Rowland Ricketts

09/27/16 • 17 min

Rowland Ricketts is an indigo grower and artist based in Bloomington, Indiana. He studied traditional indigo making and dyeing techniques in Japan, where he was living after college and where he met his wife, Chinami, who is a weaver. He came to dyeing after he realized that his photography work was polluting the streams around his farmhouse in the rural Nara prefecture. Here, Rowland talks about originality, process, living with nature, discovery, and how to find a work you never retire from.

Make/Time shares conversations about craft, inspiration, and the creative process. Listen to leading makers and thinkers talk about where they came from, what they're making, and where they're going next. Make/Time is hosted by Stuart Kestenbaum and is a project of craftschools.us.

Previous Episode

Vivian Beer

Make/Time—conversations about craft, inspiration, and the creative process. Listen to leading makers and thinkers talk about where they came from, what they're making, and where they're going next. Host Stuart Kestenbaum talks with furniture designer Vivian Beer, winner of HGTV's Ellen's Design Challenge, about learning how to blend traditional making with new technology, and how her time on the tv design contest showed her that not only can great design be made more cheaply, but it should be.

Next Episode

Roberto Lugo

Roberto Lugo is a potter living and working in Vermont. He grew up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia and began his creative life writing graffiti. Today, he is known for his teapots, which are for him a symbol of learning other cultures, as he didn't grow up using teapots in his Puerto Rican household. His pots incorporate his artistic beginnings in graffiti and include references to his own background and to global cultures, and he designs them to spark conversation. Roberto is a professor at Marlboro College, and he talks about the different languages of academia, the pottery room, and the community where he was raised—and the challenges and joys of truly communicating across cultures.