Priscilla Read – Art Journey

In October I attended a two day workshop with Kerr Grabowski learning her deconstructed silk screen printing techniques.  Her methods include creating designs and textures on fabric using thickened fiber reactive dyes, then printing the designs onto fabric.  I created a good “stash” of fabric during the two days and some more when I got home, then spend some time considering how I could use the fabric in my current series, Life Forms. I created the following two pieces.

The first is an instillation piece with shards of the silkscreened fabric sewn onto three long sections of silk organza.  I added additional stitching and text using oil pastel.  This morning, I auditioned it in one the windows at the UC Berkeley Art and Design Center in San Francisco to see if I had achieved my desired effect.  I was particularly pleased to see how striking it looked with a view of the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) through the transparent pieces.

I am working on a second piece based on these fabrics. I plan to make three panels from whole cloth deconstructed prints. By whole cloth, I mean that the cloth is presented exactly as printed, without any piecing.  I’ve completed two of the panels so far, and the third panel is still in progress.  The circles on the fabric are echoed with machine stitching using contrasting thread.