It’s impossible to hear talk of the dyer’s madder and remain unmoved. The madder here, the madder there. At Ábbatte they do it all the time, in such a casual, familiar way that at first you don’t understand anything. Where is that madder everyone keeps talking about?
To illustrate, there is no better example than Elena Goded, founder of Ábbatte, a biologist and professor of textile crafts. Conversing with her is a wellspring of calm and wisdom. In her way of talking about the Castilian countryside, about fabrics, about plants and about artisanal processes there is something that conveys a sense of serenity. She also shows a tremendous curiosity to understand how things work and, above all, how we can start making them again.
She tells me that the Rubia tinctorum is a humble, discreet plant, whose treasure lies underground: long reddish roots that concentrate pigments such as alizarin and purpurin. From them comes a warm, vivid, and deep red, capable of lasting for centuries in a fabric.
To learn about the plant you don’t have to go far. It’s right there, in the dye-plant garden that Ábbatte keeps in Segovia. And the madder, like almost everything that grows in the countryside, does a bit of what it pleases. Elena told me about her intention to plant the madder in an open, pristine area free of weeds. None thrived. To her astonishment, the madder grew proudly on a side, next to a stone wall, shielded from the Sierra de Guadarrama’s temperatures precisely by what they had regarded as a problem: the weeds.
The untamed will of nature, once again, asserts itself over our plans. And it is always wiser to listen to it. The process of obtaining the color requires artistry and patience. For a lay observer like me, a touch of magic as well. Although in truth, it is science. I have had the fortune to photograph this process in the cabin Ábbatte keeps among the pines of the Sierra de Guadarrama, as if it were a fairy tale.
There, with the light filtering through the trees at dawn, Marta, a dye master, begins each morning a daily, imperfect, and wonderful process based on the madder and other dye plants. Roots, water, time, Castilian wool, and hands that know what to do at every moment. And then you understand that behind something as seemingly simple as a red there are many other things that go beyond.
