Terri Higgs
My artistic practice focuses mostly on painting silk. I love the way the fabric accepts the dyes; the way it changes in the light and moves on the body or wall when a slight breeze hits it. Inspiration comes for me primarily through nature, shapes and patterns that I see in the garden, while hiking or traveling inform my work. I dye the fabric a base color and build my surface design from there. I hand-cut and carve stencils and stamps, collect leaves and other found objects for printing. I use spray and thickened dyes to create texture and designs, often adding line-work, or using fabric crayons or hand-stitching for details. I sometimes use fusible web to attach hand cut pieces of fabric to silk or paper backgrounds. All of the painted silk must be steam-set, I construct and sew all of my work myself. In 2020 I began learning to make paper, in recent work I am combining my hand made paper with scraps of my painted silk and hand stitching.