Decades of processing indigo had stained them a deep blue-as dark as the tropical night. There also were the cement extraction tanks. There were the fields, the oxcarts working early in the morning to bring in the fresh cut indigo plants. One day, fifteen years ago, someone recommended that we make a trip to Andhra Pradesh in South India. It took us years to trace indigo blue back to the fields where it was growing. The experience of working and dyeing with indigo is so powerful, there is such magic in the process, that if we began with indigo, the students would never move on to the other colours. In contrast, when we are teaching, indigo is last. When exploring a new relationship with block printers, or scaling up a weaving or dyeing project, indigo is first. Blue seems to be both universal and at the same time deeply tied to the culture that uses it. Remarkably, indigo was also used in Central and South America, where it was independently discovered. Ancient cultures-Greek, Roman, Chinese, Japanese, Indian-all created distinctive textiles based on indigo blue. Indigo has great longevity: archeological evidence of its use dates back to Indus valley civilization in the third millennium BCE.
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It had been a little over one hundred years since the German chemist Adolph von Baeyer had discovered the chemical formula for indigo and worked out a way to synthesize it industrially. During that time farmers who grew indigo and those who knew how to extract it became increasingly rare. The word “indigo” was everywhere, but the legendary dyeplant proved much more elusive. Decades ago, Maiwa began looking for blue.
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