Boro, my Indigo fabric crush…….

View fullsize

I have been making jewelry from a magical material that infuses my work with a tactile and ancient quality that I love. "Boro" is an old Japanese patchwork fabric usually made from cotton or other natural materials. It is dyed with Indigo and the pieces that we see today are scraps from old Japanese country peasant farming clothing, kimonos, tatami (household floor mats) and bags. The material was expensive, so the objects and clothing were used and reused, then patched together to be used again. This fabric usually comes from the period of 1850-1950, and is quite rare and special. It is prized today for it's lovely color and delicate hand stitching. 

The earrings I have been making with Boro are embellished with my hand made silver charms and hand-sewn knots, little bits of red silk that I feel accent the rich blues and grays. The Japanese aesthetic concept of Wabi Sabi, which roughly means an elegant state of imperfection and impermanence, really is at play in my Boro jewelry. Holes and patches add to the sense that one is wearing a delicate heirloom or piece of history, however rough and worn.   I plan on continuing to use this material, allowing it to imbue my jewelry with a little Wabi Sabi. I will be selling my wares next at the Buckman Art Fair, March 7 and 8th in Portland.   Tune in for more posts in 2015! I got something to say about a lot of stuff, what I am making, and what I have seen and done. I have a perfect place to say it on my blog so why not! Comments(and complements) are always welcome, except the bizarre Spammy kind with very funny English!

Silver Clay is Cool!

 I spent this past weekend selling my jewelry and prints at the Buckman Art Show and Sell, a fabulous annual fundraiser for the only Arts Elementary Magnet School in Portland. My silver jewelry was of great interest to my customers, because the details and textures you can get in a small, intimate scale are almost like little prints and tiny things always charm people! I love the metal clay work for this reason--it is akin to printmaking, a discipline I am in love with and am continuing to learn about in my 2-year Fine Art Certificate Program at Pacific Northwest College of Art, here in Portland, Oregon. Currently I am taking an etching class, learning about the techniques the old masters used to make intimate and intricate artworks that we still admire and emulate today.  

When I form a lump of Metal Clay into a piece of silver jewelry, I start by rolling out the clay to make a flat ground, much like a prepared substrate for the printing press. Onto this surface I push textured material from diverse sources, including rubber stamps, polymer or fiber. In this sense, I am working the surface into an intaglio print, with the indented surfaces being able to take a darkening agent, or patina, so that the image or texture comes into sharper focus. The result is a miniature etching, a small piece of unique art, because each image is printed individually and is one of a kind. Each time I press my texture into the clay, a different result happens.   The piece pictured in this blog post is a thistle, one of my favorite flowers. The thistle is the symbol of Scotland, where I spent a semester in college. The thistle and other wildflowers feature in my artwork regularly. I was happy when I found I had an old rubber stamp with the image of a Celtic tree, including thistles, a bird of paradise and other flora & fauna (I love using that phrase!). I use this texture plate frequently since there are so many little areas from which I can grab a texture. Do you see which thistle I used?