Fertile Ground

This textile artwork was inspired by salal shrubs and large ferns growing in the rain forest at Cape Perpetua, Oregon. Plants in many color and texture variations also flourish amidst the intense green of the rain forest. I discovered many examples on the forest floor and in adjacent ocean tidepools. Each vertical panel of this piece was meant to capture some aspect these contrasts through use of different textile materials (cotton, silk, linen) and techniques (weaving, hand and machine embroidery, appliqué). Each panel presents a view from a different vantage point (close, distant, from the side or from overhead). In the right panel, I caught large fern leaf shapes between an opaque fabric background and a sheer dyed silk organza overlay, then stitched them in place around their contours. The light blue central panel was hand woven, then screen printed with fern images and hand embroidered. In the dark blue panel to the left, delicate salal leaves were machine embroidered in a close view. The long sheer horizontal band that overlays the entire work is more decorative than representative, but brings the fern leaves into the viewer’s physical space. In general, I used sheer overlaid fabrics, textured weave structures, ethereal colors, and dense stitching to represent the crowding and blending of different plants and to suggest the thickness of the foggy, humid air.