Teacher Workshop: Turn Again to the Earth

Join educators from across the state for a hands-on workshop exploring the BMA’s Turn Again to the Earth initiative.

Designed exclusively for teachers, this workshop begins with a light breakfast and includes a private curatorial tour of Earth as Medium: Extracting Art from Nature, a natural pigment and dye workshop led by teaching artist Kenya Miles, and a discussion connecting works on display to the classroom curriculum.

Participants will also receive 10% off at the BMA Shop. Registration is required.

Tickets

$30 BMA Members | $35 Non-Members (Not a BMA Member? Join today and save.)

Get Tickets
For more information, please contact Suzy Wolffe at swolffe@artbma.org.

Schedule

9-9:20 a.m. – Check in and light breakfast
9:20 a.m. – Welcome and introductions
9:30-10:30 a.m. – Private tour of Earth as Medium: Extracting Art from Nature with Eddie C. And C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator Kevin Tervala
10:30 a.m. – Break
10:40 a.m.-1 p.m. – Pigments, Plants, Paint, Pastels workshop with Kenya Miles

About Kenya Miles

Kenya is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. She is also the alchemist behind Traveling Miles Studio, a one-woman textile and fine art studio that focuses on utilizing sustainable materials, from earth pigments to natural dyes. Kenya’s work honors ancient practices while harmoniously drawing on a distinctive contemporary voice. From the valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico, to the red clay roads of Ntonso, Ghana, Kenya’s process is a ledger of years of wandering and apprenticing around the globe. Kenya has facilitated workshops at the Berkeley Art Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, and MICA. She was a guest artist at Berkeley Art Museum’s experimental exhibition The Possible and in 2019, had a solo exhibition, The Central Sun, in San Francisco. From 2019–2020, Kenya was an Artist-in-Residence and farmer in the Baltimore Natural Dye Initiative. In January 2020, Kenya founded Blue Light Junction, a natural dye studio, alternative color lab, retail space, dye garden, and educational facility in central Baltimore. Blue Light Junction focuses on growing, processing, and preserving the history of natural dyes and their artistic, practical, and commercial applications. In 2022–2023, Kenya was a USC Annenberg Civic Media Fellow and is currently a Braiding Seeds Fellow (2023–2024) and a Center for Craft Teaching Artist (2024.)

About the Pigments, Plants, Paint, Pastels workshop

In this workshop, participants will learn about the origins, process, and transformative material uses of natural earth pigments and natural dyes. Students will discover uses and techniques utilizing earth pigments (from mineral and oxide clay with naturally occurring colorant) and natural dye pigments (from plant matter, fungus, lichen, and certain insects and shellfish.) Evidence of these kinds of colorings are some of the earliest known instances of human art-making, and many communities still use these ancient techniques today.

Participants will study colorants from a cultural lens and experiment with applications of earth pigments and natural dyes as well as their uses in forms such as paint, watercolor/gouache, inks, and pastels. Open to all skill levels.