‘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 that time of year and we’re planning what the next few months hold in store for us. We’re thrilled to be back at the V&A teaching our ‘Natural Dyeing: A Heritage of Colour‘ textile course which runs from the 22nd – 26th of July. V&A Members can book tickets now and general booking opens to everyone from 10.00 GMT on Monday 12 February.

As well as learning about different types of natural dyes and best practice in hands on workshops over the five days, the course includes a private gallery tour with V&A curator Susan North looking at pre-1800 fashion & textiles in the collection and a talk on India’s natural dyes and their impact on global fashion with V&A curator Avalon Fotheringham. You can read more about Avalon’s research into this fascinating subject in her post Inspired to Make. You can read all about the week’s itinerary and see more images from October’s course in the journal post. We had such a wonderful time teaching in October and we are delighted to have been asked back.

‘The two tutors, Ross and Jonny, were excellent! They were engaging, well prepared, organised and delivered an action packed course in which they shared their knowledge and gave a lot of hands on practice‘ Previous Course students’ feedback

‘The course was quite literally the best textile course I have ever participated in. I had not appreciated in advance just how complex the information was but Ross and Jonny broke it down at every stage into manageable chunks.‘

We are also really pleased to have a new home for moderneccentrics. We are taking part in the Florence Trust residency scheme and have a studio at their new base in Holy Trinity Church, Cloudsley Square, Islington. A short walk from Angel station on the Northern Line, the church is Grade II* , built 1826-9 to the design of Sir Charles Barry.

We will be running a series of workshops throughout the year, some in association with the Trust so watch for further updates here or on our moderneccentrics social media accounts. We will also be running events during Stitch Festival (21-24 March) at the Business Design Centre, minutes from the studio. We hope to see you soon!

We have had a very busy few months! Following on from our very successful workshop for the London Business School Student Association, we headed off to Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft to deliver a sold out Handmade Experimental Brushes and Botanical Inks workshop. This is part of a series of workshops to coincide with Shōji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling. Ross also delivered a private contact printing workshop at the Duke of Cambridge for a textile group and we are hoping to deliver more workshops there over the next few months.

Ross will be exhibiting at ‘Warped’, the new PRISM show at Art Pavilion, Mile End Park. The exhibition runs from Thursday 20th April to Monday 1st May, and he will be delivering contact printing as part of the series of workshops, on the 24th of April.

In February, I accompanied my Mother on a visit to India to learn traditional Block Printing on a holiday of a lifetime organised by Aahilya Holidays (whom I cannot recommend highly enough). I have been back a few weeks and writing up all our adventures in detail. Working through the thousands of photos I took whilst there is taking a while! You can see and read more about them here.

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