You step into a world of ancient wisdom when you enter Blue Light Junction (BLJ). It’s all a deeply healing sensorial experience, a labour of love and collective effort. Crimson amaranth and golden marigold strung from the ceilings and dripping from racks color the room with a floral musk and intention. The bright bulbs of dyeable flowers are separated from green leaves and stalks and organized across long tables — indigo blooms in deep medicinal vats. You can always tell a dyer by the color of their fingertips: warmth tinged, the hues of clay and herbs, the color of biodiversity, and a codex to medicinal properties. If you can learn how to work with the plant, you can activate its power and draw forward its dynamic patina or healing principles. Dyers are cut from a different cloth, and Blue Light Junction is a horticulturist’s paradise.
When I entered the beautiful space, I breathed it all in. I let myself sink into the powerful realm that Kenya Miles — BLJ CEO, natural dyer, and proud mother of son, Indigo — founded in collaboration with Rosa Chang in 2020. Miles also worked with the building owner to rehab the space and later partnered with woodworkers Patrick Campbell and Arman Mizani to convert the rundown autobody shop into an atelier for traditional dying. It was a perfect location, tucked in an intimate alley in the heart of the Station North Arts District/Greenmount West Neighborhood, across from Hidden Harvest, an urban farm and community garden on Calvert Street.
Even before the Hidden Harvest initiative, the greenspace had been an active garden stewarded by residents and neighbors in the Greenmount community. In the early 2000s, the city revoked the residents’ land cultivation rights, granting them to Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)’s attending students and affiliates to steward in 2010. The complicated history of the greenspace brings up long-standing issues around land sovereignty, class, race, and how institutional interventions can sometimes erase preexisting movements rather than work as allies in collaboration with those movements.
Despite this, BLJ, which was always intended to be a safe space for everyone to build community through equitable skill sharing and allied agriculture, is working hard to make the land accessible to residents who may feel unwelcome, and also open the space to broader communities both within and outside of the MICA ecosystem. In this spirit, BLJ also maintains a greenspace directly next door to its workshop called “the Annex” that focuses on plants used for dying and employing sustainable irrigation methods, including a waffle garden rendered with a Zuni Pueblo technique called Latdekwi:we (pronounced “lah-deh-kwee-weh”). BLJ prides itself on being a space where many plants and seeds used for dying are communally cultivated.
“That was really the goal, to expose people to what’s possible, and then to think about how to do that collectively so that we can have quantity of growth … focused on Baltimore City,” Miles noted, referring to a collaborative project supported by Innovation Works (2021-2023) called Nature’s Colors, where Miles provided a framework for farmers in Baltimore City to grow natural dyes.
“That was really the goal, to expose people to what’s possible, and then to think about how to do that collectively so that we can have quantity of growth … focused on Baltimore City,”
Kenya miles
Many plants are cultivated on the Annex lot, including safflower, indigo, marigold, cosmos, madder root, hollyhock, yarrow, and Hopi sunflower. Sea Island brown cotton and flax are also grown as fibers. A humble, dedicated team, including Rosa Chang, Vetiver Napper, Jorgelina Lopez, Rosina Saqib, and Melissa Sutherland Moss, supports Miles with the maintenance of the gardens and programming at BLJ.
Those who continue the work of natural dying are a testament to the retention of ancient knowledge that survived the rise and collapse of empires, the pursuit and expansion of colonial conquests, and forced and voluntary migrations. The immortal and sacred practice of natural dying exists in every corner of the world.
Those who continue the work of natural dying are a testament to the retention of ancient knowledge that survived the rise and collapse of empires, the pursuit and expansion of colonial conquests, and forced and voluntary migrations. The immortal and sacred practice of natural dying exists in every corner of the world. Over the years, BLJ has invited craftspeople and dyers from South Asia, Korea, Trinidad, Nigeria, Palestine, Mexico, and Indigenous nations to share their techniques with communities in Baltimore. Though each of these artists is adept in their practice and have deeply studied these traditions, all are too humble to call themselves masters.
“I would not use the word ‘master’ for these folks.” Miles continued, “We all take our practice as a constant apprenticeship in the work … There is always learning at the forefront, more questions, seeking, listening, sharing.”
It’s a miracle that any of it survived. This knowledge has traveled in the memories of migrants, in parcels packed with textiles and seeds tucked and braided into the cornrows of brave women and in the matrix of woven designs passed down for millennia.
It’s a miracle that any of it survived. This knowledge has traveled in the memories of migrants, in parcels packed with textiles and seeds tucked and braided into the cornrows of brave women and in the matrix of woven designs passed down for millennia. Now, natural dying continues to be upheld at BLJ, which strives to be a beloved wisdom school that offers myriad free and ticketed workshops, artist residencies, and a marketplace to showcase independent artisans, including Jorgelina Lopez’s showroom, La Loupe Design, focusing on beautiful hand-crafted lamps. Notable teaching artists who offer classes at BLJ include founders Miles and Chang and additional guests Janette Terrazas Islas, Hannah Atallah, Robert Young, and Jenelle Legge. This October, Gasali Adeyemo will lead a sold-out workshop about Yoruba adire eleko and adire oniko indigo dying techniques. Adeyemo has worked with practitioners in Baltimore since 2019, when he began teaching as a visiting artist in the Baltimore Natural Dye Initiative at MICA. Miles and Chang met in his workshop during the 18-month pilot for the program.
BLJ operates as a collective with the spirit of a cooperative. Its function as a facility reflects the needs of the communities that utilize and sustain the space. This includes artists who are fellows at BLJ’s bi-annual Ibura Art & Research Residency (IARR) co-ideated by Miles, Omolara Williams McCallister, and Valerie Onifade. Since 2022, IARR has invited artists who employ research as a part of their practice to learn ways in which traditional dying techniques can enhance their projects. During their residency, artists are given a small stipend, access to the dye gardens, dye facilities, and intimate studios at BLJ for exploration or creating new artworks incorporating what they’ve learned. A new exhibition, “Return of the Residents: Material, Memory, & Contemporary Hands,” on view at BLJ September 26 through December 30, 2025, will stage a presentation of artworks created by past IARR residents. Featured artists include Angelique Scott, Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida, Jazz Williams, Jordan Brown, Korcelia Saygbay, Linnea Poole, Najee Haynes-Follins, Rosina Saqib, Samantha Sethi, Savannah Wood, and Vanessa Villarreal.The cultivation of seeds procured from nearby farms, the harvesting of what has been grown on shared land, and the shared reaping of what has been sown is a labour practice grounded in gratitude.
The work BLJ supports for others is made possible through the cross-pollination and intersections of many communities and initiatives, including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Parks & People, Central Baltimore Partnership, Farm Alliance of Baltimore, and Botanical Colors, founded by Kathy Hattori. BLJ’s commitment to honoring a collective restoration and connection to the land enables new generations to learn ancient folkways. In this way, the power of community gardens, land sovereignty, and freedom schools thrives.
“My hope is that BLJ continues to nurture, grow, and inspire deeply rooted relationships to global histories, traditions, craft, and cultures,” Miles said. “The future of the collective expands or contracts according to the community that is engaging with it. I believe in order for there to be more fruits of our labor we must feel free to meander, be still, languish in connection to land, stare at shadows, treat sacred our bodies, and love ourselves so that we can love one another. There are infinite possibilities ahead.”
To learn more about Blue Light Junction visit www.bluelightjunction.com