Kathryn Davey
Many years ago, while living in California, I began experimenting with indigo. I had no idea what I was doing and did everything I advise students against today!
What draws me to natural colour is that it feels alive. It changes, glimmers and dances, depending on the light of the day. There's a magic soul-ful quality to the colour that comes from plants.
I love walking through a landscape and learning what colours lays dormant in a plant. And I love knowing that this was how we coloured the textiles of our lives throughout our history.
All Images on this page by Emma Good
"No chemical dye has that lustre, that under glow of rich colour, that delicious aromatic smell, that soft light & shadow that give so much pleasure to the eye. These colours are alive!"
VIOLETTA THURSTAN, 1878-1978
What started as an experiment became a preoccupation, and eventually, my work. I built one of the first commercial natural dye studios in Ireland from the ground up, hand-dyeing thousands of pieces and selling internationally, across the US, Australia, Japan, and Europe.
I ran that business for several years, until Covid forced me to stop and take stock. I realised I had no life outside of work, I was deeply burnt out. It became the turning point that shifted my focus toward what mattered more to me: research, discovery, and documenting the natural dye plants around me.
“Every month, for three years, I experimented with a new dye plant from in and around Dublin, researching and documenting each source of natural colour and sharing what I found with my community..”
I officially stopped producing and selling natural dye goods commercially in 2022. Since then, my practice has moved from dyeing for others to dyeing for myself, continuing my own learning. I grow my own dye plants, and recently installed a natural dye garden for the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dublin.
I continue to experiment, gather, and document what the Irish landscape holds, season by season.
My current work takes the form of larger scale naturally dyed pieces.
I'm based in Dublin and work from my studio in Harold's Cross.
FEATURED IN
My book, Natural Dyeing: Learn How to Create Colour and Dye Textiles Naturally, was published by Hardie Grant in 2022. My work has been featured in publications including Vogue, Elle Decor, the Financial Times, and Selvedge Magazine. I teach and speak internationally, including an annual retreat on Andros, Greece, since 2019.
