My first tour for Aahilya holidays was last November was a huge success! The group were all wonderful, a fabulous mix of ‘India’ virgins and veterans. We travelled across India, starting in Mumbai, then visiting Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow and Varanasi. As an artist, photographer and natural dyer, there was so much to see and share with the group, and so many stunning opportunities to learn more about traditional Indian textile crafts and practices. Next years tour are to Kerala in South West India in March and Nepal in October so click on the links to find out more.

“Jonny was an amazing tour host on our Northern India tour. He was always cheerful and sensitive to our needs as “Indian novices”. He responded generously to our requests for iPhone photography lessons in the evenings. He is very knowledgeable about textiles and he took some fabulous photographs. On our return he wrote up each day of our trip on his website and shared his photos with us. So we all have a great record of an amazing and informative trip. “.  Sue

You can see a more in depth document of the tour on our blog or clicking on the lists for the different posts listed below:

‘Thanks Jonny and Ross for an incredible week. I left with a head full of knowledge and feeling very inspired! Really excited about my natural dyeing journey.’

‘It was such a good week. I can’t stop looking for galls on oak trees and common yarrow in the hedgerows!’

It was so great to be back at the V&A South Kensington teaching our week-long intensive Natural Dyeing course last week. Working in the Art Studio this time, a much more suitable space with large windows, high ceilings and lots of natural light, it was an amazing if exhausting experience. Sold out months in advance again, we had such a lovely group of people to teach and spend time with. A massive amount of work is involved prepping for a natural dyeing course, and we are still recovering!

We used Walnut Hulls, Pomegranate Rind, Rhubarb Root and Buckthorn Bark for our substantive dyes and Weld, Logwood, Sappanwood, Madder for our adjective dyes and demonstrated Cochineal and Sticklac (a new stinky experience for us all). We achieved such wonderful colours and the group was thrilled with the extensive sample set that they returned home with. Ross also prepped our Indigo Vat, as well as demonstrating a Woad and the 123 Vat method. On top of that we created 4 sample jars, using Rudbeckia, Marigold, Brown Onion skins and Common Yarrow (the latter two with added pieces of iron).

You can read more about the course in the journal post and see a full set of images. We will be running the course again, but are also looking at delivering shorter more advanced courses for the V&A Academy so contact them and register your interest. Keep an eye on the V&A website, here and on our social media for more information. We would both like to thank our great friend and teacher, the wonderful Jenny Dean, whose books we uses as the basis for this course, for all her ongoing help and support. A big shout out also goes to Stacy Gambrell, our V&A Academy producer for supporting us and helping make this second course a reality.

Spring was a busy time for us. Ross exhibited four pieces at this years PRISM exhibition ‘Edgelands‘ and Jonny was asked to photograph the show and Private View. Ross exhibited four groups of work this year. Continuing his series of work that he started in 2015, the flat lay consists of nest of trained roots, found ragstones, seeds, recycled metalwork, leaves grown on our balcony and recycled bottle glass beads. Old and broken metal shelving has been weathered in the dye garden for over three years developing a wonderful rusted patina. White fence consisting of found fencing, redundant bandages and recycle army sheets, documents death caused by government’s lack of concern – starting in covid in care homes through to the current the wars in Ukraine, Sudan and the Palestine, with each knot representing 100 deaths. The new series of Totems, representing the development of the Edgelands, through to the endgame of relentless consumption and destruction of the natural world uses everything from old scaffolding boards, driftwood, antlers and sea salvage through to 12 years of milk bottle tops, used coffee pods, secondhand cable ties, palm fronds and tin cans. We also delivered two free Shibori Indigo workshops which were both fully booked.

It was also wonderful to be asked back to the Japanese Textile + Craft Festival again, this year in its new home at the Gallery Space, Deptford Market Yard and part of London Craft Week. Once again, Jonny designed the publicity material.

Highlighting the Japanese fascination with forests, and the ancient shinto beliefs, he exhibited his beautiful cyanotypes of Scottish forests, the Hermitage and Magus Moor.

‘Trees and nature are central to Shinto, a religion that originated in Japan, which holds that spirits inhabit trees that reach one hundred years of age. These tree spirits are known as kodama, and according to Japanese folklore, the kodama give the tree a personality.’   Glenn Moore & Cassandra Atherton.

Ross is exhibited Balcony Life cloth, which is shown for the first time alongside its companion piece which originally displayed the wrapped items themselves. The metal is the perfect reflection of the Japanese concept of wabi sabi – the search for the beauty in imperfection and the acceptance that all things grow, age, and decay, and how it manifests itself beautifully in objects. He also showed his Whirligig and Shaman’s Mantle

It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks for us. There was a huge amount of preparation involved in getting ready to teach a comprehensive natural dyeing course at the V&A and thankfully I can safely say that our course ‘Natural Dyeing: A Heritage of Colour‘ couldn’t have gone better!

It was an intensive week and we were all exhausted by the end of it, some of us barely able to string a sentence together, but the consensus was that it had been a wonderful week. We received lovely feedback with one student saying it was the best course she’d ever been on! You can read all about the week’s itinerary and see more images in the journal post. If you missed this opportunity, contact the V&A Academy at courses@vam.ac.uk to register your interest – 2024 is just around the corner!

We would both like to thank our great friend and teacher, the wonderful Jenny Dean, whose book we uses as the basis for this course, for all her ongoing help and support. A big shout out also goes to Liza Mackenzie, our V&A Academy producer (and Indigo grower and dyer herself) for supporting us and helping make the course a reality.

All text and images © moderneccentrics.

Please get in touch to order our titles ‘Still Life‘, documenting our show at the Leicester Contemporary, and ‘Artefact‘, looking at Ross’ ongoing Artefact series. Each title is available at £18 including uk postage and packaging, moderneccentrics@gmail.com