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Carter Smith Does Tie-Dye During the ‘60s in America, tie-dye became a part of the youth culture. You might remember dyeing tied cloth in the bathtub of your childhood home or that of your friend’s. Or perhaps it was some class assignment? The project always consisted of an old white t-shirt and some ribbons, strings and rubber bands. You would wrap and roll those t-shirts and tie them in places – intricate or less intricate, depending upon the nimbleness of your small fingers. Or you’d create small pouches on the cloth by pulling at little pieces of the t-shirt and encircling those small snippets with rubber bands. At different stages of the tying process, you would dip your piece of cloth – in this case, the old t-shirt – into different shades of dye. After you’ve had fun exploring all the pretty colors, and you’ve watched white fabric turn gold, red or whatever colors you’d chosen, you’d rinse the excess dye with cold water before untying your finished product. This was always part of the excitement, too, figuring out what it was going to look like when you untied the cloth. And wasn’t it exciting when you’d unwrap your shirt and saw the amazing splash of colors? The discovery was so exciting, so unusual. The cloth was so unlike anything you saw in a store. Who knew you could create your own patterns on cloth. Yet, after a few runs at creating explosively colored t-shirts, the fascination wore off. Not knowing what to do next, those shirts became favorite weekend rags or were consigned to the back drawer of a lifestyle containing more sophisticated things. The tying and dyeing of cloth is neither new nor constrained to the U.S. In fact, its humble beginnings were likely in Asia or Africa, but who knows for certain. In America, tie-dye, itself, has become a kind of joke, a symbol of a bygone era with crazy kids who had wild ideas about ‘making love instead of war.’

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