The Natural Dye Garden is a collaborative space for cultivating plants to create natural inks and dyes. Students and Faculty engage with the full life cycle of the garden—germinating seeds, nurturing blooms, and harvesting plants to craft dyes and pigments for their creative projects. This outdoor lab, enlivening the Sculpture Dock of the Fine Art Building, fosters co-learning and co-creation, deepening connections between humans and the living world while encouraging conscious, sustainable material production. 
The Germination of the Natural Dye Garden
The Natural Dye Garden sprouted in 2021 as a collaboration between the Sculpture and Printmaking programs, who continue to steward the garden as a vital living learning lab for the Art Department. Professors Jill Parisi-Phillips and Emily Puthoff germinated the garden. Emily Puthoff designed and built the garden beds and fencing with support of sculpture students and faculty, Michael Asbill and Kelly McGrath. Jill Parisi nurtured the seedlings with support of printmaking students and faculty, Aurora De Armendi Sobrino, Maggie Oakes, and Kate Collyer. Prof. Parisi and Puthoff created new classes, Eco Art and Natural Ink and Dye, and invited students and colleagues to cultivate the garden through collaborative community workshops. Gratitude to the Art Department and School of Fine and Performing Arts for providing the literal seed funding for the garden and to the many hands who have sculpted, planted and tended the garden over the years. 
The Garden Today
The Garden serves as a vibrant resource for Sculpture and Printmaking classes. Professor Puthoff’s Eco Art and Basic Sculpture classes explore interspecies connections, sustainable art material cultivation, and the importance of pollinators. Prof. Jill Parisi-Phillips created and proposed a special topics course Natural Dye course in the Printmaking Program to guide students in harvesting plants, leaves, and roots from the garden to craft inks and dyes for different art making applications on both paper and textiles. Since Prof. Parisi’s retirement, Professor Emilie Houssart has expanded this interdisciplinary course to explore working with color-producing organisms from a non-extractive, local, seasonal and temporal perspective. Students co-design a curriculum that includes plant cultivation and respectful foraging, edible dye plants and food waste, zero-energy/clean water dyeing, and research-based creative projects with a range of inks, dyes and paints. Professor Aurora De Armendi Sobrino has conducted research in collaboration with BFA Printmaking student Ezra Heller working with foraged fungi and plant dyes. In 2023, she began taking ink, dye and lake pigment workshops with professionals in the field to understand these processes more in depth and support student learning. She is continuing this research to further implement it in printmaking classes with the intention that students develop closer relationship with the land to make their own oil-based and water-based inks for intaglio, monotype, lithography and silkscreen printing. 
The Gardens Location
Fine Art Building Sculpture Dock, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
