The Artists Studio: Singleness of Purpose
What I love about textiles is that they are alive. The silk is spun from a living organism, the silkworm. Long fine filaments that are almost invisible to the eye. And the miracle is the journey at the molecular level from silkworm to mill to processing to any number of tractor trailers, shipping containers, warehouses — until it arrives in various forms to the studio, amd in the case of this particular piece, inside a plastic box with other odds and ends for the past seven years.
But this week I am tying shibori — wrapping poles in arashi, making komoko knots. I made a hole in the end of a wool scarf in process by accident. It will become a beautiful hole, with a tiny piece of komoko dotted silk carefully stitched onto it, to strengthen it, to transform it into a not-hole ( which may even end up looking like a knot hole, in a very strange word-accident; mokume shibori is meant to resemble wood grain….)
The cloth is soaked, dyed, tied, soaked, cooked, beaten, dried. The living fibers change their chemistry in the dye bath and react inside the rods and cones at the back of the eye. Silk, unlike wool, is lustrous. It reflects as much light as it absorbs, so the color on silk appears lighter, as a trick of the light.
The central idea for this week is to give myself a chance to explore this medium again. Then, I can share it with anyone else who might like to do it, too.
Carol LeBaron
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