Black Tide: Not Optional

$750.00

Black Tide: Not Optional is my message about the destruction of waterways through the wasteful practices of uber-consumerism & fast fashion combined with reckless unregulated manufacturing and profiteering.

Textile collage featuring upcycled handwoven alpaca, bamboo & silk fabrics and handmade paper from remnant warp yarns.

Dimensions:  16″ x 12″

 

1 in stock

Black Tide: Not Optional addresses the destruction of waterways through the wasteful practices of uber-consumerism & fast fashion combined with reckless unregulated manufacturing.

There is a joke in Asia that you can tell the seasonal ‘it’ color from the color of some rivers.  Each year unregulated textile factories spill their dyes into the nearby rivers, artificially coloring them.  But now some are solid black from the accumulated chemical and dye runoff. These fashion factories destroy waterways throughout the world and leave individuals without clean drinking water while causing physical ailments.  “70% of the rivers & lakes in China are contaminated by the 2.5 billion gallons of wastewater produced by the textile industry”. And that is just one place.

My handwoven fabrics in Black Tide: Not Optional represent the last 6 years of the Pantone ‘It’ colors.  They become metaphorical rivers that intertwine into a black mass.  This represents the environmental damage that the textile and fashion industries produced to meet the demands of fashion consumers.  I use upcycled handwoven swatches of my alpaca, bamboo & silk fabrics and combine them with handmade paper from my remnant warp threads.  I strive for sustainability and zero waste in my work and my studio.