The Studio Archives  

early 2003

Artichoke House

Lately I've been at work on a project that I'll be showing in June of this year, at a conference of the Surface Design Association, in Kansas City Missouri.  The SDA is a group of artists concerned with textile dyeing and other manipulations.  My objective in making this piece was to show the new cloth I've been dyeing, in a simple/uncluttered format..

Here I post pictures and commentary of the process:
Almost all my dyeing these days is done in a large door-less garage in the relatively balmy climate of Northern California.  

Here's a picture of part of my dyeing space, with dyes mixed and thickened, and other materials at hand.  In the lower left corner of the picture, you can see a bit of my dyeing table, where I lay out the fabric.

My landlord grows artichokes in our backyard, and the plants are wonderfully wild, with a leaf shape that really excited me when I first saw it.
These leaves were what first inspired me to use leaf imagery in my dyeing work.
Here, I am at work on the first layer of color on one of the pieces of cloth I'll use for my piece.

I use the artichoke leaves as a resist, rolling over a leaf with a foam roller stocked with thickened dye.  In this case, Ive started with yellow

Artichoke House continued...


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