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AbenaArt Studio

@abenaart

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Abena Motaboli
🌿Natural dyes⛰️Pigments✨Material histories
WORK INQUIRIES: EMAIL ONLY
DMs not monitored (2-4wk response)
🇱🇸🇿🇦🇬🇭🇹🇬->🇺🇸Chi

POSTS STORIES REELS

🌿 FAQs & Offerings🌿
📣 📣 📣 ***2026 *UPDATE*** 📣 📣 📣
This FAQ is a way to help you know when and how to connect whether that’s through a purchase, a collaboration, sharing my work or simply following the journey. 🥹

🌼 My online store opens for one month in the spring and one month in the fall
🌸 Natural Dye commissions open for one month in the spring and one month in the fall as well (subscribe to my newsletter for update access)
✔️ Email is always preferable over DM's for asks /collaborations
💌 To learn more about my other offerings including how-to’s or for slow and seasonal updates 🐌 sign up for my newsletter at abenaart.studio

My practice moves seasonally, different offerings open at different times of the year. I am an Interdisciplinary Artist, Educator, Maker & Solopreneur 🙌🏽 My work spans natural dyes, soil & plant pigments, tea & coffee paintings, and I Love curating intentional creative learning spaces. Rather than doing everything all at once, I flow with what the season and my body allow 🌸

What does that mean?:
☕️ Some months I open commissions (for natural dye work, plant portraits, or paintings)
🌿 Some seasons I host workshops or join community events
☕️ In between, I am creating, researching, doing pop up events or exhibiting

🌿I created this post to answer some of the questions I’m often asked about commissions, workshops, collaborations, & how to support or connect with me & my work.🌿

Thank you as always for being here & supporting my vision, my creative dreams & my relationship to this beautiful earth💛🐌

#naturaldye #naturalink #customart #handdyedclothing #sustainablefashion #slowfashion #textileart #artisanmade #customclothing #workshopsandclasses #abenaartstudio #creativecollaboration #wearableart #coloryourworld by @abenaart

Threads of Ancestry: Dyeing with plants & Lineage 🌱@newberrylibrary 🌼 last weeks workshop left me feeling so full 🥰🌿

Working with natural color as an artist over the last 14 years has been deeply humbling. It has taught me to slow down, listen, and pay attention. I’ve come to understand this practice as a form of embodied research.

One of the greatest joys of teaching through my art practice is watching people begin to see plants not only as sources of natural color, but as living materials carrying histories, relationships, and stories of their own.

In this workshop, we spent time making with our hands whilst also sitting with bigger questions… what histories travel through the materials we choose? How might the ways we make become more rooted, intentional, and reciprocal? & of course a little earth alchemy sprinkled in between. ✨

Natural dye for me is a way of paying attention to plants, lineage, and the relationships we share with the materials around us. Seeing everyone lean into these conversations and work with the material was such a gift. Thank you to everyone who joined me. It was an honor to share the dye pot with you. 💚

Materials + magic:
Alum mordant @botanicalcolors, willow leaves gathered after a little post storm Lake Michigan 🌊🌿 and an assortment of dyes + plants from my studio.

Photos by 📸 @livkoreman 🫶🏽✨

#naturaldye #slowmaking #livingcolor #textiletraditions #materialculture by @abenaart

Natural dyeing is an embodied practice.

For me that means we arrive and engage with the plants through our bodies, our senses, our histories, our questions, our memories, our lineage, and the knowledge that we gather along the way.

I think that we learn through making, we learn through noticing, we learn through movement and sensation, we learn from the plants and materials themselves and from the histories and lineages that have shaped the ways we understand them.

🌿This is part of what I hope to make space for in my workshops 🥹 Yes we make beautiful things. Yes, we play with natural color. But we are also practicing a way of paying attention; attuning to our bodies, the plants, the environment around us and the knowledge available to us through the plants.

📣 I am now booking a limited number of Fall+Winter workshops for organizations, teams, schools, groups or private gatherings.

Link in bio to submit a workshop request form.
Questions? Reach out by email or through my contact form at Abenaart.studio. 🌿

📸: @renavision

#naturaldyes #naturaldyeworkshop #chicagoworkshop #workshops #artworkshops by @abenaart

Material curiosities; things I keep collecting 🌿

A little glimpse featuring the archive with earth colors, texture, plants, fabric, cave paintings, and plant moments that catch my eye. A little bit of research, a little bit of play and a whole lot of looking around (Chicago, South Africa, Vermont) 🤎

#materialcuriosities #artistdiary #materialexploration #earthpigments #landasarchive by @abenaart

A little earth pause for your feed. This is what the plants continue to gift me 🌿

Come back to the plants, come back to the earth, touch the soil, hold a rose, put your feet in moving water, breathe. Reconnect. keep tending 💚

#naturaldye #botanicalart #plantdyes #earthconnection #slowmaking by @abenaart

@in_situ_polyculture Residency 9.26 🌿
Natural dye panel | archive of the land on Hartley Hill, Vermont

During my time at the In Situ Polyculture residency in Vermont, I found myself returning to a question that has guided my practice for years: What happens when we make enough space to be present & truly listen?

The plants, the landscapes, the materials, the quiet moments in between, all of it becomes part of the work. Making in my art practice is not just about the final piece. It is the embodied research, the movement, the relationships, the seasons of gathering, and the time it takes for ideas to take root.

My practice is currently based in Chicago, but it continues to travel, grow, and be shaped through place based spaces, ecological residencies, landscapes, and the many moments that happen along the way.

This seasons pockets remind me that having an ongoing practice of rest and being inspired by this beautiful planet 🌍 are not separate from the work. It is the work. 🌿

#ecologicalart #landbasedart #naturaldyes #slowart #landasarchive by @abenaart

I couldn’t think of a more perfect place to indulge in some active rest, work on some personal projects & simply be an artist 🌿🌿🌿

What a delightful feeling to be able to come back to the dye pot & the practice in this way and. Big thank you to @in_situ_polyculture for creating such a soft place in the commons to land 🥰

Goodness my body really needed this 🌿🌿🌿

#naturaldye #textileart #naturalpigments #artistresidency #vermont by @abenaart

What an environment to work in @in_situ_polyculture 🌿🌿🌿

The weeks after Renegade have been filled with connection to land, learning, movement, making, and a heart full of gratitude. Coming back to the land after the energy of the fair has felt so good. Dyeing with the flowers in Vermont, walking through meadows, landing, making space, getting my hands dirty, moving my body, slowly, paying attention.

Rest is such a big part of the practice, making space for it, active & such a balm for the body and the soul… our bodies know how to tap in and goodness am I grateful for all of my plant allies.

Grateful to be here and for this space 🤎🌿 by @abenaart

Five years of popping up at @renegadecraft 🙌🏽 🌿

This was my first time bringing Abenaart to Wicker Park, and a first time sharing a booth with @jaq_felcan at a Renegade fair and it was such a joy.💛

Renegade is one of my favorite fairs 🥹 I love the energy, the curation, intentional buyers and getting to bring these pieces out of the dye pot and watch them meet people IRL.

Our little earth loving booth was full of naturally dyed textiles, wood, natural color, familiar faces, new faces, and so many lovely moments. 💕

Thank you to everyone who popped by, tried things on, asked questions, brought friends, took things home, or simply stopped to say hello. It means so much to get to see the work meet people irl 🤎

And a huge thank you to @ak_art2.0 @maicah.cabello & Eric who helped hold me up behind the scenes. It takes a whole team 🥹

If you’re new here, my practice moves seasonally so if you missed me this weekend, my online shop will be opening again sometime in November/December. Exact dates TBA.

Join my email list to be the first to know 🌿 by @abenaart

Let me put you onto some earth color @renegadecraft this weekend 🙌🏽🌿✨✨✨ BOOTH #12 nearer to Damen Ave Sept 12+13th 11am-7pm both days.

I’ve been making my little heart out playing with the natural dyes, textiles, color & all the little ways pieces made hand in hand with the natural earth feel 🌿

Some new playful things are coming with me 🥲 a few old favorites, the naturally dyed blazers, bandanas and a whole lot of plant + earth color 👀

I’d love to see you this weekend at Renegade Wicker park 🙌🏽✨ Come play with me irl ;)

#naturaldye #textileart #weareableart #slowfashion by @abenaart

Give me a naturally dyed bandana and I will show you endless ways to style it 🌿

Ya gurl has always been colorful on the inside & of course we love playing with color on the outside too. Mixing textures, patterns, color combinations & figuring out all the little things that make dressing up feel like play ✨

Needless to say, I love how playful the bandanas are 😌🌿 They always make an appearance somewhere around me; on my bag, on my neck, on my wrist or in my hair and clearly my algorithm knows me well because I keep finding new ways to style them 😆

I will be bringing a fresh batch (and a few other things I’ve been making in the studio 👀) to Renegade Wicker Park next weekend and I am suuuper excited. 🙌🏽✨

September 12th + 13th | @renegadecraft 11-7pm both days 😌

Come play with me irl 🌿

#naturaldye #bandana #slowfashion #textileart #naturaldyed by @abenaart

I’ve been sitting with how my work lives in the world lately, naturally dyed blazers resting in a storefront window, tea, coffee & natural pigment paintings, complimenting the dyes, each finding their place in different environments yet completely at home.

☕️ Each piece I create is an extension of my studio practice under Abenaart. Featuring slow color, stories and materials rooted in the land, shaped with intention, co-created with the Earth 🌍

♻️ Part of my commitment to myself and to this beautiful planet, is to offer Eco forward art and special pieces for everyday life and rituals. ✨ These are small reminders that beauty can be slow, seasonal, and at its core regenerative. It’s a practice shaped by the hope that our impact on this earth as makers can remain as light as possible… grounded in a big love for the land that makes this slow work possible 🐌

And as always, the work is never done alone… thank you to everyone who supports behind the scenes, @ak_art2.0 for apprenticing with me and of course a big thank you to @renavision for the stunning pics 📸🫶🏽

Gratitude to you all, esp the ones who see the beauty in seasonal movement 🌍🥹💛✨

#naturallydyed #slowart #regenerativepractice
#materialpractice #landbasedart by @abenaart