Have you ever heard that dismissal: “I can see right through that”? It’s not a nice question. It’s not meant as a compliment.
But in this piece of art: I want people to see right through. I want the silk and the silk’s environment to all be part of the experience. Foreground and background playing off each other.
Silk “mountains” are inside playing against snowy mountains outside. This silk hanging piece is based on my childhood horseback rides. And the light on the Virginia mountains as the sun rose over them in early morning.
Every morning was different. Riding hrough the morning light. Into the day.
This mention of Virginia combined with the sweet email from my friend, Jennifer, reminded me of the mountains of New Zealand, where she was living years ago. And the time we decided to hike up to a cabin on the side of Mt. Cook. It brings to mind what we saw as foreground : such an easy trail, and then what we discovered was actually true – that the footing became more and more challenging, from paved to gravel to dirt to …. where is the trail at all? It became more and more obscure, the further in we hiked. And how to cross the milky glacial streams, tumulting down into a thick brown glacial river below.. .. Yikes!
The near and the far. That sense of color close that includes a sense of the far. On the mountains and then… on my silk. The movement of color. As we see it and as we move through it.
When I dye my silk, I include that in the way I apply the dyes: I never use just one color. I use an underlying color and then a contrasting one that shifts from light to dark, from shallow to deep, across the material I’m painting.
The silk that I’ve dyed ovet the years are the basis for the scarves that I’ve been designing recently. I love the idea of the scarves : that they are full of color that flows and will now be literally in motion themselves on anyone wearing them.
Color that moves. Silk that moves. Person that moves.
So exciting!
I’ll let you know when I have them on my site- when those scarves ready. I hope you are “moved” by them. That I actually do hope.
But for now… hold your horses!
(standing horse on green – long scarf)
They’re coming. RIght, Peaches? YES!
