Someone once told me that wearing my scarves was like getting a hug. That was meaningful to hear and especially pertinent to recall these days! A sense of the tactile, of knowing through the hands and body is my compass and cornerstone.
My collection is made by me & my two hands from the initial stages of sketching motifs, to creating small batch inks and dyes. Each piece is hand screen printed and hand dyed one at at time. It started from my curiosity and my sense of interconnection with nature.
Working with natural dyes is a unique commingling of the science and energy of plant life and and culture.
It brings us into relation with millennia of human practices that learned how to extract colourants from plants and the way that we bring nature into our lives.
*photo credit Tony Lanz Photography
One of my earliest and most popular designs is my anemone print. It’s a special motif to me as it was inspired by the flowers cut from my parent’s garden that I left to dry in a vase. After looking at their dried whimsical forms over the winter months I made a series of silhouetted drawings with ink on paper.
With the drawings I created a composition for a silk screen. Silk screens are basically a frame with a fine silk mesh where areas are blocked out. Where the mesh is left unblocked the ink can pass through to transfer the design to fibre or paper in the printing process.
My screens range from 12 x 16 – 25 x 36 IN. Each of my scarves is hand screen printed with multiple passes, (ranging on average from 4 – 8 times) with time to dry in between in order for the design to cover the length of the scarf.
*photo credit Arounna Khounnouraj
I make all my inks and dyes in small batches largely using materials I gather locally such as black walnut, sumac along with oak gall and pomegranate from Maiwa a wonderful Canadian supplier.
After the printing and dyeing comes the washing and ironing. And I have my mom to thank for many, many hours spent together ironing my scarves!
