French Silk Dyes on Haboti with Gutta Resist circa 1994/95
I made this piece in a fabric dyeing class back in the dark ages, Priscilla Sage was my instructor at the time and I was also taking a 2D Mixed Media course with Jan Friedman which landed myself and a dozen or so of my classmates in a local cemetery for some black and white photography inspiration.
So yes those are supposed to be tombstones I painted onto the fabric. I never did anything with this piece but this weekend during the open studio one of my visitors proceeded to go through my fabric stash, yeah she and her friends REALLY did do that, and she pulled this beauty from the stash.
Of course they all wanted to know why it was wadded up in an old suitcase with dozes of other pieces of silk fabric instead of perfectly folded and pressed into squares. It's very simple, silk is like your hair, so just lightly crumple it and drop it into the place you wish it to live, do not press perfect lines onto your silk unless you wish for them to be permanent.
I will spritz this piece of fabric with some room temp distilled water while it hangs, and the wrinkles and crinkles will gently disappear. After that I think I will back this piece with some batting and a cotton backing and then add some stitching, or not.
