Community Class
Charles Bessett, Teacher
Jordan Knecht, Teaching Artist
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Altering the World Around Us
During our summer program, the Community Class explored dyeing/ discharging as a means of altering the clothing/ textiles in our lives. What began as simple tie dye and bleaching projects turned into complex multi-day experiments altering and customizing garments. In our creative explorations, we learned more about ourselves and each other.
As always, class time included a balance of communing through the sharing of food & conversation and heads-down work time.
Initial Trials
Our Summer explorations began with tie-dye kits. Everyone participated in not only making their own tie-dye, but also in researching different techniques and methods. Some folks came in with examples from TikTok that they wanted to try. Others spent some class time watching videos or looking up tutorials.
The dye kits we started with were fine for initial experimentation, but as with all our beginning trials, we quickly realized the quality of our materials weren't up to our standards, so we ordered some industrial dye powders.
Bleaching/ Discharging
While waiting for our industrial dyes to arrive, we experimented with bleaching shirts. We did trials with solid-colored shirts that we already had, as well as shirts that we tie-dyed.
Placing stencils on shirts in preparation for bleaching.
Bleaching shirts outdoors.
Bleach in action.
A bleach on tie-dye trial.
A completed complex multi-step bleach/ dye combination, which took multiple weeks.
One student brought in wooden stencils from home and experimented with spraying bleach through them to leave impressions on a hoodie.
Industrial Dye
Once our powdered dye arrived, we began experimenting with both powder and liquid dye. With powder dye, we discovered a new technique, called ice-dye, which the entire class preferred, due to it's incredibly vibrant and unexpected outcomes.
An exciting powder-dye outcome!
An old towel, which was slated to be discard, which instead found a new life due to ice dye.
A shirt saved from the donation pile, because of ice dye.
A family heirloom imbued with new life.
A collection of trials and successes.
More trials and successes.
Even more trials and successes.
In order to gather materials to do ice-dye, we all scoured our homes for unused buckets, drying racks, etc. Materials that had been disregarded became essential for our process. Here, we're setting up ice on prepared garments in order for the next step of placing powdered dye on top.