Photographs by Christopher Just, courtesy of Atelier de la Nature.
Lou Ann Moses’s ceremonial dress drying at Atelier de la Nature, Arnaudville, Louisiana.
Elaine Larcade Bourque has been a textile artist in South Louisiana for almost forty years now, devoting herself to traditionally recreating Acadian brown cotton textiles—growing the cotton herself, harvesting it, spinning the fibers into thread, and then weaving it on a loom. While she was apprenticing under master weaver Gladys LeBlanc Clark in the early 1990s, Clark received some indigo seeds and a recipe to create dye. Because indigo blue was a crucial part of the traditional Acadian textile colorways, Bourque has since incorporated the cultivation and processing of indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) into her process, which she graciously shared with us for this story.
[Read more about the history and revival of indigo in Louisiana here.]
Planting and Harvesting
Plant your indigo seeds in full sun, when the soil is warm, after the last frost date but as early in the spring season as possible—between February to mid-April. Generally, by the end of summer (around September), you can strip the leaves, and they’ll grow back and give you another crop (by around November). If a frost is on its way, harvest—the leaves won’t survive extreme cold.
Processing
Step 1: In the late afternoon, stuff your leaves, tightly, into gallon glass jugs.
Step 2: Fill each jug to the top with water, ensuring all the leaves are wet.
Step 3: Let sit overnight.
Step 4: Get a very large pot and place it on the kitchen stove. Place a dish towel at the bottom of it. Place your glass jug with the leaves in the water. Very, very slowly, heat the water to 160 degrees. This usually takes around two hours. When it reaches 160 degrees, you should see some spots of purple, blueish color floating to the top of the jug.
Step 5: Take the glass container out of the water and strain the leaves into another container using a colander. Squeeze any excess liquid from the leaves with your hands and then dispose of them. You should have about a gallon of liquid.
Step 6: Cover your liquid and keep it at room temperature until you are ready to use it. Have your cotton, or other fabric or fiber, soaking in water for two or more days before you are ready to dye.
Step 7: When you are ready to dye, add a heaping tablespoon of baking soda to the solution. Incorporate thoroughly by passing the liquid back and forth from one container to another about ten times, until there is a froth at the top.
Step 8: Add three tablespoons of Rit Color Remover. Your solution should now be a brown color.
Step 9: Let simmer on the stove between 101–120 degrees for about thirty minutes to an hour. At this point, it should change to a yellow or tannish color, with a bit of blue at the surface.
Step 10: Drop wet cotton slowly into the indigo bath, avoiding incorporating much air. Leave soaking for thirty minutes.
Step 11: Pull the cotton up, squeezing out excess dye. Within sixty seconds, oxidation will occur and you will observe your cotton changing from a bright yellow to green to blue.
Step 12: Let dry in the sun.
Step 13: Rinse the textile in a bath of one tablespoon of vinegar per quart of water until the water is clear. This helps set the color and prevent bleeding.
