Dyed in the Woods
The Mushroom Color Atlas unearths the natural colors—and possibilities—of these ‘flowers of the forest floor’
Julie Beeler is an artist, a teacher, a farmer, and a florist who cultivates color in myriad ways. After a career in digital interactive media, Beeler and her husband, Brad Johnson, moved from Portland to an organic 18-acre farm in Trout Lake, just over the Cascade Range in southern Washington. Today, Bloom and Dye offers CSA flower subscriptions to the small community and is a hub for natural dye workshops where participants are encouraged to explore “fresh cut color” from plants and flowers raised on the farm or foraged from neighboring fields and forests.
A native Oregonian who grew up surrounded by nature, Beeler has always been fascinated with mushrooms. Experimenting with a small study group of fiber artists in Portland investigating colors derived from forest fungi, further deepened her interest. Last fall, Beeler published the Mushroom Color Atlas, a dazzling online resource celebrating color and nature’s abundance. The site launched with a rainbow of 600 hues derived from 28 mushrooms.
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