Artist's Statement
Judith Content creates hand-dyed, pieced, quilted and appliqued silk wall pieces for corporate and residential environments. She uses an unique adaptation of the Japanese "shibori" dye technique called "bomaki." Traditionally "bomaki" involved wrapping and tying fabric round thirteen meter poles. The tightly pleated fabric was dyed deep blue indigo and used to make kimonos. The thread used to secure the fabric and the manipulated pleats created an intricate resist patttern of infinite variations. Judith chooses to dye smaller pieces of a large variety of silks on clear glass bottles. She pre-pleats the silk using intricate folding techniques and secures the silk to the bottle with fine threads. Boiling dye is applied to the bottles by a dipping and pouring procedure. Both the pleates and the threads act to resist the dye creating dramatic patterns of complex colorations. The dyed silks are then torn up and reassempled into pieced, quilted and appliqued panels. The completed pieces range in size from single panels and interpretations of the kimono form to large-scale, site-specific installations. Her work reflects a passion for color as it explores natural phenomena such as cloud formations, sheets of rain, fire storms and water in many forms. Collections include Tropicana corporation, Chevron, Synopsis and Varian. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally through the American Craft Museum. Her work has been shown in Japan through several invitational exhibitions of shibori and twice purchased for permanent collections there. Publications include national and internations journals, most recently the Autumn 1994 issue of Ornament Magazine as well as Shibori II by Yoshiko Wada. Her 1995 exhibitions included "The Kimono Inspiration" at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. and "Diversity!" part if the Art Quilt Conference at Arrowmont, Tennessee. Other directions in Judith Content's work include production of intricate collage neckpieces that incorporate the artist's own hand-painted paper beads. Multi-stranded, these one-of-a-kind pieces may include miniature hand-painted paper fans or simulated pottery fragments created from painted polymer clay. She collects and incorporates beads from all over the world as well as ethnic findings and items that she enhances with paint, gold leaf and glazes. Her neckpieces reflect the artist's travels and experiences as well as her collections of textiles, folk art and ceramic vessels. Return to the Virtual Gallery
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