Image by Doug Yaple
Laura Hunter has worked creating silk shawls and scarves using shibori techniques for over 20 years. I first saw Laura Hunter’s work at Philadelphia’s Contemporary Craft Show in November of 2014. The material of her work gave it a lightness and and invitation to touch that some other materials don’t readily give. I contacted her through email the following spring and she provided the following answers about her technique and value of the handmade.
How did you get where you are? What type of education did you receive?
I have a BFA in Fiber Arts from the University of Washington. I entered undergraduate school at 18 years of age in pre-architecture. I was always interested in art but never seriously considered it because I was good in math and science. I had been told, mostly by friends of my parents, that I should be an architect. It sounded reasonable until, one quarter in, I realized that I am rather spatially inept. The Art building on campus beckoned me so I switched to Graphic Design thinking that would be an area I could get a job in, except I really did not like design.
The beginning of my sophomore year I switched to Fiber Arts based solely on the idea that taking a weaving class sounded awesome. Weaving turned out not to be my thing but I loved surface design and basketry, which became my senior thesis, making tiny, hand-dyed silk and linen, landscape-inspired forms. Not too long before I graduated, I saw a piece of pleated shibori silk. It reminded me of the land forms which inspired my baskets. I was so fascinated I bought Yoshiko Wada’s book Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Bound Resist Dying and did two independent studies to finish my degree.
At the time I graduated I was working in a wearable art gallery which allowed me to learn about the other side, selling handmade wearables. All the while I kept making shibori, mainly scarves, because, although my weaving professor taught Art, nothing functional allowed, I realized that women like scarves and were willing to spend a fair amount of money on them. In addition to the gallery, I worked for an independent clothing designer that one of my professors had recommended me to. I made scarves to go with her outfits and dyed flat yardage for tops and jackets. Next I started consigning my own work at the gallery where I worked and gradually added a few other places in the Western U.S. Eventually, I applied to the craft show, the ACC Baltimore Wholesale Show, where the buyers at the gallery I worked bought much of what we sold in the gallery.
Image by Doug Yaple
I was accepted into the show, quit all my other jobs, and went to work for myself. I filled my year with orders in the first two days of the show. I still have many of the original accounts that I acquired that first year in Baltimore. The most fortunate aspect of my career was the timing at which I started. It was in the late 1990’s when the economy was booming and people were crazy for handmade wearables.
About four years ago I was able to pull back on production and take time to explore clothing, something I had thought about for ten years but never had the time or space to do. I have sewn since I was 9 years old but have no formal training in garment design or fashion. Again, I bought some books, and spent a couple of years making pieces until I came up with some things that felt and looked right.
Currently I work in a studio in my house where I live with my husband and two sons. I work alone, doing everything myself with the exception of my husband who pleats the scarves in the evening after he gets home from his real job. I currently sell vests, jackets, tunics, dresses, as well as scarves.
Do you feel that finding your “voice” or confidence in your medium was a long process?
Yes, it was, and still is a long process. It took me seven years to come up with a pleated scarf style that I felt was just right (it’s still my best selling style after 20 years). The fact that my work sold so well when I first began making it full time gave me a lot of confidence. In retrospect, I think I had too much confidence in my abilities. It’s really only time that allows me to look at my own work and make a judgement about it. With clothing, I feel like I’m finding my “voice” now after about 4 years but I know that will continue to evolve.
Along the way, did you have any ‘a-ha!’ moments?
I have had small “a-ha” moments, like figuring out how to construct a specific style so that the construction and look of it all just work in the right way for me. A lot of making work for me is just doing it over and over and over until you get better but you don’t realize you’ve gotten better until years later. Several years ago I was running on the beach at dusk while on a vacation in Oregon and the waves were just pounding. The noise, the motion was incessant, ruthless. But the beach was so beautiful. The tiny grains of sand moving, the bubbles in the water flowing back and then it happened again and again and to think about how long that had been going on was really incomprehensible. And then I realized that it was a perfect metaphor for making art or craft. You just keep doing something over and over until it’s something someone else might care about. I think it’s the repetitive nature of textiles that draws me to them. Weaving, plaiting (baskets), printing, and stitching are all incredibly repetitive. The repetition of the waves for eons creating this beautiful sandy beach all feels related to me. It brings the idea of time, not just matter, into an object.
What medium or mediums do you most often work in? Why?
Image by Doug Yaple
I do two types of shibori dying on silk, and recently have added wool. Arashi shibori is a pole-wrapping technique. Itajime shibori is a fold and clamp technique. I have been doing these same two things for about 25 years and I still have so much to learn and explore. I love the balance of the restriction imposed by these techniques and the freedom allowed by them, as well. Weaving is too strict, painting is too free, but shibori is just right.
I would love to try felting, ceramics, encaustic, wood working, and even oil painting but I know that learning a new medium is very time consuming and I want to be able to do whatever it is well. Maybe when my kids are out of the house….
Do you think there is any intrinsic value in a handmade good? Why?
Yes I do. For me it’s the idea of the thing and the evidence that someone made the object. It forces us to consider what it took to make it. Machine made items can be fabulous and extremely useful. Good design is probably ultimately more important to modern humans than something handmade. But I think, now more than ever, it’s important that people do think about the objects they use. What went into creating that backpack I carry my books in? How do you make a book? What about paper? We are so out of touch with that aspect. Many creatures make things; some birds make fantastic nests, bees make honey, but humans can make and consider the meaning of a vast number of things.
You cite evidence of change as an important theme in your work, why is this? Do you think this plays into why handmade goods offer something more intimate than commercially produced goods?
I have come to realize that many things in which I am interested involve evidence of change or evidence of something that happened in the past. Two areas that stand out to me are my love of mystery novels and fascination with geology. As for art, there is something to me about a print that is intrinsically interesting. I’m not talking about a perfectly registered complex screen print. It’s more like if you took a piece of paper and slathered it with paint and then turned it on another piece of paper. Then you pull it up and it makes a sort of slurpy noise and leaves a rough, irregular blob of color. What’s left behind has a quality unlike anything you can directly put down. Shibori is that way. Every little thing you do is recorded in what’s left behind. Part of it is just my own weird fascination with it but I also think many people share this interest, whether they know it or not.
Yes, I do think this plays into why handmade goods offer something more intimate than commercially produced goods. The idea that something is not perfect, that little irregularity that makes something unique is evidence that someone was there, working on this thing.
Why do you think craft (or sewing as a craft) should be valued and preserved? (This seems like one of the most important questions people of my generation ask)
Clothing is one area that we cannot solely use machines to create the goods. Humans, mostly desperately poor women, are still sewing our clothing. Sewing is difficult and time consuming and yet we do not value it at all.
As for craft in general, I think I said it when I talked about the intrinsic value of craft: “… now more than ever, it’s important that people do think about the objects they use.”
What do you think the relationship between the maker and buyer is?
The idea that each one thinks about the other is important. The maker of a handmade object is compelled to make it but she should also think about the user or buyer of the object. I try to make my pieces very wearable and comfortable. And so too, the buyer of the good should be aware of what it took to make the object.
I find that a large portion of wearable handmade objects are made for women, do you think that being a woman and creating for women has influenced your style at all?
Absolutely, I make what I would like to wear. And the reality is that women buy things for themselves, as gifts, for the home. Men do not buy those kinds of things as much. I think men are forced into very narrow ideas of what is acceptable for them to wear and be interested in so they are a very “hard sell,” in general.
Where do you see the handmade going in the future?
I see our society going into a sort of Dark Ages for handmade goods. I have a feeling that finely made craft items will almost disappear. I don’t see art and craft going away completely but probably people buying well made, hand constructed goods will continue to diminish. There will always be people who are compelled to make things. How those things are valued is another matter. If people don’t value handmade items I think we will just continue to fill the void with more and more poorly made, cheap stuff. We need to think before we consume and handmade items are the perfect place to begin that contemplation.
More of Laura’s story and work can be found here.
Wear and Why 