the magazine of silk painters international volume 25 ......kaki steward. by liz constable...

Itchiku Kubota’s Kimono, Mount Fuji Series, Number Four Photo by Peter Albinger

The Magazine of Silk Painters InternationalVolume 25, Issue 2, 2018

ANA LISA HEDSTROMThe Enduring Impact of

her Shibori Art in the Fiber Arts Revolution of the 1970s,in the Bay Area’sArt-to-Wear Movement,

and as an Artist Educatorby Liz Constable

TOOLSAND

TECHNIQUESArashi (Pole-Wrapping)

Shibori Techniqueby Doshi

DOSHISpectrums of Color in her Re-Interpretations of Itchiku Kubota’s Silk Masterpieces Meet the Renowned Costume

Designer’s Eye for Tailoring Details by Liz Constable

For our second Silkworm issue of 2018, I am thrilled to have met and interviewed Ana Lisa Hedstrom and Doshi, two highly accomplished textile artists. And---most importantly---they are both teaching workshops at the SPIN Festival in October! As you’ll discover from the articles, each artist brings a lifetime of experience, experimentation, and expertise in creating striking patterns and designs on silk through resist-dye techniques and in transforming silk into art-to-wear and wall hangings. They also bring decades of experience as educators. So, you can be sure that their workshops will expand your skills, and provide you with the know-how and confidence to experiment in new ways too. Doshi kindly contributed the article for the Tools and Techniques section. Thank you, Doshi! In this section, she provides clear instructions to pattern silk with the arashi shibori technique. If you’re coming to the SPIN Festival, you’ll have the opportunity to work with her on this. Many of you will be disappointed to learn that Brecia Kralovic-Logan will be unable to continue with her regular Creative Journey column since she is now dedicating 100% of her time to the Women’s Woven Voices project, featured in our last issue. Good luck, Brecia, and heartfelt thanks for all your inspiration and guidance! You’ll find the themes for forthcoming 2018 issues of Silkworm below. I welcome your suggestions for future content (articles for this year, themes for next year), your proposals for feature-length articles, and/or for Tools and Techniques articles that correspond to the theme of the issue. Over the summer, I’ll add Guidelines for

Contributors to the SPIN website in the section devoted to Silkworm. In preparing for this second issue, I was so grateful for readers’ feedback to help us improve the magazine. And we’ve made several changes in response. For example, for this issue, we’ve avoided using white text on a dark background for the body of articles since some readers found this more difficult to read. I welcome your feedback as well as your suggestions for content, and do contact me at [email protected] THEMES FOR ISSUES THREE AND FOUR OF SILKWORM 2018: For Issue 3, Flirtations with Diaphanous Silks, the focus is on artists’ creative work with the translucence of sheer silks such as silk organza, chiffon silk and even habotai. E.g., How do silk artists manipulate the sheer silks in fashioning clothing, sculptural or 3-dimensional works of art? How do silk artists combine transparency and opacity in their work? What do silk artists need to know before working with the sheer silks? For Issue 4, Adapting, Appropriating and Transforming through Silk, the focus is on silk artists’ inspiration in other arts (sculpture, architecture, music, cinema, fiction and poetry, and the digital arts). How do silk artists interpret and adapt the source art? The focus also extends to ask how silk artists create art with vintage silks, recycled silks, scraps of silk, silk ribbons? What new art emerges from re-trieving and re-assembling silk? I look forward to hearing from you, and to seeing many of you at Arrowmont in October!

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESKPatterns and Textures with Shibori Resist-Dye Techniques

IN THIS ISSUEVolume 25, Issue 2, 2018

05ELIZABETH CONSTABLE

SILKWORM CREDITSEditor: Elizabeth ConstableAdvisory Board Member: Susan Louise Moyer, Kaki Steward, Suzanne VisorMembership Database: Vanessa HunterLayout and Design: Rashell Choo

12

FEATURE ARTICLES

ANA LISA HEDSTROMThe Enduring Impact of her Shibori Art in the Fiber Arts Revolution of the 1970s, in the Bay Area’s Art-to-Wear Movement, and as an Artist Educatorby Liz Constable

DOSHISpectrums of Color in her Re-Interpretations of Itchiku Kubota’s Silk Masterpieces Meet the Renowned Costume Designer’s Eye for Tailoring Detailsby Liz Constable

Please send your ideasand feedback to theEditor. Stay in touch.We want you to beinvolved. If you have

comments, complaintsor suggestions, let us

know. Send correspon-dence or photos to

[email protected].

If you have photographsof your art that you wouldlike to have showcased in

the Silkworm, send photoswith your name and thename of the piece. Thephoto size should beminimum 5”x 7” and

300 dpi for best printing.

DEPARTMENTS

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESKPatterns and Texture with Shibori Resist-Dye Techniquesby Liz Constable

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTNature’s Shiboriby Kaki Steward

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUESArashi (Pole-Wrapping) Shibori Techniqueby Doshi

04

03

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Volume 25, Issue 2 • SILKWORM 3

Volume 25, Issue 2 • SILKWORM 5 4 SILKWORM • Volume 25, Issue 2

KAKI’S: MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTNature’s ShiboriDear SPIN Members,

My husband and I hike every year in Rocky Mountain National Park and each year, I find wonderful examples of nature’s art. Taking photographs is also a great excuse to rest. This tenacious tree spent its life fighting to hold ground and grow, withstanding the thin air, ferocious winds, and freezing winters. The wind literally bent the trunk and stunted its growth but didn’t stop the tree’s greater force of nature. Before finally falling to the rocky soil, the efforts produced beautiful patterns depicting the battle. The shibori term for this type of pattern is “Arashi” which aptly means “storm,” because the rows of slanting lines, as we see on the tree below, resemble rain driven by the stormy wind. A pattern is a repeated shape or motif---in nature and art---that organizes forms, and then, in turn, cycles represent patterns repeated over time. SPIN’s organization is a wonderfully artistic collection of several patterned cycles. We renew our memberships so we can continue our artistic journey with like-minded artists. We look forward to our quarterly magazine of Silkworm so we can once again pore over the articles and photos. As my introduction suggests, this issue is highlighting shibori as an art form, and the patterns and designs shibori techniques enable. We have the opportunity to apply to become a Master Silk Painter (MSP) on a yearly basis and if accepted, become part of the esteemed group. We save our money so we can be a part of SPIN’s Festival every two years. Wherever the Festival is located, it brings together marvelous speakers, instructors, art exhibits, fashion shows, and the Chapters project. More importantly, we renew friendships that inspire our growth and refine our skills.

The SPIN website allows us to see just how international

our group has become, and to consult past issues of Silkworm in the archives. We can find the latest news regarding regional Chapters or form a new one. And perhaps more relevant this summer, we can access all the Festival information. We now have another cyclical pattern of value for our members, which is the Facebook private Tutorial Page. Through a live video page, our participating members can ask questions in real time as the artist is presenting. The artists can also respond to follow-up questions with individual members. Next year’s plan is to hold the tutorials four times a year, planned to take place between each publication of the Silkworm issues. A smartphone,

a tripod, three or four volunteers and, of course, the featured artist come together to create the invaluable videos for members. There are many components to SPIN’s cyclical patterns. I haven’t mentioned them all because most of the work takes place behind the scenes. All of the Board members work for you and for silk art

with their hearts and devotion rather than money. They keep us fiscally sound. They plan the festivals, increase membership, and generate fundraising ideas. Chapters are guided while vendors are recruited for membership discounts, and the MSP selection process runs smoothly. All this happens for your benefit. As we experiment with new patterns, we must remember that simply maintaining a pattern through cycle after cycle requires discipline and dedication. Our cycles give us the reassurance of familiarity; and the combination of discipline and dedication provides us with infinite opportunities to grow and learn. Kaki Steward President, SPIN

ANA LISA HEDSTROM:The Enduring Impact of her Shibori Art in the Fiber Arts Revolution of the 1970s, in the Bay Area’s Art-to-Wear Movement, and as an Artist Educator by Liz Constable

6 SILKWORM • Volume 25, Issue 2

wear in the sections on contemporary Western interpreta-tions of shibori.

SANDRA SAKATA’S PIONEERING ROLE IN THE ART-TO-WEAR MOVEMENT, 1972 - 1997 As significant as all these contemporaneous developments were for textile artists and jewelry makers in the Bay area, one individual, Sandra Sakata, stands out for the galvaniz-ing role she played in promoting the application of newly discovered techniques in art-to-wear. San Francisco in the 1970s was crackling and fizzing with the inspired creativity of Sakata, one of the two US pioneers of the art-to-wear movement through her extraordinary and aesthetically sophisticated store, Obiko.[3] Founded in 1972 in Pacific Heights, the store later moved to Sutter Street, and another store opened in New York in the Bergdorf Goodman depart-ment store and both remained open until Sakata’s death in 1997. Hedstrom and Ariel Bloom, in-house designer at Obiko from 1989 – 1997 collaborated on a collection for the Obiko New York boutique. As Sakata herself said, “I didn’t want to just line the clothes up on a rack. I created a total environment of paintings, antiques, sculpture and flowers to set a mood for the clothing and jewelry.”[4] And, clearly, the initiative proved not only formative but transforma-tive for so many young artists from the 1970s through the 1980s and 1990s. As artist Ina Kozel comments in the Obiko Art Wear Archive (compiled by Hedstrom and Jean Cacicedo, and housed on the Textile Arts Council website) it was thanks to Sandra Sakata’s generous and imaginative support for artists that the Bay area became “a hot bed of new textile thinking in the late 1970s.”[5]

HEDSTROM’S TEXTURAL AND TACTILE 3-D SHIBORI EFFECTS

At this time, Hedstrom set up studio in a red-brick building reclaimed by a group of practicing artists in Emeryville in the 1970s. Today, in 2018, the space feels serenely peaceful and welcoming with the abundance of cascading plants, Abutilons blossoming wildly with their delicate bell-shaped flowers, a resident cat, and the urban gardener touch of artists’ individual galvanized steel containers planted with flowers and vegetables. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In the 1970s, however, Hedstrom’s immediate objective was to apply her textile design skills, enhanced with the experience learned from her seamstress mother, to make a living for herself in San Francisco. With Sandra Sakata’s catalyzing presence for artists in the Bay area, from 1975 onwards, Hedstrom directed her shibori expertise to creating one-of-a-kind wearable art. To give a sense of the encour-agement Sakata gave to young innovative textile artists like Hedstrom, she recalls Sakata’s spontaneously enthusiastic response when she took her some of her silk scarves: “Those are your drawings!” Sakata exclaimed, and to be sure, Hedstrom’s scarves offered a foretaste of the unusual effects Hedstrom soon created through her interpretation of shibori’s arashi technique to generate dazzling patterns and three-dimensional textures, as you see in the the shibori scarves on the left, and in the arashi dyed organza wrap on the right.

Hedstrom draws on a range of strategies to create three-dimensional textures in her art and art-to-wear. In the scarves below, Hedstrom’s choice of crêpe marocain silk pro-vides a ribbed base: crêpe marocain (Moroccan crepe) is

Delicate, precise, and breath-takingly refined geometric shibori patterns characterize the art and art-to-wear of internationally known shibori artist, Ana Lisa Hedstrom. Yet, such striking aesthetic simplicity and symmetry results from meticulous folding, pleating, dyeing and discharging of silk, often some stitching with a sewing machine, and years of experimentation with clamped resist-dye tech-niques. As you read this article, Hedstrom will have just returned from giving a workshop on “Stitch Resist Alter-natives: Sewing Machine and Stitching Pleater,” in Nagoya, Japan, at the 11th International Shibori Symposium (ISS) held during two weeks at the end of June and early July. And of course, Hedstrom will teach two workshops on the shibori techniques she has developed over five decades at the SPIN Festival this Fall. SHIBORI’S INDIGO ORIGINS AND ITS CONTEMPORARY ROLE IN AVANT-GARDE FASHION DESIGN This year’s Symposium took place in three locations---Tokyo, Nagoya and the rural towns of Yonezawa and Yamagata---each of which has played a distinct role in shibori’s past and present lives. In turn, Hedstrom’s art ex-tends and innovates on Nagoya’s indigo shibori techniques, just as her art-to-wear is as distinctive and spectacular as the avant-garde fashion and cutting-edge textile designs emerging from Tokyo’s designers. Tokyo’s leading role in fashion and contemporary art is indisputable, and one we’re likely to know through the designs of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Jun’ichi Arai and his Nuno store. By contrast, Nagoya’s Arimatsu-Narumi district, located on the old Tōkaidō (Eastern sea route) connecting Ōsaka and Kyōto to Edo (present-day Tokyo) carries the origins of traditional indigo shibori techniques that emerged 400 years ago. In the Edo period (1603 – 1868, when Japan was ruled by the Tokugawa Shogunate), resourceful villagers in the 53 way stations along the route saw an aesthetic and commercial potential in their indigo shibori tenugui (small towels). By varying the shibori techniques, they could sell the new designs to the Feudal Lords making their way along the Eastern sea route to present-day Tokyo. And from the encounter of resourceful villagers competing to sell their indigo dyed and designed tenugui with the regular traffic of travelers, an entirely new range of shibori patterns emerged alongside the traditional kumo spider web that vil-lagers had worn for centuries. A family affair, the women created the shibori designs, while men took responsibility for the huge indigo dye vats.[1]

1970S SAN FRANCISCO: A MILESTONE IN FIBER ART’S EMERGENCE

The path leading Hedstrom to specialize in innovative

and intricate shibori took her via extensive travel in Japan, and South East Asia and India where her pleasure in the textiles she found in markets and museums persuaded her that, “Cloth is a magnet to me,” as she puts it. As a result, her formal training in ceramics gave way to the passionate commitment from the 1970s onwards to innovative textile design and art-to-wear. And what a time to launch her creative and professional life in textiles! In the US, the late 1960s and 1970s turned out to be a uniquely opportune period for artists working in textile design, fiber arts, and art-to-wear. And the Bay area provided a locally-charged impetus for these developments. The textile and sur-face design culture of today was emerging from a 1950s – 1960s turn towards modern forms. That is, “design”---quite distinct from both art and craft, yet drawing on both---was taking hold as a mode of communication and

expression. In addition, the1960s’ overturning of tradtions and social protest movements, specifically women’s move-ments, energized the ongoing shift away from the fashion industry. Instead, self-expression and a handmade design aesthetic in textiles, furniture, clothing, and publications was gaining ground. The 1970s also saw the development of new dyes and discovery of new materials. Travel abroad and hands-on research into ethnic textile traditions played a key role; and unprecedented access to reasonably priced silk resulting from Nixon’s 1972 diplomatic trip to the People’s Repub-lic of China also opened up the potential of formerly unknown fiber arts. California’s proximity to the Pacific Rim and Latin America spurred on artists interested in indigenous textile practices. New educational institutions opened in Berkeley to develop fiber arts, and Győngy Laky’s Fiberworks School of Textile Arts (1973 – 87) played a role in Hedstrom’s practice and in the lives of many artists who came from all over the US to take accredited under-graduate and graduate programs at Fiberworks.[2] All these developments enabled surface design and fiber arts to take off and flourish in California. Indeed, Japanese resist-dye techniques such as shibori remained barely known in the US prior to the 1970s and 1980s. Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada (co-author of Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing, [1983], 2011) came to the US and shared her knowledge of shibori. Her book features Hedstrom’s art-to-

MAROCAIN CRÊPE SILK SCARVES ORGANZA ARASHI WRAP


an unusual silk with a cross-ribbed texture, but one that designers used frequently for fashion in the 1920s. Pleating the silk produces exquisite rip-pling effects, and then striking arrowhead effects in silk, as you see in the amber-ochre-olive gown above on the left. Layer-ing of different silks patterned with shibori designs generates luminous effects as you see in the digital print on layered poly-ester, using a dye sublimation printer, in the garment on the top right.

In many of Hedstrom’s gar-ments, she pieces together shibori-dyed silk with an eye to using composition and color to produce geometric effects that introduce perspectival depth into the fabric as you see in the garment to the right.

PAPERYUKATA

PLEATED GOWN LAYERED COAT

PIECEDCOAT

The patterns resulting from shibori’s folding, pleating, and stitching in and of themselves generate three-dimensional effects that Hedstrom uses to dramatic effect in her paper yukata (cotton kimono) artwork. Measuring 36” by 29,” this mesmerizing piece focuses one’s attention through the repeated design as its multi-directionality moves our eyes into a contemplative state of mind.

STITCH-RESIST KATANO SHIBORI In recent years, Hedstrom has been interpret-ing and innovating on the Japanese stitch-resist shibori technique named katano by Yoshiko Wada after the Japanese textile artist, Motohiko Katano, who developed this technique in his career spanning the 1940s – 1970s. Hedstrom has explored the vast range of striking designs you can create by varying the folding strate-gies, by using machine stitching as the resist, and by dyeing the fabric multiple times while adding new stitch-resists after each dip in the dye. After struggles to remove stitches when using cotton thread in her sewing machine, Hedstrom now works with rayon machine embroidery thread in the bobbin and stronger cotton thread above. By pulling on the stronger thread, the rayon breaks easily and it becomes much easier to remove the stitches. As the two images below indicate, katano produces delicate and sophisticated patterns, and by working with small pieces of fabric, the technique lends itself to quilting effects and to quilters.

8 SILKWORM • Volume 25, Issue 2 Volume 25, Issue 2 • SILKWORM 9

DECK OF CARDS

Given Hedstrom’s intimate understanding of shibori and her deep knowledge of the properties of fabrics and dyes, it is easy to understand that her participation in the cultural history of fiber arts and wearable art in the Bay area and internationally has been ground-breaking. It also comes as no surprise that her work is exhibited in major museums including the Cooper Hewitt, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Oakland Museum, The Museum of Art and Design, and the Racine Museum.

At this year’s SPIN Festivalin October, Hedstrom willbe teaching two workshops:

• Shibori using Indigo Natural Dyes• Indigo Vat Dyeing

In each workshop, you will discover the wide variety of patterns you can achieve with simple and innovative shibori techniques. Hedstrom will share Arashi pole wrapping, itajime folding and clamping (including carved clamps) and Katano machine stitch resist.

[1] For the authoritative history of Japanese shibori, consult Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Resist Dyeing. Tradition. Techniques. Innovation, Eds. Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, Mary Kellogg Rice, and Jane Barton, New York: Kodansha Pub-lishers, 1983[2] Győngy Laky initiated the Department of Environ-mental Design at UC Davis, and later established the grad-uate program in Textile Arts and Costume Design.[3] The art-to-wear of Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Kayla Ken-nington and Carter Smith were featured in Obiko[4] John Pimsleur and Trish Donnally, “Sandra Sakata: Obituary,” SF Gate, September 24th, 1997.[5] Cacicedo, Jean and Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Eds., Obiko Art Wear Archive, Textile Arts Council, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums (www.textileartscouncil.org), 2014: 282.


HEDSTROM WITH KATANO SQUARES


Gentle, moist coastal air North of San Diego. An artist’s studio nestling in a serenely contemplative garden of lush plants. An enviably tranquil environ-ment and a perfect one for a conversation with Doshi about her life’s work in fiber arts and costume design, and to talk about the workshops she will be teaching at the SPIN Festival this year. And if you’re curious about the meaning of Doshi’s name---as I was---Doshi, nickname for Ma Nirdosh Sadhu, her spiritual name, means innocence and simplicity in Sanskrit.

MENTOR TO NEW GENERATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY DESIGNERS For the many generations of college stu-dents who have benefited from courses taught by Doshi at California State Univer-sity, Long Beach, she’s their ingenious and imaginative Professor of Costume Design. Doshi has national acclaim for the cos-tumes she’s created for theater and dance, but also for Sea World, for television and for ice-skating. At the same time, her students also know her as the supportive and encour-aging teacher with whom they have learned tailoring, patterning, costume craft, and shibori resist-dyeing. And as you see in the photo on the right of Doshi’s former stu-dent, Yuheng Dai with her shibori artwork at the 2016 International Shibori Symposium, her students clearly take to shibori dyeing. But what initially prompted Doshi to specialize in resist-dye shibori techniques?

THE FORMATIVE INFLUENCE OF ITCHIKUKUBOTA’S LUMINOUS SILK KIMONOS In 1986, in the course of her research for costumes for a pro-duction of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Doshi discovered the work of Japanese textile artist, Itchiku Kubota (1917 - 2003), one of the most important contemporary silk kimono artists who used the kimono as a canvas for art. Kubota sought to revive a technique known as Tsujigahana (“flowers at the crossroad”), originally designed for garments, and that com-bined fine stitch resist-dyeing with delicate hand painting on silk kimonos. Tsujigahana knew its heyday in the late sixteenth-centu-ry during the Azuchi-Momoyama period (c. 1573 – 1600) yet dis-appeared abruptly with the emergence of the Edo period. As a young man, Kubota had apprenticed with a dyer, and much later, after time as a prisoner of war in World War II, in the 1960s he worked to recreate Tsujigahana. Ultimately, he ended up develop-ing his own contemporary version of this resist-dying technique (that he named Itchiku Tsujigahana). In his twentieth-century adaptation, Kubota combined resist-dyeing with ink drawing, embroidery and gold or silver weft threads. He also replaced natural dyes with synthetic ones, and used a contemporary silk crêpe (chirimen) instead of the traditional nerinuki silk (woven from raw and scoured silk) that was no longer in production in the twentieth century. A selection of Kubota’s kimonos are now on permanent exhibit in the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum, facing Mount Fuji and near Lake Kawaguchi, to the West of Tokyo, in Japan. However, earlier this year, the Textile Museum of Canada, in Toronto, held an exhibition of forty-one Kubota’s kimonos, and you can also view his art in an online Kubota Collection. From the two kimonos pictured here, you can readily understand the aesthetic appeal of Kubota’s twentieth-century adaptation of Tsujigahana. [1] The kimono on the top is part of Kubota’s Symphony of Light series of thirty-six kimonos designed to interpret the changes in nature through the four seasons. By contrast, the one on the bottom is part of his Mount Fuji series where Kubota sought to interpret the different light effects on the mountain. The subtly puckered, or puffed, effects result from one of the stages of the technique where areas of the design are outlined with vinyl thread dye-re-sistant stitching that is then pulled tight while plastic shields the puffed area from the dye. The finished kimonos are dazzling, and some of the pastel colors almost opalescent in their soft radiance. Seeing these kimonos, you can just as readily imagine how the shimmering and lustrous effects would prove a turning point for Doshi’s own artistic practice, a turn towards resist-dye techniques that coincided with major life changes in her life.[2]

TOP PHOTO: Itchiku Kubota’s kimono, Symphony of Light,the Universe. Ha: A Curling Wave of Magma, photograph byPeter Albinger BOTTOM PHOTO: Itchiku Kubota’s kimono,Mount Fuji Series, Number Four, photograph by Peter Albinger

DOSHI: Spectrums of Color in her Re-Interpretations of Itchiku Kubota’s Silk Masterpieces Meet the Renowned Costume Designer’s Eye for Tailoring Details by Liz Constable



CHROMATIC SPECTRUMS WITHHAND-PLEATING Doshi’s discovery of Kubota’s silk kimonos led her to do further research, and soon after to take up, and personalize, a range of shibori techniques herself that show the influence of Kubota’s silk art. As a colorist, Doshi revels in the range of stunning and unpredictable chromatic stripes, ripples, and swirling currents of dye created by hand pleating (tesuji shibori). Hand pleating enables rewardingly subtle and nu-anced effects as well as vibrant multihued designs depending on the ways Doshi varies the width of the pleats, manipu-lates the silk, and selects the dye colors; the colors’ migra-tion on the silk contains the element of surprise. You see the results of tesuji in the jacket on the far right, and on the near right, you see, you see Doshi’s combination of tesuji and another shibori technique that Doshi has per-fected: yama-michi shibori or mountain path shibori. One of Doshi’s favor-ite techniques, mountain path, calls for a first set of pleats by scrunching the silk from the selvedge. However, rather than follow-ing a regular pattern with the hand pleating, in mountain path, Doshi shifts the direction of the next scrunch as if she were coaxing the silk to follow the shape of a hairpin bend on a steep mountain. The results, once bound and dyed in five colorways, as you see in the jacket on the right, create delicious webs of rambling paths across the fabric. And as you experience the vivid, glowing, effects of these

garments, it’s easy to understand that Doshi has become well-known as the creator of distinctive wearable art that sells in exclusive New York and Santa Fe galleries.

When I asked Doshi which of her garments proved most popular with customers, her response was immediate: the lightweight wool zip jacket is a perennial favorite with customers. Pictured on the next page, it’s a jacket that’s easy to wear, fitted in the front, yet modified with a pleat on the back or the side to add fullness. The side panels are flared, and it comes with the all-important addition of pockets! Doshi creates the zip jacket in a range of colorways, and little wonder that it has turned out to be in such demand by her customers. Although Doshi’s line of distinctive wearable art is inde-pendent of her professional responsibilities as Professor of Costume Design and educator at CSU Long Beach, these roles inter-lock organically in her artistic practice, as you will discover. As the study of Ana Lisa Hedstrom’s professional trajectory demonstrated, an artist’s career provides a marvel-

ous lens that re-veals larger cultur-al and historical milestones in fiber arts. Through Hedstrom’s work, we saw the factors converging in the 1970s and 1980s that transformed the Bay area into a hub of effer-vescent creative energies for the emergence of fiber arts and the art-to-wear movement. And in a similar way, Doshi’s profes-sional trajecto-ry as costume designer-fiber arts specialist offers a focused lens that opens up answers

to different cultural historical questions:How have changes in clothing styles and in the US economy affected the art-to-wear movement from the 1990s to our

contemporary moment? Where does a costume designer and shibori artist find inspiration in our digitally mediated twenty-first century? SILK ART-TO-WEAR IN THE FACE OF CHANGING FASHIONS AND ECONOMIC DOWNTURNS As many of us recall, in the 1990s, over-sized clothing was in vogue: the Kimono-style T-shaped jacket or wrap prob-ably typifies the Japenese-influenced wearable art popular in that decade. Dropped shoulders. A comfortable loose fit. The simplicity of the pat-terns themselves and the canvas-like expanses of fabric squares and rect-angles lent themselves to silk paint-ing and shibori. However, as Doshi explains, 2002 – 2003 saw a change to more fitted clothing and patterns: shoulder seams moved back to the shoulder. And as a more fitted look appeared in the commercial patterns, these fitted patterns were also less readily adaptable to wearable art. Ad-aptation was easier for Doshi since she was equipped with the expertise to create her own patterns and with a costume designer’s know-how when it came to alterations and details. But if artists and designers of art-to-wear adapted to evolving fashion trends, both Doshi and Ana Lisa Hedstrom emphasize the devastating impact of the 2008 economic recession on art-to-wear. The market for wearable art shrank, and ten years later, hasn’t significantly recovered. DIGITAL DISCOVERIES FOR SILK ARTISTS Where does Doshi find inspiration for the textural qualities she creates in her art and wearable art? Botanical imag-es---particularly trees, root structures, lichen, and tide-pools---provide ample inspiration for textures. Design and tailoring details---a dog ear collar, a butterfly collar, an Ascot collar, or a straight band collar---are of obvious interest to a costume designer. In her studio, Doshi she has a beautifully organized filing system of images. She also puts Pinterest to excellent use to find, organize, and store her tailoring details collection. Intrigued by the effect of specific tailoring

detail on Pinterest, Doshi turns the discovery into a creative deconstructive exercise as she puzzles out how to re-create the tailored effect herself. And then, the educator in Doshi understands how daunting it can be for any silk artist to put down a color, let alone work out how to recreate the color scheme on silk that we love in a photo or an artwork. Doshi has found a digital resource, palettefx.com that allays some of those anxieties for artists and students. Color Palette FX allows users to upload a photo (a jpeg, png or gif file) and the digital software tool finds harmonious color chords

based on the hues in the images, and gives you the complements and color triads on your digital screen prior to putting color on your silk. What a boon for silk artists! For silk artists intrigued in the design potential of folding and pleating silk prior to dying, Doshi also recommends Shadowfolds: Surprisingly Easy-to-Make Geometric De-signs in Fabric (2011) by Chris K. Palmer and Jeffry Rutsky, both origamists who work with cloth.[2] At the SPIN Festival in October, Doshi’s first workshop introduces participants to the foundations of shibori to demonstrate the variety of techniques and visual effects possible. Participants will learn how to choose color, how to apply that color through painting or pouring the dye onto the resisted cloth and then finish in a dye bath. In the second workshop, Doshi will teach participants how to layer col-or and resist techniques when folding the silk in compound patterns; how to

discharge color; what to expect from the “personalities” of different dye colors (e.g., the pushy lime green versus other more retiring dye colors) and how to manage them. [1] I want to thank Peter Albinger (http:/albinger.me) for sharing his photographs of Kubota’s kimonos exhibited at the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, February 7 - May 13, 2018 [2] Itchiku Kubo-ta’s silk kimonos are on display in the Itchiku Kubota Museum, in Kawaguchi-ko, Japan. You can access digital images of them via the Kubota Collection: http://www.twhekubotacollection.com. See also Dale Carolyn Gluckman’s book, Kimono as Art: The Landscapes of Itchiku Kubota, London: Thames and Hudson, 2008. [3] Palmer, Chris K. and Jeffry Rutzky, Shadowfolds: Surprisingly Easy-to-Make Geometric Designs in Fabric, New York: Kodansha America, 2011.

DOSHI


TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES:Arashi (Pole-Wrapping) Shibori Technique by Doshi

The word shibori comes from the Japanese root shiboru (to wring, squeeze, press), emphasizing the process of ma-nipulating fabric before dyeing it. Shibori is a resist-dyeing process like tie-dye, but it offers a wider range of tech-niques. Cloth is shaped by folding, pleating, stitching, or wrapping and twisting, and then is secured by binding. When the cloth is dyed, the bound areas are retained as soft-edged and textured patterns. The outside, or visible, surface accepts and retains the dye. Tie and dye traditions are found in many areas, including China, Japan, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Africa, Morocco, and South America.

With shibori, an element of the unexpected is always pres-ent. All of the very human variables in shaping the cloth and in applying the dye create different effects. Untying the fabric after dyeing is like opening a present: always unexpected and exciting. Chance and accident are part of

the appeal of the shibori process, and this contributes to its diversity in the hands of different artists.

You can use these techniques with fabric of any natural fiber. The finer the fabric, the finer the pattern created by the resist. One of the prettiest and easiest fabrics to use is light-weight silk crepe. When doing shibori, you can use the same range of silk dyes that you’d use for silk painting, and they require the same fixing processes.

The shibori technique used to create the dye pattern in this piece is pole-wrapping: the length of fabric is wrapped around a pole on the diagonal held in place with string. When compact, compress all the fabric by pushing it up the pole. Several 14” strips were wrapped, dyed, split and stitched together to create the fabric for the garment.

WRAPPING PROCESS Wash and iron the fabric to remove any finishes on the fiber and allow easier dye penetration. Another great tip is to wax the pole before wrapping. Pre-waxing allows the fabric to slide easier. Use either furniture wax or car wax on the pole, and make sure you wipe the wax off before you begin. Lay the pole horizontally and wrap the fabric around the pole on the diagonal so that it meets itself without overlapping. If the fabric overlaps, make it narrower by folding or pleating. Hold the fabric in place with the masking tape. The tape should be on the fabric, not on the pole. Wrap the string around the pole and tie it to itself with a square knot just off the cloth. Use a piece of masking tape to secure the knot to the pole.

SILK ON POLE

BOARD WITH CASTERS TO SUPPORT THE POLE

MATERIALS FOR TYING• Fabric---start with a two-yard piece of narrow silk fabric (8”-11”) to learn the process. Then increase the amount after experimenting. You can also use a pre- hemmed scarf available from many dye companies.• 4” diameter, 3 foot length of PVC or ABS pipe (available at hardware store)• Strong string for wrapping---I use a polyester wrapped cotton, 6-ply• Masking tape• Scissors

MATERIALS FOR DYEING• Silk paint---choose a variety of colors. • Squeeze bottles to hold the dye---beauty supply stores have small ones that work great• Tub to catch the dye---either a storage bin or tray works well

• Grate---fits over the tub



When you have wrapped about 5”, stop and fix the string with a piece of masking tape over the last string wrap. Brace the pole against the table or wall and push the fabric to the end of the pole, compressing the fabric and the string. Short sections of wrapping are easier to push, so if the 5” is too long, wrap shorter lengths.

Now straighten the remaining fabric, smoothing out the wrinkles from pushing. Continue the wrapping and pushing and smoothing process until you have wrapped and compressed all the fabric. Secure the string by knotting it to itself. Make sure the fabric is tightly compressed.

Now, wet the fabric completely. You can do this by soaking the pole for half an hour in a bucket with water sufficient to cover the fabric. The pole is now ready for dyeing.

Tips: Each piece will be different • Be surprised • Wrap another and experiment again!

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

DYEING

Put the colors you have chosen into the squeeze bottles. Lay the pole vertically over a grate with the tub under it. Support the other end of the pole over a tub of the same height. Squeeze the dye onto the fabric. Use several colors and pour them in different areas, overlapping or not. Layering the colors will create a third color on the fabric as the colors mix. Experiment with different ways to apply the dye. Each process will create a different pattern and the mystery of unwrapping each piece will be like unwrapping a gift. You can unwrap the fabric while it is still wet and either lay it flat or hang over a line. Set the dyes according to the manufacturer’s directions.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:• Brito, Karren K, Shibori: Creating Color & Texture on Silk, New York: Potter Craft Books [Crown Publishers], 2002 • Wada, Yoshiko Iwamoto, Mary Kellog Rice, and Jane Barton, Shibori The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing: Tradition, Techniques, Innovation, New York: Kodanska Publishers, [1983] 2011

Hold the pole vertically and work on a hard floor surface close to a table or wall. Alternatively, you can create a horizontal pole holder, like the one in the photos, which is casters mounted on a board. The spool of string can sit on the floor. Begin to wrap the string around the fabric: use one hand to turn the pole and the other to space the string in parallel wraps. Do not wrap over the masking tape. Instead, remove it as you come up to each piece. The string should be tight holding the fabric to the pole, but not so tight that it is impossible to slide the fabric on the pole.


STACKED SHIBORI DESIGNSby Ana Lisa Hedstromom

the magazine of silk painters international volume 25 ......kaki steward. by liz constable...

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