Circular Threads: A Workshop on Creativity and Earth Care. 8-12 July 2024, Ubud, Bali

with Nicole Lawrence and William Ingram

Inspired by Bali’s tradition of offering making, engaged through simple awareness and sketching exercises in nature, and practicing your creative process in Threads of Life’s natural dye studio and dye plant garden, during this 5-day workshop you will transform both some much-loved textiles and yourself.

The creative process is a structured surrender. It is simultaneously an offering to and a receiving from the world. This reciprocity is relational and, through the materials we use and how we use them, situates us within the web of life. Consciously remaking, repurposing and transforming unused garments, fabrics and textile homewares in this way can undo destructive patterns of consumption and align us with the health of the earth.

This 5-day workshop centers the creative purpose, comparing and contrasting it to Bali’s daily offering making practice. Each day starts with an iterative and developing practice of nature awareness with William followed by a reflective sketching exercise with Nicole. The morning in the dye studio will be filled with the plant-to-dye-pot practices of indigo and mud dyeing, with batik, shibori and embroidery surface design. In the afternoons Nicole will help you to develop your creative process as she guides you to transform and revitalize a garment, fabric or textile homeware that is precious to you but for which you no longer have a use. A seamstress will be available on-site to help sew up any new garments or objects you are creating.

Nicole Lawrence is a Bali-based artist with a lifelong love for enlivened creativity. She has taught children and adults for over 20 years in Australia and South-East Asia. Nicole is inspired to uncover creative processes that lead to self-development and healing. In her experience, deep connection with the natural world can be made simple and profound through phenomenological observation. nicoleandpaul.com.au

William Ingram is co-founder of Threads of Life, a Bali-based social enterprise that has worked with over 1000 traditional weavers and their families in 50 communities on 12 Indonesian islands since 1997. During 30 years of living in Bali, William has been performing the offerings around his house and uses this practice to approach the worldview of the indigenous peoples that Threads of Life works with. Respect and reciprocity characterize traditional relationships with nonhuman life, and William is interested how indigenous ways of knowing can help us reintegrate these values into modern life. He is studying for a Master’s degree in Ecology, Spirituality and Religion and is author of “A Little Bit One O’clock: Living with a Balinese family”.

Schedule

Monday - Day 1
08:30 AM - Transfers from Ubud to studio
09:00 AM - Personal introductions and introduction to program.
10:00 AM - Batik and indigo dye processes
12:30 PM - Lunch
01:30 PM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
02:30 PM - Personal creative process
05:00 PM - Transfers to Ubud from studio

Tuesday - Day 2
08:30 AM - Transfers from Ubud to studio
09:00 AM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
10:00 AM - Mud dye processes
12:30 PM - Lunch
01:30 PM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
02:30 PM - Personal creative process
05:00 PM - Transfers to Ubud from studio

Wednesday - Day 3
08:30 AM - Transfers from Ubud to studio
09:00 AM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
10:00 AM - Shibori and embroidery processes
12:30 PM - Lunch
01:30 PM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
02:30 PM - Personal creative process
05:00 PM - Transfers to Ubud from studio

Thursday - Day 4
08:30 AM - Transfers from Ubud to studio
09:00 AM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
10:00 AM - Personal creative process
12:30 PM - Lunch
01:30 PM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
02:30 PM - Personal creative process
05:00 PM - Transfers to Ubud from studio

Friday - Day 5
08:30 AM - Transfers from Ubud to studio
09:00 AM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
10:00 AM - Personal creative process
12:30 PM - Lunch
01:30 PM - Nature awareness and nature sketching exercises
02:30 PM - Personal creative process
05:00 PM - Transfers to Ubud from studio

Included in workshop price:

• Morning transfers from central Ubud accommodations to the studio, and afternoon transfers from the studio to central Ubud accommodations. If you are staying outside of Ubud, either arrange your own studio transfers or arrange to meet the shuttle in central Ubud.
• Lunch, snacks, coffee and tea, free-flow drinking water.
• All dye materials.
• Cotton cloth for exercises.
• You may dye up to 5 meters of cellulose cloth (cotton or linen) for personal creative projects. This may be in the form of new cloth (cotton will be provided) or old textiles you are transforming.
• A seamstress will be available on-site to help sew up any new garments or objects you are creating.

Not included in workshop price:

• Airfares
• Accommodations
• Breakfast and dinner

To bring:

Pre-washed old textiles or garments to transform and repurpose during the workshop. If you wish to re-dye them, make sure they are cellulose fibers (cotton or linen) and that any dyes they are colored by a colorfast (not running when washed). Bring more than you think you will need so that you have options to work with.