When we first started talking about how to in- terpret the show I went back to my own training. I was in grad school. I was a teaching assistant. I taught textile science, and I looked at a lot of fibers through a magnifying glass. And I knew that silk was this super fiber. And I thought, Why are you using this as a canvas? As we started talking about silk, I mentioned some silk books that I had read, and you know, he’s very inter- ested, and correct me if I’m wrong, Stephen, I think you downloaded or bought one or two books, and I think you read them in a day. And we got back and started talking about it, and you were just so excited, and his love of learn- ing, and his openness to integrating new ideas, you know, that’s the heart of an artist.
Goliathus CPU, 48” x 48” 18 mm stretched silk twill , Shoosty, 2023
Then, a few months later, we were talking, and we found out that we both had studied paper making in Ja- pan. What are the odds of that? And so both of these, the origins of silk go back to 4,000 BC, an old mate- rial, life-changing, civilization changing, as was paper and you know we were talking more about that connec- tion with silk and his work and again, correct me if I’m wrong, those talks about silk, and the further investiga- tion, inspired you to make the silk moth scarf which I am wearing, and it is 100 percent silk.
Silk: A World History by Aarathi Prasad
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