Hello allll
We hope the start of 2024 has been kind to you!
After our residency in Malaysia (more sharings on the way!), we went up north by train to visit some friends at Sahainan Permaculture Farm, a community in the northern mountains of Thailand just an hour away from Laos. At the end of every year, they plan a music festival in their town of Thung Chang, with performances by the high school students and some of the farmers there.
A few days before, people just showed up in their vehicles, with camping tents and coffee makers, very soon a couple of campfire pits popped up, a few artists set up some booths with their handmade clothes and bags. With fresh coffee and music all day long, what else do you need for an awesome festival to wrap up the year?
The bamboo performance stage was set up just a week ago by Sandot and some bamboo building students from Singapore, Malaysia and Israel. We were told by one of the artists that the hanging cloths are of the Tai Lue people, one of the hill tribe groups living in the area.
Most of whatever happened during the 3-day festival was apparently unplanned, according to Sandot’s wife Shen. We were also not expecting to meet so many natural dyers and learn eco-printing from them!
We joined in the fun with some leaves that our teacher, Jum, had prepared from her hometown. This was what we placed out on the mordanted cloth…
and after almost half a day of steaming (on an open fire it is even more difficult to keep the heat consistent), this was the result!
The skill in eco-printing is not only in what plants to choose and how to prepare your cloth, but also in how to bundle up the cloth tightly enough to form crisp prints. We have only seen such vibrant teak reds from Thailand’s makers and were told that only young leaves give such strong reds. Someone else we met on a craft market in Chiang Mai told us she only forages for them during the rainy season, but it was also because that’s when the leaves fall from the tall tree.
The leaves that Jum brought did feel very soft and had a reddish tint to them. Knowing when to pick our dyestuff is a whole craft in itself!
Another very unique print by Jum using lotus fruits and roots…
It is super refreshing to meet these eco-printers, and though we did not stay long at Sahainan this trip as we also wanted to visit another town called Nan, the music, fun and cups of delicious dark coffee roasted by Liz (enjoying her beginner’s luck) was definitely one of the highlights of 2023.
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and we are happy to slowly have more people joining us here :) Here’s to more spontaneous and beautiful things in 2024!
Best wishes for the new year ahead,
Liz and Shirin