We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Abbie Tittizer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Abbie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

For me learning to tie dye was an intensely personal experience. Maybe all art is like this, but especially for tie dye in my early days, there wasn’t much in the way of structured guidance. I started with an adult education class in batik. The teacher devoted one class to tie dye, and two hours later I was hooked. That was the only tie dye class I ever got.

That’s why learning involved seeking out resources and experimenting. There’s a William Faulkner quote about first drafts, “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” This is true of tie dye too. The only way to create good tie dye art is to chance creating something “bad.”

However, and wish I had known this sooner, there is almost no such thing as “bad” tie dye. I had to start sharing my art with others to learn this, that there’s a loving home for every piece.

Now there are quite a few resources out there for those that want to learn, for example, videos, books, and social media groups are all available to teach and inspire. But I believe as much as you can learn from those sources you learn even more from just trying things out and sharing the results.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My business is called Abbie Dyes Laughing and I make tie dye clothing and accessories. As the name indicates, I associate the things I make with joy. I want to bring that joy to my customers. Seeing one of my shirts, or using an apron I’ve dyed should inspire a smile.

I was a hobbyist dyer for a long time because the bright colors and designs of tie dye make me happy. I only decided to turn tie dye into a business with the encouragement and enthusiasm of friends.

One thing that is near and dear to me is size inclusivity. I regularly make things for adults from small to 4x and will willingly make smaller or larger items on request.

My hope is that a shirt from me brightens someone’s day both literally and emotionally.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Many times I have made things which disappointed me. For those unfamiliar with the tie dye process, it is pretty unpredictable, and you don’t know what something looks like until it’s through its last run in the dryer. “Don’t cry til it’s dry” is something dyers say to each other constantly.

A specific example of a time I was disappointed in my results is when I used an old batch of chemical water. The colors came out muted. They just weren’t the bright colors I normally strive for. I was convinced by my friends to try selling them. They insisted there was nothing wrong with them. Turns out, they were right. At my next event those items did sell, which brings me to the lesson I had to unlearn. That is self-criticism and letting it dictate what you allow others to see of your artwork. Those pieces I saw as flawed were what other people liked and responded to.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I don’t think non-creative people exist, but I know there are people who don’t think of themselves as creative. I would argue that either their creativity exists in the world but is unrecognized or they just haven’t yet found a way to express it.

Be that as it may, people unfamiliar with the creative process may not believe how much work it is. In my chosen art form I do a lot of things that are not directly creative, like laundry. There’s a lot of laundry in tie dye. So there’s that kind of work. The other kind of work is the work of coming up with ideas and plans to execute the ideas. This kind of work involves a lot of repetition, as you usually don’t try an idea once and get it perfect. The mantra, try, try, again is apt for a reason. So I’d say to anyone who wants to try something creative to keep in mind that if it’s not easy that’s ok. You may have to try again. That’s true of a lot of things – I understood calculus much much better the second time I learned it. (Not that I could tell you anything about it now.)

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @abbiedyeslaughing
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AbbieDyesLaughing

Image Credits
Alexis Blais, Abigail Tittizer