New Work - Ginger

I’m excited to unveil my latest major work, “Ginger”.  It’s a response to my experiences visiting and living in India. I was inspired by the colors, the diverse culture, and the energy of this complex country that I love.  It’s a place where chaos and order can both exist seemingly simultaneously in time and space.


The center image is a cyanotype print on silk of Hedychium coronarium, the ornamental white ginger, which is native to India and grown widely around the world.  The piecework is done entirely in silks woven in Mysore state, and brought back on various trips taken by myself, my husband, and my daughter.  It’s magnificent silk, mostly woven in the “shot” technique where the warp and weft are different colors.  It shimmers and shines and the colors shift depending on your point of view.  The intricate stitching I did serves to add a layer of dimension and further accentuate the color shifts. 


I’ve done several posts on this one as a work-in-progress; you can read them here, here, and here.  I started it almost a year ago, proving, as if I needed proof, that this art making thing is not always a linear progression.  I’m glad I took the time, and gave the process the space it needed, for it to turn out just like this.  Now to find a place to exhibit it, for it really needs to be seen in person!  It's larg-ish, at 60" x 60".

If you are new here, I’ve got a series of travelogue posts about my recent travels in India, along with vintage photos from my sojourn in the 70’s, here.  And thanks, as always, for reading and commenting.