At the start of August, I was commissioned to create an indigo piece for a new yoga studio in Colorado. The piece is going to be scanned and printed at a mural-sized scale and while I am excited about the project and final outcome, I was most excited about having a reason to create indigo pieces again.
I took a blue hiatus for a year, but the process continues to calm and ground me even when things feel chaotic. I felt inspired to share how a piece is created from start to finish and break down these mysterious worlds. If you are interested in an indigo piece, you can browse my available work at the link here or request a custom commission using my commission form. I hope you enjoy!
Starting the vat
An indigo painting begins with creating the indigo vat. That process has such a distinct feeling for me - I can smell it, feel it and even reflecting on it calms me. Indigo isn’t always the neatest process and for me that means braving the heat and humidity to paint outside. Literally blood, sweat and sometimes tears go into the work.
As I stir the indigo vat, I feel myself deepen into a blue trance. The sound of the water and the overall feeling is so grounding that I often take it for granted once I have stepped away. After the vat has been made, I let it sit for at least two hours. During this time, I prepare paper for dipping by tearing down various sizes that I hope will work together. This part is less calming for me - I’ve never been a precise artist and straight lines often make me nervous.
I bring the sheets outside and check on the vat. If the coloring is slightly green/yellow with an indigo “flower” at the top, the vat is considered done. Making a good vat of indigo reminds me of making an omelette - when you nail it, it's beautiful, but you can still eat an imperfect omelette. If the indigo vat is less than perfect, it still makes a beautiful color. Several external factors also affect the coloring: the temperature outside, the initial temperature of the water or the quality of the air (I’ve had several studio spaces with questionable air quality...and it showed in the dye).
Dipping the paper
That initial paper dip is the most exciting and always grabs the most pigment specs. I approach my paper dyes differently than I would a garment, because I embrace the pigment chunks and try to capture the vat’s irregularities. From there, the process is a dance. I swirl the paper through the blue waters and capture the flecks; each movement shows a new ripple or blue mark. If I flow through it slowly, the piece has large billowing waves. If I make jagged movements in the vat, that creates more agitated marks. I lay each flat to dry and will often do another pass now that the vat has lost some of its pigment. The effect creates layers and nuances within the piece that I think is important to giving it an overall depth.
After the pieces dry (or sometimes even while they are drying), I start to see connections and arrange them around me. This is always a back and forth, as one piece can often not exist if the other exists. For a commission, I send multiple combinations to choose from before deciding on the final. I also decide if I want to make another indigo vat to add more saturation and dip the sheets again. In each combination, I’m looking for elements that connect one work to another visually - that carry it through almost like a comma in a sentence. I ultimately want the piece to stand as an abstract form that feels vaguely familiar. I don’t look for a literal interpretation, nor do I want people to have the same interpretation, but for me personally, I see a deep connection to my subconscious and the places I visit deep in meditation.
Stitching it all together
Once a verdict has been reached, I begin to stitch the piece together. Depending on the client’s preference (or my own) this is either done with gold embroidery thread or white book binding thread. Both materials are symbolic to me of mending the cracks to create a more beautiful whole, but the gold thread directly references the Japanese art of kintsugi and celebrates those mends as part of the piece’s history.
After everything has been sewn up, the piece is either shipped out to its new home or put to the side for another dive into a new vat of blue and the cycle continues.
Reflecting on the work
This series started as a way for me to cope with my grandmother’s decline from Alzheimer’s disease. Jerry was a character in the best way - she had so many stories to share and an overwhelmingly giving spirit. I learned so much from her, including a respect for art, and she was truly the matriarch of our family. In 2014, she had a stroke which eventually led to the onset of Alzheimer’s.
The disease has a gut wrenching way of building upon itself and while I was watching my grandmother fade away, her spark kept shining through in the form of song. She often sang “Off we go into the wild blue yonder” with so much heart and I felt a calling to capture that yonder through art in hopes of creating a beautiful place for her to go. The work has grown since that time, but I always find myself going back to its roots and a statement I wrote in 2017:
I find that the most intimidating experience is how people become so prominent in your life – a fixture – but also how quickly they can leave; be that with death, a relationship ending, even a new job, everything comes and goes fluidly like waves.
We are controlled like the tide, the moon pushing us back and forth out to sea.
That is where the people I have loved go.
They are out at sea.
Floating away, only for a certain tide
to bring them back.