Art and horticulture merge to create natural dye garden at UK

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 2, 2024) — The intersection of art and science isn’t always obvious, but for a University of Kentucky art professor and a university horticulturalist, it was natural, and in more ways than one. 

Crystal Gregory, an associate professor in the College of Fine Arts School of Art and Visual Studies, and Shari Dutton, a staff horticulturalist in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, are both fiber artists. Gregory, who is the Arturo Alonzo Sandoval Endowed Professor in Fiber, practices fiber art as a teacher and working artist. Dutton has practiced as a hobbyist for more than 30 years. Gregory and Dutton have both done synthetic dyeing of fabric, but recently have started experimenting with natural dyeing — using pigments derived from plants. 

“I’m a grower. I’m a greenhouse grower,” Dutton said. “The whole circle of that fascinates me — to be able to work with fiber and naturally dye it, and produce the plants.” 

Gregory started natural dyeing during the pandemic, as an offshoot of what she was teaching.  

“I was kind of forced, as we all were, to teach online. One thing I was really interested in doing was having my students be able to produce dye in their homes,” Gregory said. 

Due to synthetic dye’s toxicity to the environment, Gregory researched natural dyeing techniques to teach her students.  

“The experience of that research opened up a whole new series of investigations,” she said.  

Gregory found that the colors she was able to derive from plants were dependent on more than the variety of plant. Environmental factors affected the finished product of the natural dyeing process. 

“Depending on how much rain there was and how much light there was (for the plant), the color that the plant produces is different,” Gregory said. “That just adds this incredible layer of poetry to it that I really love and admire.” 

Dutton was also intrigued by the practice of natural dyeing. In her position as a horticulturalist, she began planting a dye garden at The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky. One of Gregory’s students had a friend in the university’s Horticulture Club, which Dutton advises, and told Gregory about the dye garden. 

“That project started out as a Christmas present,” Dutton said, explaining that she got the idea from a book she received as a gift. “‘Hey, I could do a workshop with the Horticulture Club on fresh leaf indigo dyeing.’ We tried it and the students loved it, and I loved it.” 

From that jumping off point, Dutton and the club added more plants that have natural dye properties. That’s when her partnership with Gregory began.  

“I guess that was even at the beginning of our collaboration, we were talking about who is this for and how do we offer it?” Gregory said. “So, we had a successful year at the arboretum and sharing with the visitors of the arboretum. We built a website that people can access the research done in the dye garden, but Shari was very keen to work with extension agents. The idea was to present this research to the extension agents so that the agents could take it into their community and then that output is even further.”

That’s also when Alexis Sheffield, got involved. At the time she was an extension agent in Boyle County (she has since started working as an extension specialist for horticulture in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment). 

“I just thought this kind of knowledge would be valuable for agents to be able to bring back to their communities,” said Sheffield. “It was a beautiful partnership that was happening before we even realized it was happening.”

They all worked together to plant a dye garden outside of the Boyle County Extension office. They harvested the dye plants and held workshops with extension agents from other communities to demonstrate how to use the dye. 

“Hopefully these agents are going to be able to take these wonderful resources that Shari and Crystal have brought, and their knowledge, and bring that back to their communities all over the state of Kentucky,” Sheffield said.

“That felt like a really rich community to share this with — on top of our students,” said Gregory. “The students can maybe use it in a different way but the communities that the agents are serving can really hit the ground and run with it.”

Watch the video above to learn more about this amazing intersection of art, agriculture and outreach.