ABOUT THE WORKSHOP RETREAT
Join us July 23-26 for a creative intensive in Indigo Dying with Keisha Cameron. In this immersive three-day workshop, participants will explore indigo through its many transformations from plant to pigment to vat. Working across multiple processes, students will gain a layered understanding of how indigo shifts in form, behavior, and color over time.
Through guided demonstrations and hands-on practice, the workshop will begin with fresh leaf dyeing, focusing on how to coax vibrant color directly from recently harvested indigo. Participants will then move into small-scale pigment extraction, learning how indigo is processed, developed, and prepared for use. The final portion of the workshop will center on building and maintaining natural dye vats, with attention to reduction, oxidation, and the ongoing care required to sustain a living system.
Throughout the experience, indigo will be situated within broader contexts of agricultural practice, material science, and cultural lineage. Participants will engage with the rhythms and variables that shape the dye process, developing both technical skill and a deeper relationship to the material.
By the end of the workshop, participants will have created a range of dyed samples, gathered practical knowledge for working with indigo at home, and developed the confidence to continue exploring its rich and varied possibilities.
ABOUT Keisha Cameron
Keisha Cameron is an artist, farmer, and cultural seedkeeper based at High Hog Farm, just outside of Atlanta. Raised in upstate New York in a family rooted in education, faith, and public service, her work centers on the relationships between land, culture, and community.
Working at the intersection of land stewardship and cultural memory, Cameron is a natural dyer, fiber artist, and shepherdess. Through plant-based dyes, wool, and agrarian arts, she explores making as an extension of ecological care and ancestral practice. Alongside her family, she raises food and fiber, tends sheep and small livestock, cultivates dye plants, and stewards land with a focus on soil health, biodiversity, and long-term resilience.
She received her Permaculture Design Certification in 2013, a turning point that deepened her engagement with agroecology, regenerative systems, and Indigenous land and foodways. Her work is grounded in a commitment to Black agrarian history, food sovereignty, and the reclamation of land-based lifeways disrupted by displacement and extraction.
Cameron’s path to farming was shaped by earlier work in intercultural education, refugee resettlement, and arts-based community practice. She is the founder of The Exchange and previously co-led a creative studio focused on storytelling, design, and community engagement—experiences that continue to inform her approach to teaching and program design.
At High Hog Farm, she facilitates workshops, intensives, and gatherings centered on agrarian arts, fiber systems, natural dyeing, and land stewardship. Her work prioritizes access for Black, Indigenous, and historically marginalized growers, artists, and cultural workers, while remaining grounded in the practical realities of small-scale farming. She approaches education as shared labor and play, and farming as both a cultural and agricultural practice.
Her work is guided by the belief that land can be a site of repair when tended with honesty, humility, and accountability. She continues to live and work alongside her family, cultivating food, fiber, and community with care, patience, and intention.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
This workshop is intended for Beginner to Intermediate skill levels. No prior dyeing experience necessary.
A $50 materials fee has been added to the workshop fee to cover the cost of all supplies and materials, including a number of natural fiber items to dye.
Students should bring a small to medium sized natural fiber item they wish to dye. Examples include: a skein of yarn, a t-shirt, pants or a dress. Avoid large items like towels, tablecloths and blankets.
Fees: $675 (covers workshop fees, materials, and meal plan) + $450-$600 for overnight accommodations in our Antinori Village. Follow this link for info on our accommodation options: hambidge.org/room-board
Check-in: is 1-5pm on the first day of your workshop. If this is an impossibility, please confirm any deviation in advance with staff at workshops@hambidge.org. A mandatory group orientation is held at 5pm on the date of your arrival. Departures are by 2pm on the final day of your workshop.