Magazines, Journals & Long Form

Anna writes longer articles for commission. Here are a few she has written for Curio Magazine, Another Escape Magazine and Lodestar Anthology.

LODESTAR ANTHOLOGY | ISLAS MARIETAS

CURIO MAGAZINE | THE DYE ALCHEMIST

 Commissioned piece on Liz Spencer aka The Dogwood Dyer. 

THE DYE ALCHEMIST

In a softly lit orange grove in Southern California, mum-of-two Liz Spencer bends to pick a flower from the dye garden she’s planted between the citrus trees. Navel oranges hang, like cadmium moons, around Liz as she presses the glossy petals to her nose and takes a sweet breath of California’s perpetual summer. Observing the seasonality of flora and fauna in this way still gives Liz the same pleasure it did as a little girl growing up in The Carolinas, where she watched dogwoods bloom mid-spring. Liz knew that their arrival each year heralded the beginning of a new foraging and growing season. What she did not know then was that her childhood delight would become her craft and obsession.

Liz is an alchemist of natural dye. She coaxes color from the most unlikely origins: from wind-fallen avocado seeds that land on the grove, or old orange rinds, or specially grown indigo plants… For Liz, color can come from anywhere. Her dye garden currently hosts hopi sunflowers, sulphur cosmos, coreopsis and madder root, amongst others. She delights in finding new shades and grows ever more interested in each avenue of the process: from growing the plants, to saving their seeds, to collecting rainwater and letting dyes extract in glass jars over days or weeks using the sun’s warmth alone. Natural dying is a slow labor of love. Without the additional application of heat used for mordanting and extraction, many colors are only achieved through time and patience. But more and more Liz, like many other natural dyers, is finding this discipline a joy, not a chore. In a world that is constantly telling us to hurry up and cut corners, such an advocacy for the merits of moving slowly is refreshing.

While the natural dying community is still small and fierce, the craft is experiencing a renaissance. Liz believes that people are drawn to the opportunity natural dyeing allows them to impact the coloration of the items they own and surround themselves with. She says it allows people to connect, in a meaningful way, to the world around them. Liz now mainly dyes for her family, since her focus for the past three years has been her two young children, but when she does find the time she works for small independent fashion and home goods designers who focus on sustainability. These companies understand the extra time and cost involved in natural dye colours and recognize the value of the environmentally-sound process.

There is another reason people are attracted to natural dyes, and that is uniqueness. While chemical colors can be reproduced precisely, natural dye colors are rarely exactly the same. The particular shade of color a plant produces is always influenced by a myriad of variables including caprices of harvest time, soil, sun, and rain. Unstable and incalculable, this variation is also rich and comforting in a world that is rapidly homogenizing and becoming a mass-produced blueprint of itself. Such serendipity is something to celebrated.

That said, Liz still keeps a record of when, how, and what she has used for swatches. She says it is good practice to note down everything that she can about a dyeing session so that comparisons of color variance and progress can be made. “Notation is absolutely necessary when developing a color and surface design technique for a client so that I can attempt to repeat the process again in production. But for my own personal practice - when I’m just tinkering around in my dye studio with my dye garden flowers and leaves - taking notes feels like a duty to my future self whom I hope will look back on my early work with fondness and kindness.”

Liz’ dye book is a journal full of memories and lessons and is a work of art in its own right. This is partly due to Liz’ elegant handwriting. In her early 20’s, Liz worked as a designer and typesetter in a letterpress shop in Portland OR, amongst a crew of creative and type-loving artists. It was there that she developed her distinctive way of writing as a way to distinguish her notes from the other printers and staff of the shop. The style stayed with her and Liz admits that she loves practicing her script whenever she can. “If my children don’t get a chance to learn cursive in primary school, I may just have to set aside some time to teach them myself.”

Just as with personal handwriting, each dyer’s particular ‘style’ makes an indelible mark on their textiles. Liz’s creations are influenced by the way she folds and twists her fabric after years of experimenting with shibori methods to create one-of-a-kind patterns that might not occur from any other dyer’s fingers. In this way, natural dyeing is truly a craft that allows people to feel connected, special and surprised, in the same way nature does. And as interest in natural dyeing continues to bloom, it’s wonderful to know that people are slowing down and reconnecting to a process where there is still space for mystery, wonder, and the childhood delight of picking flowers.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Two years ago Liz moved from an urban Brooklyn, NY apartment to this Southern California family house, which has an acre of orange grove attached. As a result Liz’ work has drastically changed. She doesn’t have to forage nearly as much as she did when living in New York City since she can grow so much of what she needs on her own doorstep with an ideal climate most of the year. “Being in Southern California is great because I can be outside year round. My garden is steps from my back door planted between the rows of our family orange grove and it’s where I grow much of my natural color.” Liz spends much more time outside than she did before, with the warm sunshine on her face, so much so that she says she feels strange on those odd days when she or her family are sick and stay inside for a day. 

Because she can now grow so much of what she needs, when Liz goes to forage on road-trips with her fiancé and kids, it’s more of an observation and exploration to see what’s out there in the natural world. She’s had to re-train her brain to look through a completely different blanket of flora in soCal than she was used to northeast.

In soCal, she’s lucky to have eucalyptus on her sister-in-law’s place just down the road that provides a deep red color rarely found in nature. “We love seeing the horses when we visit aunt Margee’s and she has the most reliable eucalyptus trees whose leaves render the most stunning red on wool, so visiting her place is special for myself and the kids”. It has also been a treat for Liz to be able to find wild cochineal on prickly pear cactus that makes a wild pink and red. Liz hopes she’ll be tending a garden and curiously hunting the landscape no matter where she ends up. She has developed an insatiable urge to learn about the natural world since taking up natural dyeing, and the process has led her to another level of understanding and connection with plants and the environment.

One of Liz’ inspirations is Hannah Ryggen. What inspires her is Ryggen’s use of traditional methods and dedication to the slow, painstaking processes of natural dyeing and hand weaving (all without the use of running water and electricity) in a time when she didn’t have to restrict herself in such a way. Ryggen was working like this before it was seen as a way to disconnect, and Liz has respect for a woman that worked from soil to studio using wool shorn from her own sheep and colors extracted from plants foraged from around her farm. She says, “Ryggen’s brazen anti-fascist narratives and themes were beautiful and powerful. She expressed such powerful imagery using simple and honest techniques, making meaningful work from what she had at hand.”

Liz also teaches and is keen to inspire others to uphold the sustainable traditions of natural dyeing. Her workshops are often held outside as she prefers being able to work outdoors with students - especially when they can hike and collect plants together. Few venues really allow this, but Liz is always on the lookout for a place that is close enough to draw participants from the city, but also wild enough so that they can get outside to observe, identify and pick plants for experiments in their dye-pots. Whenever she teaches natural dyeing - whether it’s “Natural Dyeing with Food Scraps” or “Painting with Natural Dyes” or “Organic Indigo” - Liz ensure that her dyestuffs are ethically sourced. She’s thankful that she’s been able to find more and more local and domestic sources. The future for natural dyeing seems bright.

ANOTHER ESCAPE MAG | Land of Trees and Giants  

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers,but as fountains of life.”
John Muir - Our National Parks, (1901), chapter 1, page 1. 

Perhaps it was reading this quote that prompted our desire see the place Muir so loved. And perhaps this is why, as L.A braces for the biggest storm of the season, we headon the four-hour drive North, in search of Giants.

Taking the I-5 N towards Bakersfield, we join the famous Grapevine Highway that starts at the mouth of Grapevine Canyon and ascends to the Tejon Pass in the Tehachapi Mountains. The Highway is named for the abundance of vineyards and winding shape of its freeway. The severe weather means there are mudslides blocking lanes and even more traffic than usual. Our wi-fi stops so we're limited to one CD alone (mercifully Fleetwood Mac), and as we enter the Ash Mountain side of the Sequoia National Park we learn that we’ll need to hire snow-chains for our tires.

Nature, it feels, is against us.

Nonetheless, we take the winding road higher into the mountains, feeling motion sick from the incessant looping back to go ahead. Amongst the pines and oaks of the foothills, it’s hard to believe that there are really Giants hidden somewhere above us. And I start to doubt why we've come.

But as we gain altitude our ears pop and suddenly everything goes to black and white. I feel like I've gone blind or stepped through a veil and I find we’ve driven into cloud. The headlights do nothing. We can hardly see the next bend. Eerie silhouettes of branches loom from the gloom, frightening and strange. My brain becomes irrational with stories of travellers lost in mist. 

Then suddenly the road snaps back into colour around us and we catch our first glimpse of the reason we came: standing on a distant snow-sugared ridge, their bark burning orange in the glow of the sun. 

Even from a distance, these are clearly the Giants we came for; the ones that make up one of America’s most superlative landscapes. The road, we now see, has become snow-bordered and these majestic trees tower all around, like relics from Narnia. Freakish in stature and fairy-tale in rapture, but strangely familiar too. Seeing these trees is like seeing old friends and I find I am filled with a nostalgia I cannot explain. We both feel it. The magic of these trees takes us back to childhood. They are so removed from the world of L.A from which we just came; the world of iPhones, emails, traffic, deadlines, stress and disconnection.

I feel something deep inside me releasing. It’s like surfacing from water you didn’t know you were under and I take a breath I did not know I was holding onto. Could it be that coming to this wilderness feels, as John Muir put it, like going home? 

I consult the information we've been given, suddenly desperate to know more about who these trees are - for they feel like who's. Living, breathing reminders to believe in better things.

I discover that the natural range of the Giant Sequoia forms a narrow band along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. The world’s 75 Giant Sequoia groves grow on these moist, un-glaciated ridges at high altitudes between 5,000 to 8,000 feet. This mid-sierra zone creates ideal conditions: with its mild winter and summer temperatures, deep winter snowpack, and rich fire history. The trees grow up to 311 feet in height and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks boast many of the world's largest trees by volume, including the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world at 52,508 cubic feet (1,487 cubic meters) and the General Grant Tree, the second largest at 46,608 cubic feet (1,320 cubic meters).

Some of the trees have stood here as long as 3000 years.These trees seem to hold the secret of life and barring accidents seem immortal. They exempt from all diseases that afflict and kill other trees. Scientists attribute this to chemical called tannin that is present in high concentrations in their bark. Tannin gives them resistance to rot and insects and is responsible for the wonderful orange colour that made them look, when we first saw them, like they were on fire.  

It's humbling to think how much these trees have survived and how many human lifetimes they've lived through. Like the stars, they remind me of our transience, and the insignificance of the problems that seem so giant to us and drive us from wild places that can make us feel fully home. I feel a great respect deep in my bones for these soldiers of a lost world. I remember something I read once about Kodama in Japanese folklore, spirits that inhabit trees similar to the dryads of Greek mythology. They act as guides for humans and anyone who cuts one down accidentally will be cursed. I find myself believing this to be true of the Sequoias and silently cursing anyone who would attempt to cut one down. 

Indeed, the main cause of death for these trees is us.

Muir wrote: “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” Before the National Park was established, logging was a major threat for Sequoias. But many loggers felt the magic of the Giants and were disheartened by how quickly these towers were reduced to so little by man who did not respect nor heed their power. 

One such man was Walter Fry.

In 1888, Walter Fry came to the Sequoias as a logger. After spending five days with a team of five men sawing a single Sequoia down to rubble, he counted the growth rings on the fallen Giant, and learnt that in a few days they had ended 3,266 years of growth. It affected him very deeply. 

Two years later a petition was circulating, calling for a new National Park to protect the Sequoias. The third signature on this petition was Walter Fry's. He had felt the magic of the Giants. He went on to become Park Ranger until he retired at the age 71. Fry offered walks, wrote nature bulletins and organised the visitor centres. He influenced the park by influencing its visitors and passing on his deep appreciation of the place. The thousands of people to whom he showed the magic of this wilderness in turn became ambassadors for the landscape he loved.

The Wilderness Act defines ‘Wilderness’ as a natural place that is: untrammelled, natural, undeveloped, and offers outstanding opportunities for solitude. Thanks to the 1964 Wilderness Act, nearly all the Sequoia National Forrest is now protected. From the oak woodlands of the foothills to the stark granite of the Sierra Crest, the Park retains much of its natural ecology and the vast majority of the glacial canyons are the same today as they were hundreds of years ago.

But it is this final requirement of the Act that catches my interest. Through its emphasis on the importance of the opportunity for solitude the Wilderness Act articulates the same symbiotic philosophy of wilderness that Muir did. It emphasises the importance of wildness conservation not just for the wellbeing of the fauna and animals, but for  humans also.

I agree with Muir when he said that wilderness areas are ‘fountains of life’ for mankind.

Muir and Fry knew that in order for one to know the power of the natural world, they had to experience it and fall in love with it. Muir's life mission was to spread a love of wilderness. He didn’t even like writing, but he did so in order to spread awareness of the beautiful places he encountered. And in 1903 he took President Theodore Roosevelt on a three-night camping trip to Yosemite Valley that could be considered the most significant camping trip in conservation history. Through this trip, Muir was able to persuade Roosevelt to return the valley and the Mariposa Grove to federal protection as part of Yosemite National Park.

With the current political and environmental climate, and National Park services being censored and low on the priority list of current leaders, it’s crucial that now, more than ever, people return to the wild. There are kids in L.A, who never leave the city. This is dangerous. Kids need to experience the enduring resource of wilderness in order to love it and want to protect it. It is only by interacting with nature that we learn protecting wildness protects ourselves.

It’s only when we get our bums out of our heated seats, slam the car doors behind us and surrender, numb-toed-and-fingered to the Bigness, the Better-ness of something so totally outside of ourselves, of which we are also part of. When we join with others and bow to branches. When we allow ourselves to be humbled and reminded of our fleetingness by relics that have stood long before us, and will stand long after us. It is a truth that sets us free.

On the way back to L.A, we stop at IKEA. It’s one the largest one in the world, it’s just opened and it’s presidents day. There are queues everywhere. Cow-eyed families pull crap from the shelves. Everywhere are fluorescent lights and screaming children. A woman shoves past me without apologising. I try to remind myself that we are all connected, to be compassionate. But what came so easily in the trees is harder here. Frustration is already clamping my jaw tight. Everywhere I hear: “I want that when I get this.” It makes me deeply sad. We get back in the car feeling hollow and empty.

The wild teaches us not to want but to enjoy. To see the world as a home that is built for all us; not one we buy and hide from others in. I think of the children in IKEA playing grown-ups in staged bedrooms and kitchens, talking on their iPhones and pretending to work in banks. I think how much more fun the children we saw with the Giants were having, how they cupped and catapulted snow and hid in fire-scars, cradled and safe. How they could ran, wheeling and screaming through trees that have listened to children for thousands of years. I think of the group of painters we passed standing in the snow with their pink fingers and noses. The hikers that smiled at us. The connectedness we felt with the place and people around us all finding paths. I am reminded of what the Ranger in the visitor lodge told us about sequoia roots: "They are not deep, but they knit together and that’s how they hold themselves up; that’s what makes them strong."

The wild gives me hope. When we don’t allow space for the wild, when we try too hard to control and construct, we disconnect from deeper truths that are eternal and part of all of us. There is wild in all of us. We hide it under suits, at the bottom of coffee cups and wine bottles. But each of us is a living thing. When we try to quell this it breeds sickness in our minds, hearts and souls. Each of us has a burning fire inside us. We are like Sequoia cones that need to burn in order to be born. Nature is not something to fight against, it does not rain on our parade, it is not something to fight or curse, or call weather, or moan about mudslides and traffic over. We must move with it, and within it, or else feel continually displaced from a home that is always there for us to know. If we allow ourselves to love it. It is a place without border control, where it doesn’t matter where you were born or the colour of your bark.

It reminds us of the oneness of all things. It makes our fractured world feel whole again. We must learn to save the wild in order to save ourselves.

PIXILLION MARKETING | FINDING YOUR BRAND STORY

This story featured on the Pixillion blog and was written by Anna. 

We are storytelling animals. From cave drawings to folk tales, to ghost stories around campfires. Stories are - and always have been - how we communicate. We connect through stories. They are how we make sense of the world. Stories shape us. They change us. They tell us who we were, who we are, and who we want to become.

Stories are powerful because they access the emotional part of your brain. You stop rationalising, let down your defences and allow yourself to be swept up. To fall in love. That’s why a good story, told right, is the most powerful tool in the world. Successful brands know this. They use stories to make customers fall in love with their brand. And you can too.

Step one: Ask yourself some questions. 

Finding your story can seem like a challenge. Here are some quick questions you can ask yourself to spark ideas, based on David Sloly’s seven ideas for your first business story in Why You Need a Business Story and How to Create It.

1. Purpose Story: Why your brand is doing what it’s doing?

2. Risk Story: What risks have you taken?

3. Vision Story: What is your vision is for the brand’s future?

4. Customer Stories: Who are your customers; what are their experiences?

5. Launch Story: How did your brand begin?

6. Founder Story: How and why you started the business?

7. Leadership Story: How are you leading the brand now?

8. Jot down one or two lines for each. Choose the one you responded to most as your starting point. These stories can overlap, they are springboards rather than restrictions.

Example: The Hiut Denim Company

The Purpose Story*: Hiut want to bring jeanmaking back to the town of Cardigan. On their website they proudly proclaim ‘our town is going to make jeans again.’

*N.B. Hiut also uses the risk story, the launch story and the founder story of David Hieatt. Successful brands tell lots of stories at once. Start with one and see how your ideas evolve.

Step two: Find the facts. 

A good story is told succinctly. Gather the essential facts. The whos, whats, wheres, hows and, most importantly, the whys. Cut information that does not move your story forwards. If it’s not relevant to your brand and how your brand is evolving: Leave it out.

Step three: Shape the story.

Probe your facts. Find the emotion and heighten this to bring your story to life. Always, keep in mind who your target audience are and what you want them to feel.

Step four: Show don’t tell.

Know how you’d like your customers to feel but never tell them to feel it. Present your story in a way your audience can engage with and let them make up their own minds. As filmmaker Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, WALL-E) puts it: “We respond much better when we are given 2+2, rather than 4.” When you let people make up their own minds about your story and your brand the effect is much more powerful.

Example. Toms Shoes blog series #travelingTOMS 

In the aptly titled ‘Stories’ section of their website there is a series of #travelingTOMS blog posts. These are interviews and photographs of customers who wear Toms. Through the stories of their customers, Toms are able to highlight their core values subtly, in a way that shows rather than tells. Potential customers can see how Toms relates to their lives. The brand becomes more relevant, and they’re more likely to make purchases.

Step five: Decide on a form. 

You can tell your story through words, images, video. The most important thing is to make sure whatever form you use is one your target audience will engage with and enjoy.

Step six: Know where to tell your story. 

A good story is nothing if it’s not shared. There have never been so many ways to connect. So whether it’s your website, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube or Instagram; each story has a place. If you want help deciding which channel could be most useful to you check out our ‘Quick Guide To Digital Video Marketing Channels’.

It’s the shares, likes and tweets that will ensure your story has impact. As Sonja Jefferson and Sharon Tanton point out in Valuable Content Marketing: Good stories resonate. If customers like your story they will promote your business for you.

Finally...

Stories matter and successful brands use them to connect with their customers. There are many different types of brand story, and the most successful brands use several types simultaneously. Once you’ve decided on your story, establish the facts, bring out the emotion and, always remember: show don’t tell. Use a form your customers will engage with and put your story somewhere they will see it. Earn attention by demonstrating your passion, dedication and vision. Make your story one your customers want to share. The rewards will be beyond compare.