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Pat Mink


Developing New Traditions: Inkjet Fabric

Course Description
Emerging digital technologies have greatly expanded the possibilities for surface design on textiles. The combined tools of computer design programs and inkjet development have exponentially increased the creative potential for producing imagery on fabric, well beyond the limitations of traditional hand techniques.

From developing images or patterns in Photoshop, to prepping and printing a variety of fabrics, this workshop will cover all the necessary techniques, tips, and tricks for successfully printing digital imagery on fabric. Beyond the basics, students will experiment with the variables of color management, layering, effects on different fabric surfaces, structures or fiber content, and variation in scale, while also investigating the computer as a design tool. The focus of this workshop will be on developing personal imagery and potential for expression, with an emphasis on exploration through experimentation. Participants will complete a testing sample notebook with several small developed studies, and will begin work on a larger project.

Artist's Biography
Patricia Mink is a professional artist and educator working in fibers. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and has appeared in Surface Design, Fiberarts Magazine, Quilt National, Visions, and Fiberarts Design Book VII. Patricia is an Assistant Professor of Art, and head of the Fibers program in the Dept of Art & Design at East Tennessee State University.

Specializing in digitally generated, inkjet printed, fiber constructions, Patricia’s recent research includes exploring low-tech approaches to high-tech applications. Patricia is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship for 2006 from the Tennessee Arts Commission and a major Research and Development grant from ETSU in 2004-2005, for her work in digital textile printing.

Artist's Statement
Layers are the focus of my work in several ways:

  • As complex metaphor;
  • As components of physical and visual structure;
  • As elements of process.

For me, layers echo the processes of learning and understanding, while also evoking a sense of time. Repeated imagery and patterns in my work function as personal iconography. Their meanings can be very specific but are also intended to speak on a more general or universal level, addressing issues of individual development and shared human experience. My work is primarily textile based and for me has strong connections to the history of that medium and its contextual associations. At the same time, I enjoy pushing the boundaries of traditional forms through the use of non-traditional materials and techniques.

My current work explores the traditional layered quilt form, employing new digital techniques for printing fabric as a means of establishing a visual dialogue addressing issues of contemporary culture. Drawing from historic associations with domesticity, comfort, and home, the quilt form offers unique possibilities for developing content when combined with non-traditional techniques and unexpected imagery.

The images I print onto the fabrics are primarily from my own digital photographs which have been combined and manipulated in Photoshop. Generally, these photographs are from my travels, and they focus on crumbling structures and aging surfaces as visual subjects rich in layers and metaphoric potential. Once the imagery has been developed in Photoshop, it is sent to an inkjet printer equipped with archival inks and printed onto pre-treated paper-backed fabric. The resulting printed fabric is then incorporated into a layered ‘quilt’ form (although more specifically designed for the wall, as with tapestries), using multiple layers of a variety of fabrics, and ‘drawing’ back into the image through the use of hand and machine stitching.