Berbo Studio

Berbo Studio Learn about your local dye plants and ecology at an immersive outdoor workshop with me.

Berbo Studio is the home of various creative and ecological projects from me, Erin Berkowitz, an artist, educator and certified naturalist based in Ojai, California.

08/17/2026

Come with me to harvest creosote.

08/11/2026

What’s next?

08/09/2026

Why did I move here?

Join me October 9th-11th for an Autumnal Retreat at the Berbo Homestead—forty acres of land on the edge of the high dese...
08/06/2026

Join me October 9th-11th for an Autumnal Retreat at the Berbo Homestead—forty acres of land on the edge of the high desert and mountains in California’s Eastern Sierra, less than three hours from Los Angeles, yet in an entirely different world. 

Enjoy two nights of camping, guided natural dyeing and herbal salve and oil making workshops—all with plants we’ll forage on the property—led by Erin of Berbo Studio, and seasonal dinners from Kylie Kiyomi Obermeier. 

Stargazing will be optimal this weekend, as it falls on the first new moon of autumn (dark skies!). Between our creative and connective planned activities, you’ll have time to wander the property’s nature trails, soak in cowboy tubs under the expansive desert sky, and relax around the campfire.

Note: This Retreat is part of the Homestead’s soft opening, and is open to previous workshop participants (or anyone who Erin knows personally). Future events open to a wider audience will be announced soon.

To learn more and sign up, visit berbostudio.com/events or go to the link in Erin Berkowitz 𖦹 Berbo Studio’s bio.

Introducing the Berbo Homestead Box, a collection of goods made in collaboration with the flora of my new home in Califo...
07/23/2026

Introducing the Berbo Homestead Box, a collection of goods made in collaboration with the flora of my new home in California’s Eastern Sierra—and, only in this first collection, creations made with the last plants I gathered from my beloved former Southern Californian home.

Summer 2026’s collection is “To Listen When the Land Speaks,” and it includes:

Chaparral Salve :: Essence of Southern California hills—resilient, fragrant, medicinal flora.

Solstice Oil :: Pure golden sunshine in a moisturizing oil infused with garden-grown calendula.

Golden Hour Lip Balm :: An emollient balm scented with aromatic desert-grown lavender for soothing sun-chapped lips.

Sage-Dyed Silk :: Olivine color from native sage, rich with tannins and flavonoids; one compound bitter, one highly medicinal. Both lend color and the plants’ signature balance of boundaried protection and rich generosity.

To Listen When the Land Speaks Zine :: A mini-essay about my first month on the Berbo Homestead, and the story of the creations of these goods.

Available now in limited quantities from my web shop ✨

This past weekend, under the full flower moon, I moved into a new home on 40 acres in the Eastern Sierra. The land—on th...
06/03/2026

This past weekend, under the full flower moon, I moved into a new home on 40 acres in the Eastern Sierra. The land—on the blurred edge between the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, at the foot of the great mountains—is dotted with springs, cut by ravines, and populated by cottonwoods and willows, rabbits and frogs, swaths of (currently blooming) yerba mansa, and endless sagebrush.

Inside the house is an old fireplace built with local stone—big chunks of granite and gleaming black obsidian. There are small chips of obsidian scattered all over the property, worked into sharp points by human hands—evidence this place has long been loved and visited by people. I’m honored to be next in line to care for it.

After last winter, when whatever cosmic force in charge of earthly goings-on spat me out from the life I knew and into the wild unknown, I wandered for a while, embittered and embattled, not quite ready to meet what would come next. The fire burned away certain things I’d once known in my bones: the feeling of home, in a place and in a community. In the aftermath, my relationship to my greatest teacher—the earth—shifted on its axis. I felt unmoored, like I was floating in space… nothing to hold onto… until I noticed there was still ground below me, only it was unknown territory. Unfamiliarity first felt like fear, until I started doing what I always do somewhere new: get down low to the earth. Learn the plants, the soil, the rocks, the animals. Begin to know this new place.

Being here is a commitment to being with the land. To knowing it, tending it, and engaging with all the nuance and messiness that good relationships contain. I hope you’ll join me in this process. I intend to host all kinds of events here—workshops, retreats, gatherings, offerings from others. It’s far from town (but it’s far from lonely—life is pulsing, sometimes overwhelmingly, all around), but it’s less than three hours from Los Angeles, where I’ll continue to travel to work and teach.

(Continued in comments)

New plant dyed goods, created for your enjoyment, available in the place where things I make can be found (🔗 in bio)
05/17/2026

New plant dyed goods, created for your enjoyment, available in the place where things I make can be found (🔗 in bio)

05/17/2026

Thank you for a lovely season of spring markets, to all who planned the events at and , and to the friends (new and old) who came to visit and support my work and many other ecologically centered small businesses and organizations! These events always remind me community (human and non) is everything 🕸️✨

38 trips around the sun on this beautiful planet. Every year I feel more like myself; more comfortable in my skin (what ...
05/06/2026

38 trips around the sun on this beautiful planet. Every year I feel more like myself; more comfortable in my skin (what a gift). In this photo I’m in a hot spring in the Eastern Sierra with the season’s first snow falling on me, near the end of a solo camping journey up and down the spine of California. (I listened to this song over and over on that trip.) I didn’t know it at the time, but as the snow mingled with the steaming water, the wheels of change had just started turning. They’ve come nearly full circle now, and if my luck continues, this year I’ll get to open a chapter I’ve been waiting my whole life to begin. Putting down roots. Tending land. The feeling of home (finally). More soon. Grateful to be here. ❤️

04/29/2026

New zine ✨ all about the crossover between medicinal and color-containing botanical compounds. Includes a list of medicinal plants which are also potent natural dyes, a recipe for mordanting (preparing) fibers for dye, and my method for brewing color from these plants. All you need to begin working with medicinal color in a few small (and very cute) pages!

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