Rowland Ricketts

Indigo is famously an international phenomenon. The rich blue of this dye plant has been used worldwide, from Japan to Southeast Asia, France to Africa. As it happens, the most accomplished exponent of indigo in the United States lives right at the heart of the country—in Indiana. This is Rowland Ricketts, who learned how to work with it as an apprentice in Japan and now instructs his own students in the craft at Indiana University. They begin from scratch, growing the plants on campus, and then go through the extensive process of harvesting, drying, and composting the indigo before turning it into a dye, and then, in turn, using it to produce textiles.