installation by Katherine Soucie
One of the projects I created for Seymour Art Gallery's Summer art camp was with rust dye. The assistant that worked with me is a beautiful textile artist in her own right and was kind enough to share this technique with me and the kids. She even gave me the bag of rusted objects we used at the end of camp so I could do rust dying in the studio during the school year with the kids!
You should of seen the look of puzzlement on my husband's face as I excitedly showed it to him when I got home. I believe he thought I was certifiable.
Creating hand dyed fabric to use in an art project was a perfect match to pair with the exhibition, as all the waste hosiery material was hand dyed that was used by both artists in their works of art. We even used discarded shirts picked up at the thrift store in both silk and cotton for the project!
Each child was given a piece of silk and cotton to work with for this project.
They each chose a couple of very rusted objects that were found on the beach shore near the gallery to wrap their fabric around and then tie up tightly with string.
The gallery is situated near an old saw mill from days gone by and there are lots of rusted "treasures" you can find still marking it's existence.
Each child then placed both of their wrapped fabric pieces in a plastic zip-locked bag with their names on it and put it aside for two days.
Then came the fun part, opening up the bags
and unwrapping the fabrics
I was very glad we had used one piece of silk and one piece of cotton because the results were very different in how the rust reacted with the textile. Each child had a definite favorite and although my first thought was we would collage both pieces into their mixed media, they decided they wanted to keep their favorite one "as is" and use just the least favorite in their mixed media.
I can't say I blamed them as they looked stunning and were beautiful when hung as tapestries in the gallery show on the last day of camp.
if only my one and only picture of them was equally as stunning....
artwork by Michelle Sirois-Silver
The least favorite piece of hand dyed rust fabric was then placed on canvas using a matte gel medium. While it dried, we went into the gallery exhibition and looked at the work of Michelle Sirois-Silver. The afternoon teen camp had been treated to a tour of the exhibition with the artist and during it she had told them how these artworks were about journeys. For the morning elementary camp, we focused on her use of shapes.
The morning camp then embarked on a mixed media project using paints, inks, and graphite to create a mark making abstract painting inspired by the shapes they found within their rust dyed fabric.
They were quite arresting when finished and the campers were very excited to share the process with their parents during the art show on the last day.
The teen camp focused on a mixed media project inspired by journeys. The curator had collected some old photographs of Deep Cove and Vancouver that she then photocopied for me. I shared with the teens the process of image transfer that they tried on top of the rust dyed fabric they had already adhered to the canvas. Then using paint, inks, and graphite, they drew back into the picture to create their very own journey.
Some of the drawings stayed true to the photograph used while others, like the one above and below changed drastically from the original image transfer.
I thought they turned out beautiful and what a treat for the teens to share their artworks with artist Michelle Sirois-Silver at their art show on the last day! Things came full circle as they now toured and shared their process with the artist after she shared hers on the first day.
I enjoyed sharing with all the children an unusual way to inspire a creation using textile. It was fun to share with them a process that involved hand dying and then using the results in an interesting way on canvas and in my opinion the results were simply breathtaking.
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