Erin Berkowitz 𖦹 Berbo Studio

It is with enormous joy and excitement that I announce my upcoming book—The Naturalist Dyer—with @heydaybooks ! For years I’ve been dreaming of turning the concepts I share in workshops, on plant walks, and in my shorter pieces of writing—about tending our local ecologies while simultaneously creating with them—into a book. It’s an honor to bring this dream to life with Heyday, the publisher of some of my most treasured and referenced books, from which I’ve gained knowledge and inspiration—and now encouragement—for my own work, which I gratefully share with you. More soon! With love and so many thanks, Erin

I live my life on salve time now. Full moon: collect the plants. New moon: immerse in oil. Between moons: wait. (And visit bee people at farmer’s market for beeswax). Next full moon: day of straining, combining, pouring, rejoicing. Every batch is different because the plants are and I am. Every batch is very special to me and I am delighted to share it with you. Full moon later this week. Cycle starts again. The results from this one are currently in the shop. With love 🌝

Disposable film snaps from last year’s Autumn Equinox Retreat ✨ Looking forward to more swimming and dyeing and eating and togetherness in the outdoors at this year’s retreat (Save the date ~ Sept 25-27)

Thank you for a lovely season of spring markets, to all who planned the events at @californiabotanicgarden and @uclabotanical , and to the friends (new and old) who came to visit and support my work and many other ecologically centered small businesses and organizations! These events always remind me community (human and non) is everything. 🕸️✨

Flax dye ✨ I know flax (Linum usitatissimum) as the plant responsible for durable, time-tested linen textiles, cultivated for at least ten thousand years for both its fiber and edible seeds. (Flax’s specific epithet, “usitatissimum,” means “most useful.”) When Erika @fesercoldsprings called it out to me as a potential dye plant, my ears perked up, and when the bouquet she sent me home with turned the vase water a deep amber, my interest deepened. This was the first I’d witnessed of this plant’s dye potential! (Surely throughout history people have woven and dyed in tandem with its color and fiber? One could make a 100% flax derived textile. My kinda plant!) Flax makes a strong, luminous yellow dye, and the brew smells distinctly like spinach or oxalis to me. Both are rich in oxalic acid—maybe flax contains some of the same? Its bright, pure yellow dye strikes me as flavonoid-based, which lines up with the seeds’ antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties. The whole plant obviously contains some tannins, as evidenced by the deep olive green color induced by my homemade iron solution. Most useful, indeed! I’ll be including this plant in my future dye garden plans. Maybe someday one of you weaving wizards can teach me how to spin its fiber, which is two to three times stronger than cotton—which gives me hope my hands won’t mangle it. How lovely to get to know this old plant in a new way. ✨

After looking at these colors all day, the rest of the world looked a little dull in comparison. Dyes from: garden grown marigold & sulphur cosmos, oak galls, and indigo 🌈

Very excited to bring my wares to market on two special occasions this month! Sunday, May 10th at @californiabotanicgarden ’s @grow.native.nursery for Mother’s Day 🌸 and Saturday, May 16th at @uclabotanical ’s Clarkia Flower Festival. Hope to see you there!

New zine ✨ all about the crossover between medicinal and color-containing botanical compounds. Includes a list of medicinal plants which are also potent natural dyes, a recipe for mordanting (preparing) fibers for dye, and my method for brewing color from these plants. All you need to begin working with medicinal color in a few small (and very cute) pages!

Sagebrush Lovers Club unite! We left beautiful @fesercoldsprings yesterday smelling like sagebrush and campfire, after a day together exploring this ecosystem-defining plant’s dye and medicine. We discussed the science behind sagebrush’s scent and natural color(s), gently harvested from plants on the property—observing many galls made by the sponge gall midge—and created dye (with spring and river water) and herbal salve (with local beeswax) as steam from our pots carrying sagebrush’s aroma mingled with the rain clouds rolling in. What a truly beautiful day with a wonderfully creative, curious group. I know we all left feeling even more enamored with this special plant, its medicine, color, ecology, and environment. From sagebrush country, with love 💛

💚 Grateful to Live on This Earth Day 💚 (from an as yet unnamed spring which I have named Heart Spring)

On May 23rd I’m teaching a workshop at @californiabotanicgarden on a topic very near and dear to me—Natural Dyes of the San Gabriel Foothills. Between the rugged montane wilderness of the San Gabriel Mountains and the densely populated basins below, lie the foothills. Blanketed in chaparral, studded with scrubland and oak and walnut woodland, these uniquely Southern Californian ecotones—where human and wild worlds often meet and mix—are home to some of the region’s most recognizable and resilient plants, many of which also contain potent natural dyes. Oak, sagebrush, toyon, black walnut, laurel sumac—we may know these plants from our time on the trail or in our gardens, but working with them as dyes allows us a unique look into their ecology, chemistry, history, and natural color potential. Join me for a workshop exploring the plant dyes of the San Gabriel foothills. Together we’ll brew pots of dye from freshly harvested plants, which we’ll use to color silk in a spectrum of local colors. In class we’ll cover the whole step-by-step dyeing process, and discussion will explore the array of locally available dye plants, how to work with their colors, and ethics and guidelines for harvesting them. Our local palette of natural color is as unique and varied as the ecology and plant life which produce these hues. Join me to explore the place and plants which initiated my practice of creating with local natural dyes—a source of endless inspiration and connection which I’m eager to share with you.

Creating goods for spring markets, using @green_tailor ’s beautiful textiles and an indigo vat I’ve kept now for over a year. 🌀🌱✨