season 5, episode 1 - welcome back

welcome back, sweet peas! we're back in your podcast feed with a special season dedicated to natural dyes, slow fashion, and some of the very nerdy research ash has been conducting lately. consider this season an extended version of the #snortandcacklebookclub (you're welcome). be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss an episode.

bring the magic of natural dyes into your home and classroom with the exploring natural dyes series, written in age-appropriate language for ages 4+. step into your conscious life with a little help from ash and yarrow atelier, where we build slow sustainable living crafted around everyday magic & ritual. never miss a thing by joining ash's newsletter.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 5, episode 1 - welcome back

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast, the podcast where work and ritual intersect. I'm your host, Ash Alberg of Sunflower Knit and Yarrow Atelier, and I'm an artist and educator specializing in natural dyes and slow fashion. This special season, we'll be diving deep into some of the research I'm doing on both of these topics. Consider it an extended version of the Snort and Cackle Book Club. Follow us on Instagram @SnortandCackle, #SnortandCackleBookClub, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and find your complete show notes and transcripts at ashalberg.com/podcast. Looking to bring the magic of natural dyes into your home or classroom? Check out the new Exploring Natural Dyes series, a full K-12 curriculum written by Ash with the support of Manitoba Arts Council's Artists in Schools program. Teach natural dyeing to kids aged four and up and learn alongside them with hands-on activities, dye recipes, and more resources. Find the full curriculum at ashalberg.com/natural-dyeing-with-kids.

Hello, sweet peas. It has been a while. Welcome back to Snort and Cackle. We've got a special series coming up for you all in the coming weeks. I have been working on some pretty big projects specifically around natural dyes and of course with a focus here on our northern color palette, but as a more general extension on the role of a place-based color palette. And so with these projects I have been having to do a deep dive into research and getting stats and numbers, not necessarily because I need specific stats or numbers for myself. I've been doing this for 10 years and the specific number of billion tons of waste created by the fashion industry in any given year is not relevant for my day-to-day. Today it's, you know, we create a lot of waste. It's the second biggest polluting industry in the world and as a general rule of thumb that's kind of all I need for my own work in the day-to-day. But when I am speaking in other spaces and with folks that don't exist in the same industry and communities that I do where these conversations are very normal and this knowledge is kind of broadly accepted because it's what we do, it's what we're embedded and woven into, then it's helpful. Giving people context is a useful thing. And also I've been noodling about the potential of getting involved again in academic institutions that are post-secondary rather beyond my work in public schools lately, which is my personal favorite space. I like working with kids because their brains are open to a lot of possibility and they latch onto things quickly and they snowball their knowledge very quickly and I appreciate that about them and the possibilities that that creates. And adults, we can get a little bit more stuck on things, which you know is a thing. And also is deeply frustrating to me at different points in time and I definitely find myself falling into the habit of not always wanting to step outside my comfort zone and then reminding myself that that's where the growth happens and where transformation happens.

So anyway, doing lots of research, thinking about lots of things, and you know my goal, kind of always at the core of my work, is to bring other people into it and to take these ideas and these big concepts and make them practical for folks, whether that's by sharing resources for people to take the gigantic behemoth that is climate crisis and how fast fashion is fueling that climate crisis rapidly and breaking it down into really concrete steps of this is what we can do as individuals with our own wardrobes and that can have a really significant ripple effect at the industrial level by forcing change because we demand change. And then also recognizing the nuance in a world that is deeply inequitable. And so I think that's an important part of sharing knowledge is recognizing also that there is not going to be a single right perfect answer that is the exact same for every single person. And so the more that we know, the more that we can lean into the spaces that work for us and make the best decisions for us with our own circumstances in any given time and place, which again brings us back around to the idea of a place-based color palette and being deeply rooted in place as being a really important part of how we address fashion and slow fashion and our role in battling the climate crisis.

And so anyway, expect some episodes coming up and I hope that you enjoy them. I kind of like the idea of like taking a thesis and breaking it up into kind of listening chunks in podcast episodes. That's what's going to be coming up in the next little bit. And we will have transcriptions through the magic of AI. AI is fucking terrifying. And also transcriptions and making them accessible while also being realistic about what this podcast is able to support at this particular moment in time is, yeah, it's again, we're slipping into the nuance of things. So got some transcriptions that will happen which will increase our and keep our accessibility of this podcast for folks, which is super important. And they will be generated through AI, which means that there may be some errors and they will not be as delightful as our other earlier season's transcriptions have been, which is unfortunate. Again, this is where the hand of a person and ear of a real person and the ability to add in that nuance is, you know, the tactile-ness of a human being's input on anything is so much better than something that's been computer generated. And also sometimes we can take advantage of tools that have been made accessible in order to increase accessibility for others in different ways.

So that's what's going to be coming up. And I hope that you listen in and that you're excited and that maybe we get some more conversations going. And yeah, we'll see kind of what comes of this. In the meantime, if you are interested in kind of prepping yourself for, you know, lots of nerdy chats about natural dyes and their role in the world and why it's important, you can always go check out From Field to Skin and watch past interviews and also check out the resources lists that are on there. There's some really great resources that it hasn't been updated particularly recently, but there's, you know, there's like a master's thesis worth of books for you to dive into anyway, and they will give you a good foundation on things.

Also, of course, you can check out my new K-12 natural dyeing curriculum. That is the Exploring Natural Dyes series. So if you would like to bring the magic of natural dyes into your home or your classroom with kids of all ages, then you can do that now. Because I realized through getting back into the classroom with students that are younger than the age of, you know, adulthood, that there weren't actually resources for them written in a way that made sense for them, and also that kind of prepped the adults in their lives for the snowballing of questions that kids will do. So these resources are split into grade levels so that, you know, at each developmental stage, then the language and the vocabulary and the exercises are kind of meeting them where they're at and also providing the adults some extra kind of context and resources so that you're not kind of flying blind when the kids start asking questions that you don't have the answers to because this is not your full-time job or, you know, lifelong passion that you have spent you know hours and hours and hours diving into. It doesn't need to be that difficult. You can totally. I highly recommend it, but you can also play around and have fun and be learning things that are actually real, which is kind of fun. And if you are wanting to dive into natural dyes yourself and you are, you know, not planning on working with your four or ten-year-old, then check out the grade 10-12 package because it's actually written for basically anybody who is kind of adult stage. Teenagers at that point are kind of prepped and ready to start going with all of the stuff that we end up working on as adults. You just keep on extending and falling down more rabbit holes, so that'll give you a really great start and basis and give you lots of rabbit holes to fall down, which is always fun in my world at least.

So yeah, those are some starting points for you. I hope that you find them helpful. And yep, if you want to stay tuned, then make sure that you hit the subscribe button on your news or your podcast feed. And you can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter where, you know, whatever has been happening and or is coming up will be sent to you in a weekly-ish fashion so that you always stay up to date and don't miss something, especially when the algorithms of social media on other platforms beyond your inbox have become very not reliable. So yeah, check out my newsletter at ashalberg.com and you can find newsletter blocks to sign up right along the top. There's a button, just hit it and sign yourself up. And then you can feel free to start browsing and seeing, you know, what's possible with natural dyes. And yeah, looking forward to this and I hope that you are too. Thanks for listening. Chat soon.

You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at ashalberg.com/podcast. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast on your favorite podcasting platform.

Recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.