Ana Lisa Hedstrom

Fiber: A Passion for Patterns

Course Description
Wonderful spontaneous designs on silk and cellulose fabrics can be made without using silk screens. The workshop will begin with instruction in various ways to create patterns using brushes, stamps, sponges, found objects…even vegetables. Participants will work on both flat fabric and manipulated shibori fabric. We will apply thickened fiber reactive dye which will “batch” overnight to become permanently set, and we will learn ways to add color and depth through discharge applications, additional dye, washes, and pigments. Design issues will be an integral part of class instruction, including discussion on how to use our fabrics for fashion, quilts, and art textiles.

Artist's Biography
Ana Lisa Hedstrom is a textile artist who has specialized in contemporary adaptations of Japanese Shibori. Her art clothing and interior wall hangings have been exhibited and published internationally, and are in the collections of the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California, The DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, and the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Ana Lisa has taught at San Francisco State University and at many summer programs, including Haystack School of Craft, Penland School, and the University of Minnesota Split Rock Arts program. She has received two NEA craftsman grants and was elected a fellow of the American Craft Council in 2003.

Artist's Statement
I like the logic of Shibori. Exploiting the intrinsic pliability of cloth by stitching, folding, and wrapping, both patterns and pleats are created. These contain a kind of language. One may peruse the actual process in the dyed and embossed fabric. This conversational aspect begins as the cloth emerges from the dye and continues as it is cut and pieced to make a larger graphic design.

My work departs from traditional Japanese techniques and a stereotypical Japanese aesthetic…but I hope to retain some of the invention and skill found in Japanese indigo dyed Shibori. In the working “dialogue” of the studio, I incorporate western fabrics, tools, and dye techniques with traditional Shibori concepts. I have found parallels in forgotten western techniques of smocking, shirring, and ruching. Most recently I have explored digital printing based on scanned scraps of my hand dyed Shibori.