Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
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42 ORNAMENT 35.5.2012 ORNA QUILTED COAT of paper-like silk organza; hand- dyed arashi shibori, deconstructed, pieced, quilted with fine denier microfiber, stitched, 2011. fashion, and having access to the formidable costume archives of Hilferty, Nguyen found a book on kimono artist Kubota. Kubota's transcendent waterfalls of color and hue captured the young artist's imagination, and particularly aimed her towards shibori. Kubota, whose stunning kimonos perhaps represent the apex of Japanese color expression through textiles, was the first step towards a new direction in Nguyen's artistic career. Drawn into the research of shibori, Nguyen spent several years experimenting with the dyeing technique on her own. Eventually, she learned of Yoshiko Wada, the president of the World Shibori Network, who was offering classes at the Penland School of Crafts. Taking Wada's course in 2004 opened up a new world for the artist, as Wada's focus on concepts taught Nguyen to think in new ways. "She pushed you to think about what this 'force and resist' really can be. For example, I remember a story she told about trees in Japan which are wrapped and when unwrapped the growth of the bark is a type of shibori. Footsteps embedded in fresh sand is a type of shibori," Nguyen explains enthusiastically. Wada succeeded through these examples in expressing the elemental simplicity of shibori, positive and negative. During this time Nguyen also studied with Joy Boutrup. Where Wada taught Nguyen to perceive in new ways, Boutrup laid down foundational knowledge. Nguyen has an incisive nature in examining herself and her life, able to clearly identify pivotal points. In her list of mentors and influences, she sums up each one as carefully as if their contribution to her life elevated her to a new plateau of understanding. "Yoshiko Wada introduced me to thinking outside of the box in terms of textiles. Joy Boutrup instilled in me the need for safety when working with dyes. Jason Pollen's best advice was to carve out a small bit of time each day to experiment with no outcome in mind. This has helped me to see failures as part of the process—a big help in the process of creating." One can see each person's lesson as being extremely salient in Nguyen's mind. Like seeing a video of a piece of origami being made in reverse, each fold of the paper could represent a gem of wisdom imparted by Nguyen's mentors. And how does all this culminate? The answer is in an ever- evolving aesthetic blended from increasing complexity that is eventually resolved into sublime simplicity. It is this careful collection of threads that converges to create well-informed, finely crafted and diversely influenced majesties of silk, light and shadow. Nguyen's most recent work is highly coherent; the theme she plays with is flawlessly incorporated across all her numerous garments. One can see how her earlier work was a seamless prelude to her current series. Layering, quilting, the distinctive forms of circles and squares laid against contrasting backgrounds, these traits can be seen in subtly tweaked reiteration in her most recent work. The palette has shifted, with fewer colors in evidence, just a variegation between bright and dark. In her distinctive and mesmerizing layered coats, strips of dyed cloth are cut and restitched to create a shimmering wall of shibori. Using black or deep navy blue contrasting with white, subtly fading from one color to the other within one strip, and vibrating from one strip to the next, sometimes