Dear Kay,
Through some minor miracle, last night I found myself sitting in the crowd at the fabled Shakerag Workshops in Sewanee, Tennessee. The speaker was a Nigerian fabric artist who now lives in Santa Fe.
This is Gasali Adeyamo.
He is teaching batik, indigo dyeing, and the general concept of being awesome. His mission of preserving and celebrating age-old Nigerian dyeing traditions seems to be going pretty well.
His classroom is stacked to the rafters with gorgeous fabrics, clothing, and color. It is a massive, eye-popping color party bazaar.
An indigo blue color party bazaar, mostly. It is utterly glorious.
You can feel the hand at work in these fabrics.
Intricate smocked and knotted fabric. So much work before the big reveal.
The ghostly wax images will reverse out once dyed and washed.
These pants. I can hardly express the wonder of these pants.
Gasali is covering a lot of ground in the coming months, and I heartily encourage you to track him down.
July 8-10 Exhibiting in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, Santa Fe, NM.
July 29-31 Traditional Yoruba Adire with Indigo Workshop at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, Telluride, CO.
August 12-14 Traditional Yoruba Batik with Indigo Workshop at Long Ridge Farm, Westmoreland, NH.
August 15-19 Traditional Yoruba Batik, Adire and Tie-dye with Indigo Workshop at Snow Farm, Williamsburg, MA.
September 8-12 Traditional Yoruba Batik, Adire and Tie-dye with Indigo Workshop at The Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, CA.
November 14-18 Traditional Yoruba Batik, Adire and Tie-Dye with Indigo Workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN.
I have the worst kind of workshop envy. Or maybe it’s the best kind.
Love,
Ann
Gorgeous. Inspirational.
Thanks for writing about this. You have inspired me to track him down; I will see him in NH in August.
Absolutely beautiful!Thanks for sharing!
Incredible!! Wonder if he’ll be coming up to Canada…..
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Awesome!! Thanks for sharing.
Totally with you in workshop envy. wow.
I have incredible workshop envy, too. I just don’t see any time I can do any of these, or even ones closer to me. Maybe next year?
He was in the Chicagoland area recently. Wish I had known about it earlier. Anyway, some of the students bought his indigo dye balls to do their own dyeing. I’m sure they bought other stuff too!!
I took a class with Gasali last year…he is just the best teacher as well as an amazing artist!