Very Exciting News! September 21, 2019 08:43

Indigo Exhibition 2020

I am completely over the moon!! My indigo garment has been accepted for an exhibition in Tokushima, Japan!
The piece is titled Blueness/Oneness. The inspiration came from many places.
First, seeing a beautiful piece by my friend Pavrita Shyam (who I met at IndigoSutra in Calcutta, India) began several conversations about Kalamkari techniques.
This led to my spending several months doing many experiments with various natural binders, indigo stock solutions and curing times on cotton cloth.
Culminating in Blueness/Oneness. A cloth with many personal connections.
In this garment I bring together the style of the Mexican Huipile - influenced by my many trips to Qaxaca to teach Indigo dyeing and other workshops at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca.
Often the Huipile is made from one piece of handwoven cloth - so too is the Indian Sari one piece of handwoven cloth!
Next - the natural binder of High Fat Milk and Myrobalan used by the Kalamkari artists of India allows me to paint on the cotton cloth (muslin) woven in India.
Indigo powder from an amazing NGO in Bangladesh - Living Blue - is used to make the stock solution.
Silk threads from China are dyed with Japanese Indigo from my garden. They are used for Sashiko stitching (a Japanese technique) to embellish the garment.
And finally my adaptation of my friend Michele Wipplinger's Indigo stock solution formula!
Putting all this together with my own design sense and we have Blueness/Oneness! A coming together - a celebration - of many cultures!

The exhibition will take place Jan 18 - 26, 2020 in Tokushima, Japan.
Bunka no Mori Event Hall, 21st Century Building, Bunkanomori Park
Mukoterayama-1, Hachimancho, Tokushima City
Tokushima Prefecture, Tokushima, Japan 770-8070

Also I will be teaching this technique and more at Aranya Natural in Munnar, Kerala, Southern India in Feb 2020 at their 25th Anniversary Celebration.
For more information click HERE