Native Peoples, Native Plants · North Carolina Botanical Garden · October 2026 · Collaboration

A collaborative weaving in Piedmont color

A community weaving by Austen Camille, with naturally dyed fabric by Sayde Laine.

I was invited to help create a collaborative weaving with natural dyes, alongside a few other artists, at the symposium “Native Peoples, Native Plants” at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. I gathered goldenrod and black walnut from a friend’s land down the road, harvested black willow leaves, and used native false indigo, all native to the Piedmont.

What I love about natural dyes is the connection they create between people, culture and the land. There is deep history tied to these colors, and it was an honor to hear members of the Lumbee Tribe share the significance of black walnut, including its use as a dye and in black walnut cake. Its hulls yield a rich, lasting brown that can be deepened to black with iron-rich swamp mud, and black walnut has also been used as a topical treatment for ringworm. These practices and crafts hold meaning and keep alive ancestral ties that have too often been silenced. Today, Native communities are doing the vital work of preserving and passing on this knowledge through their foodways, crafts and stories, and it was deeply meaningful to witness that care firsthand.

I’m grateful to the Native plant knowledge keepers who shared their work, and I hope to keep learning how to pay attention to what the land gives and how to care for it.

Dyes: goldenrod, black walnut, black willow and native false indigo
Role: naturally dyed fabric for Austen Camille’s community weaving