MONTICELLO, Ill. (WAND) — Megan Koeppel gets excited when she talks about her natural dye-making processes. The North-Carolina-based artist will investigate what Allerton Park and Retreat Center will offer to that passion when she spends three weeks at the Monticello-area park from May 20 to June 7 as its next artist-in-residence.
“I’m excited to do research and discover what things around Allerton can give natural dyes,” said Koeppel, who grew up in Milwaukee. “I am from the Midwest but most of my dye experience is from the southeast, so I am looking forward to being in a different climate to see what colors are there.”
She will combine dye-making with her love of quilt-making when she hosts the public for events during her residency from May 20 to June 7.
“I will set up a couple of natural dye workshops, where everyone can make a small block. We’ll then take those blocks, quilt them together and give it back to Allerton for their collection. Then it’s kind of my work but also a piece from the workshop and the community.”
Allerton’s In-Residence program, now in its fourth year, has hosted poets, painters, foragers, writers, musicians and more.
“I’m looking forward to having Megan as our Artist-In-Resident. We haven’t had a fiber artist as a resident yet and I like that she will have an outreach event that will result in a community quilt,” Park Senior Program Coordinator Olivia Bunting said.
Koeppel said she was first exposed to the world of creative art in high school and was immediately hooked.
“I think there was a real turning point when I was a teenager and realized that I could draw, and realized I wanted to do that for always,” Koeppel said. “Gradually I went from less on painting and more into crafts the last couple of years.”
Megan Koeppel, a natural dye maker, painter and quilter, will be the next visiting artist at Allerton Park and Retreat Center near Monticello. One of her exhibition quilts is shown here.
After obtaining her degree from the Maryland Institute of Art, she has since worked full-time for non-profits and art agencies in areas of public programming and art installation. She is currently the administrative coordinator at Blue Light Junction in Baltimore and operates a website with some of her current work, meganclairekoeppel.com.
Her art has also been exhibited an galleries from Baltimore and Milwaukee to overseas at the Civitella Ranieri in Umbertide, Italy.
Koeppel’s creative interests have an interesting collaboration that gives her year-round work: She collects plants for possible dyes in the summer, which leads to dyeing cloth in the fall and quilting during the winter.
She notes that many areas of a plant can produce dye, from bark to wood chips to leaves. Koeppel also likes the randomness that ensues when it comes to the resulting hues.
“You don’t get the same thing every year, even if you go to the same plant,” she said, noting the color produced depends on the climate, as well as the chemistry of the plant at the time of harvest.
