Universities have degree programs in music therapy.  Why are there nowhere such programs for Colour Therapy?   One reason may be that most of the colours we now surround ourselves with are not therapeutic.   In fact, they're poisonous.  Most of the chemically  created colours are terrible poisons.  Those artists who chose to do their own dyeing and use those colours have learned to wear respirators whenever they work in their studios.  How different from the Natural Dyes, which are mostly also medicines!

Then there is the pollution when these dyes are used on an industrial scale.  I have seen rivers run red and purple, orange and sickly green from dyeworks in Europe.  In addition to the industrial dyeworks which use these chemicals on a vast scale, are the petroleum works which manufacture these chemical colours.  These industries are a major source of pollution on a global scale.  Their lack of concern for life is demonstrated by the other chemicals they manufacture, such as pesticides and neurotoxins for war.  Examples of acute disasters engendered by these companies include the poisoning of a large area of North Italy with dioxin (ca. 1979), and the killing of thousands via a great chemical cloud in Bopal, India (1984).

Certainly the vibrations from all this poison couldn't be very therapeutic.

As one begins to look around one sees the extent of this chemical dye industry.  It literally colours all our lives.  The same companies that create these chemical colours also create nerve gas, insecticides, herbicides and other dangerous toxins.  Do we, as artists of beauty and healers of soul, want to support that industry, or shall we instead choose the kindly gentleness of nature's gifts in these living, life promoting traditional dyes.

A PERSONAL CHOICE

I have been a professional Natural Dyer for 38 years.  My art, as a textile artist, is to create beautiful colours on silk, using plants.  As a fairly anonymous artist, my work radiates from the further creations of many other textile creators.

To be an anachronism in one's art, and anonymous at that, has required perseverance and fortitude. I fuel this with my passion for these colours.  I began as a weaver, and then progressed into a business dyeing yarns for other artists  In these 38 years I can proudly claim to  have dyed literally tons of silk yarns and other fibres all by hand.  I chose natural dyes

FIRST: BECAUSE THEY ARE MOST BEAUTIFUL.  What is art, if not beauty? It is to fill our life with joy and heart.  To paraphrase Kalil Gibran:  "If you cannot follow God, then follow Beauty, for it also will lead you there."

This is my profession.  I work at my dye vats every day, dyeing a pound or two each day of silk threads or fabric.  It is a lot of work.  I persevere, through long periods of feeling under acknowledged and underpaid, because

SECOND: THE PROCESS IS VERY PLEASANT.  I love the smell of each dyestuff.  I love the emergence of fibre from Indigo vat, where it comes forth green and turns blue in the air.  I love taking dusky plants and white silk and creating my own Love manifest in Colour Joy.

And I can be proud that all this art, all this beauty, and the entire way I support my family, is through a business that is

THIRD: NATURAL DYES ARE ECOLOGICALLY SOUND FOR THE PLANET.

ALL NATURAL FIBRES - ALL COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW

All natural fibres will dye beautiful colours with Natural Dyes.  It is possible to achieve a full rainbow using no toxic or poisonous chemicals.  With the renewed interest in Natural Colours, we can look forward to seeing Natural Dye colours appearing more and more in our daily lives. 

Remember, BEFORE 1856 ALL COLOURS WERE NATURALLY DYED.

FASTNESS:  Whenever the issue of the fastness of my colours arises, I simply point out that all colours dyed prior to 1856 have been dyed with Natural Dyes.  

Any time you go to a museum and see a textile created before that date, you know that all its colours are Naturally Dyed.  Louis XIV silks, Renaissance velvets, Chinese Imperial robes, Japanese textile treasures, Coptic fragments, the Bayeaux "tapestry", Peruvian weavings, Indonesian ikats, the Unicorn Tapestries: all Naturally Dyed.  All still exquisitely beautiful.  The dyes and formulas presented by Aurora Silk are the same dyes and the same techniques used to create these enduring textile treasures.

Copywrite Cheryl Kolander