Suki Russack, an accomplished musician, began weaving in 2002 while a graduate student at San Francisco State College. It wasn’t until 2006 that she found her voice as a textile artist. At that time, she began to explore the female form as a vehicle for her own spiritual growth. She considers her work to be a pictorial autobiography with images of women, both personal and archetypal.
In the process Suki uses, double weave pick-up, two layers of fabric are woven simultaneously. The layers differ in weights. One layer, made of heavy linen thread, is tightly woven; the second layer is transparent and woven from very fine thread. The body image is produced on the heavy linen threads using small iron ingots, which rust the image outlines. To further define the image, fiber reactive dyes are painted onto the threads and this is followed by discharge. The process of weaving the two disparate layers together to form a single image is very slow and labor intensive. As the weaving progresses, one weft shot at a time, the feelings that were the inspiration for the image become more clear and defined.
At the March meeting of the Santa Cruz Handweavers Guild, Suki will explain the process she uses with photographs and examples of her work. Passage won the First Prize at the Santa Cruz Art League Textile Exhibition, 2009.
Meeting details:
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 from 9:30 AM until 12:00 PM
Aptos Village Park, 100 Aptos Creek Road, Aptos, CA
