As part of the 25th annual Mountain Harvest Festival celebration last month in Paonia, several artists demoed their process. For KVNF, Laura Palmisano interviews North Fork Valley artist Kelly Moody, who showcased how to dye with locally sourced plants.
Palmisano: And what are you doing at Mountain Harvest Fest today?
Moody: I'm doing natural dye demos and selling sheep hides I tanned, some clothes I dyed, my herbal medicines, and crafts that I make from leather I tan from deer and elk in the valley, bone I glean from the butcher shop, and beads I make at the clay studio. I'm kind of a multifaceted artist and craftsperson.
Palmisano: And you're doing a demo. Can you show me what you're doing over there?
Moody: I'm dyeing this shirt with coreopsis that was grown here in the valley. It's a flower that makes a really cool orange color. And then that's black walnut dye that I did earlier on a wool sweater, and it's going to turn a brown color. You can find some of those in the valley planted around town—English and black walnuts.
And then I have all these dyed things out to show what the plants look like and that you could use wild plants, too. Actually, some of the stuff hanging—the sagebrush and the rabbitbrush—you can also use. At some point, I'll probably dye that cloth, too, when I have a moment.
So I'm showing natural dyes, and then some of the hides that I tanned basically use some of the same plants in a different context. The tannic plants can also preserve and tan skins. So these are all naturally done.
Palmisano: What kind of skins do you have hanging up?
Moody: They're mostly sheep, but I have a goat and a yak over there from a woman named Shannon who raises them in Crawford.
Palmisano: And the sheep hides, are they from sheep here in the North Fork?
Moody: Some of them are. Some of them are from the San Luis Valley, some are from Durango. I kind of have to source them in different places because there's not enough variety here, but some of them are. These two hanging here are from this valley. That one's Durango. They're from different places in the region.
Palmisano: How did you get into dyeing and tanning?
Moody: I got into natural dyeing and hide tanning because I was getting into self-sufficiency and bushcraft skills when I lived in the South, where I'm from. I've done a lot with clay. I started doing natural dye stuff there when I was farming, and as I started spending more time out West, there were so many more hides available out here. I've been out in this area for 10 or 12 years now, and I work with different dye plants because there's a lot more variety out here.
I think it all started with living off-grid and wanting to learn self-sufficiency skills. I've just taken that with me throughout my life and deepened those skills as I've lived.
Palmisano: Are you a grower as well?
Moody: I used to farm when I had land to farm on, but I don't have land now, so I forage a lot. But a lot of these dye plants came from local farms. I foraged some of the black walnut planted around town, so a lot of these were sourced locally. The indigo was all dyed in the valley.
Palmisano: What is the name of your business?
Moody: Ground Shots Herbs is the name of the business, but it's more than just herbal medicine—it's like the end craft, you could say. I have a studio in town at the Paonia Makerspace. It's the same building that Wild's woodworking studio is in, along with some other people doing metal and wood stuff. I make all the medicine and do some of the dye stuff there and tanning in the back.
