playing around

As a reward for all my work this week, I played a little bit with batik. Below is a remnant of one of Helene Davis' hand-dyed fabrics. Now, while it is subtle and gorgeous and complex and there are undoubtedly a lot of people who would kill for this piece and make something fabulous with it, it is not a colorway I use a lot of. In that case, I decided I could spare it for an experiment.

So, over a period of days I discharged, waxed, painted, waxed, and dyed. I used some household objects on the first round of discharge and later, one of the new tjaps I acquired recently. Then I painted all the leftover dyes I had lying around and here is the result. The light part is where I discharged.

So, all you other surface designers out there: what is it that compels us to take a perfectly beautiful piece of fabric and change it? Are we never satisfied?