textile design
transient
by Aimee Marquez
fleeting | impermanent | ephemeral
transient
Summer 2021 Collection
OPEN DOORS | BLOOM | DAYBREAK
Textile design pieces created with the overarching concept of transience— the state of lasting only for a short time.
This collection is composed of three designs that aim to illustrate transitional stages of life, capturing its evanescent beauty.
Open Doors
Open Doors is about the many opportunities one receives in life. The doors that lead to the unknown and the doors that have a straightforward path within. It talks about how it can be overwhelming to have a lot of options open and to be put in a position of choice.
Mirrored by life events such as choosing a college program, a school, a job, a business venture, a priority.
Open Doors also represents the inevitable consequence of choice— letting the other options go.
This is represented in the design with a geometric pattern of trapezoids, symbolizing doors.
The Process
Open Doors was created using the Block Printing technique accompanied by the low immersion dyeing method. The fabric was dyed prior to printing to serve as a backdrop for the design.
A rubber stamp emulating the traditional wood block was made with recycled scrap materials and textile paint is used to transfer the print from the block to the fabric.
Bloom
The abstract idea of growing up, improving, and evolving. Bloom illustrates the trust one must have in oneself to allow freedom and time to take its course.
It's about the assurance that all the effort, time, and perseverance one exerts will amount to something in the long run. However obscure it seems with the incremental pace of life, you will bloom.
The design illustrates this concept with blooms and backruns of pigment in abstract patterns that create an impression of blooming flowers.
THE PROCESS
Bloom is a design deliberately created to completely allow the dye to be in its element. Without restraint nor limit, the design highlights what trusting the process and letting go of control can allow for.
Chosen for its similarity to the wet-on-wet watercolor technique, the ice dyeing method is used to best communicate this message.
The primary pigment is sprinkled on the crumpled fabric, onto which large amounts of ice was poured upon. And then the second color is sprinkled over the ice, allowing it to blend more evenly than the one before.
Daybreak
The time of day when the sun creeps up the horizon to begin the day once more. Daybreak is the transition of time from night to day— the way it is illustrated by nature itself.
It can be related to periods in one's life where there might be ambiguity in the middle stage of a rite of passage. In which case daybreak expresses a sense of hope and reassurance.
The design represents this using symbols well associated with the celestial bodies: sun, moon, and the stars. All on a gradient background mimicking the hues that the sky produces during daybreak.
THE PROCESS
To create the symbols on fabric, the Batik technique is used. To emulate the traditional wax-resist technique, the wax part is completely omitted in favor of a more accessible and more convenient option of washable glue.
Stamp blocks were made using varying materials, some with aluminum cans, others with rubber mats all with the same purpose of transferring a pattern onto the fabric. These were used as vehicles to imprint the image using glue onto the fabric. Afterwards, the bare areas of which are painted on with fabric dyes to reveal the pattern created on its negative space.
