slow Fiber. I have engaged in nearly every possible fiber related field from designing & constructing pieces of clothing, spinning & weaving, carding & felting, knitting & crochet, surface design & dyeing, all the way to creating hand-made paper & papier-mâché sculpture!

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Natural Color. My ultimate passion (besides tea :) - there is a depth, richness, luminescence & allure to these poetic hues! The colors seem alive & maintain the forces of the roots, blossoms, leaves, wood, bark, mushrooms, lichens, bugs & snails from which they are extracted. Over the centuries, dye recipes have been jealously guarded and cloaked with ritual, magical blessings & alchemy because without them, the textile world would have been very drab indeed :) Natural color can be grown or harvested sustainably across the earth & is slow, human, ecological, harmonious & incredibly beautiful!

 
Mentors. Following Fashion School in Vienna, I studied with textile artist Barbara Setsu-Pickett who introduced me to the Japanese aesthetic & taught me the basics of natural dyeing & shibori at the University of Oregon in the 90's. Over the years that followed, I took many workshops & have had private associations with great visionaries, such as Michele Wipplinger (Natural Extracts & Pigments, Surface Design & Color Institute), Charlotte Kwon (Maiwa), Michel Garcia (Indigo), Joan Morris (Shibori) & Julie Arkell (Papier-mâché).

The Past. I have worked alongside, taught workshops & developed natural color ways for artists & industry with & for Michele Wipplinger & Kathy Hattori at Earthues. My naturally colored, nuno-felted & shibori accessories & textile jewelry sold at galeries such as MOMA San Francisco, KOBO in Seattle, The Real Mother Goose in Portland & the famous BAM Arts Fair in Bellevue, WA. I am fortunate to have taught Natural Dye & Ink, Indigo, Shibori & Surface Design Workshops on 4 continents & have worked on social projects in SE Asia & North Africa!