Michaela Lesayova (Growing Colour Together)
Michaela Lesayova is an Artist, Creative + specialist Coach operating in the realm of ecology and fine art.
Her art practice closely engages her ongoing relationship with plants, flowers, soil and exploring ways to co-create with the environment. Michaela’s medium is natural colour which she gives life to through naturally dyeing fibres and experimenting with natural inks.
The first in our Growing Colour Together (GCT) Artist Spotlight Series! GCT is a project by WOVEN in Kirklees that we’re delighted to be supporting through artist mentorship and promotion.
This WOVEN in Kirklees 2023 project aims to create a district-wide, natural dye, colour garden. Everyone from Kirklees is invited to get involved, helping to create dye gardens anywhere and everywhere, working with six local and international artists commissioned to create events, installations and more for 2023.
Working in partnership across the district, WOVEN is giving everyone the opportunity to ‘have a grow’, use what’s grown to make natural dyes and learn about the environmental implications of chemical dyes and what we buy. A natural dye garden gives eco-friendly, natural dye pigments and stains for textiles, knitting yarns, and even artist paints and prints.
We spoke to some of the artists involved…
What’s your involvement in the GCT project?
I am one of the 7 GCT Artists. I have been appointed as a ‘non-local’ Artist in Huddersfield. Since January 2023 we have been collaborating with a local gardening group run by S2R. Together, we have been exploring the principles of colour and growing dye plants. We have created a community zine documenting our activity and from April onwards we will be exploring how we can source natural colour from dye plants.
Why do you create?
I create because it is a way of being for me. Aside from the wellbeing benefits of creativity, expressing myself creatively fulfils my sense of purpose. I love to challenge myself through creating and it also allows me to relate and connect myself to my immediate environment, co-creating with plants, flowers, earth etc.
Do you consider yourself to be part of an artist network/community, and if so, how does this impact your practice?
Yes I do, even though may be of a small one. I am still in the early stages of my creative career as an independent Artist. I feel like there is so much more to look at, learn and explore, but I also enjoy where I am and I have loved meeting other creatives and forming new friendships with them.
What changes would you like to see in the arts sector?
I would love to see more balance between admiring high fine art Artists, or recognising Artists and their talent only long after they have died, and actually seeing and respecting Artists for who they are in the here and now. Nobody wants to work for free. Artists should not have to do so either, because their vocation is art.