Meet Miriam Edgar

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Miriam Edgar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Miriam below.

Miriam, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I’m a former Middle School and High School Orchestra Director, so long days are not foreign to me. As a fiber and dye artist, I really get my motivation to make every moment count from all the methods I’ve learned and am still learning how to do. 80% of my current work uses thrifted items that would have ended up in landfills, and sometimes I find some really funky items to dye. Often I find perfectly good items that have a stain on them, so the location of the stain and what kind of item I’m working on inspires me on a daily basis. When my pieces are sold I find so much joy when the purchaser sends me photos of my work in action. To repurpose clothing, tables cloths, linens, etc. by making them into art gives me a daily drive to keep it up and to always be looking for new ideas and inspiration! I’m incredibly grateful to my friends, family, and community for the continued support as I continue on my artistic journey, and their positive and constructive feedback has also helped my extrinsic drive to work towards exploring the possibilities.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My little Tie Dye company, Mad Mir Dye, has come a long way since I started working with Ice Dye during Covid lockdown! Recently I’ve participated in some local Art Shows here in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), and some one-of-a-kind items can be found both on my website (www.MadMirDye.com) and will soon be available in a handful of local stores here in Minneapolis. I’m also in the process of planning some classes to teach what I do. I recently reduced my hours at my day job to have more time to work with dyeing. Many of the items I dye take several days to weeks to make, so this has been such a blessing from the universe. It also gives me the opportunity to be at home more with my daughter and to create my own schedule. This past year I’ve grown exponentially by finding new ways to sell my art. For T-shirts that are in good condition but have more wear than I’d like I have been cutting them up after dyeing them to sew into headbands, scrunchies, and bookmarks. I also had some of my dye designs printed onto journals — folks that want to support me but maybe don’t wear Tie Dye have other ways to financially help my business. Running my own art business is more than a full time job but I love every minute of it and it gives me so much joy! My daughter is also a budding artist and being able to model a female-owned art business has also been inspiring to her and really gives me a sense of purpose –especially with the sustainability aspect of using mostly repurposed items,There will be lots more public opportunities to checkout my work locally in the coming year, as well as online. I can’t wait to see where this art journey takes me!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three Skills that have been most impactful for my business are:

1) Taking the leap of faith and putting your artwork out there. You can be a great artist but if no one sees your work, there is no opportunity to receive feedback or make sales. Even if you are just starting out, I’ve learned people really just want to support you and watch you evolve as you become better at your craft. I really learned this when I originally joined TikTok in 2021 — even though I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I eventually figured it out and was demonstrating dye techniques to 30,000 random strangers at a time on livestreams — and the amount of encouragement that followed really helped Mad Mir Dye become a successful business.

2) Online Tutorials and Forums are the best free resource for artists! I learned 99% of what I do now from watching hours and hours of tutorials online. Most platforms also have a place to leave comments so you can even ask questions to the artist directly. This is also how I’ve connected with other Dye & Fiber Artists across the United States, and its always wonderful to have experts you can bounce ideas off of. I also love the many artist forums I’m in — if I need help with troubleshooting or have a general questions to ask, its beautiful to have a plethora of artists share their wisdom.

3) Have an online presence. There are so many platforms to put your artwork on and it really helps bring in business. I started with basic platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. and eventually created my own website. Creating a website took me many, many months, but once its up, its much easier to maintain. These days everyone has there preffered platform, so having your work on multiple platforms gives you the best chance for people to find your art –and usually for free!

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

My ideal client is someone who values slow fashion, appreciates the amount of work that goes into each piece, and loves to dawn one-of-a-kind apparel, accessories, or linens. I’ve really stopped taking commissions because with Ice Dye there is no guarantee what it will look like until the piece is finished. It also makes it tricky to replicate — and in most instances can’t be identically replicated. Its up to the ice and the weather conditions to determine how the ice melts and carries the dye into the fibers –which is what makes each item I make unique. I also think there is something magical about leaving it up to the universe to melt the ice as the water and dye molecules move as they wish through the fabric –literally leaving their imprint with the dye particles.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Miriam Edgar

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