Silkworm Magazine, Volume 17, Issue No. 1, March 2010

Released just prior to the 2010 Silk in Santa Fe Festival, this issue features the work of artist Caroline Young and how she marries eastern artist technique with the luminous bright colors of western art.  Julie Cox-Hamm writes a short article about working with Abi Ferrin, a guest speaker at the Festival.  To see more of this issue, login and visit Volume 17 - Issue 1 - 1st Quarter 2010.

In This Issue

Caroline Young - East Meets West

Caroline Young, Call of Destiny

The expression for an unfathomable expanse is “as far as the East is from the West” but Caroline Young’s silks live in that expanse where the East meets the West.  Caroline shared her muse and methods with Silkworm in an interview.  Though Caroline was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Hawaii, she now lives in Reno, Nevada.  When asked how she ended up in such a vastly different involved, she laughing, she said, “There is always a man involved!”

Her silks hold an original elegance as she combines her Chinese-painting training which began after an interesting encounter with her mother, and her love of the vivid Western colors. Caroline tells us how her history blends together to produce luminous images, each with a layering of history and color. And how her flexibility in experimental painting to find what works has led to images of iridescent historical and mythological Chinese women.  "I wanted to pay homage to my great-grandparents, who immigrated to Hawaii from China, and to commemorate the bicentennial celebration of the first Chinese to arrive in Hawaii."

At the heart of her style is Chinese brush painting.  One stroke is all that is used at first because the true technique is in how the brush is loaded; later the teaching includes use of washes.  Her website indicates that, ‘From her teacher Caroline Young learned the traditional forms of Chinese art and filled her silken rural landscapes.  She chose as her medium Chinese watercolors, acrylic and gouache. Caroline mixes her own colors to achieve unique and vibrant tones, unavailable in commercially prepared paints.’  She tells us how she found a way to combine her knowledge of these mediums to create a fey-tinted realism. “Even though it’s so labor intensive, it gives absolute control over the medium.” This allows Caroline to have finer detail than the silk medium usually allows and more vibrant coloring than traditional Chinese silk paintings which are painted with a vegetable dye. And she uses the traditional way with a modern twist to maintain her silk. “People ask how long the silk painting will last. Silk paintings have lasted since the Tang Dynasty and that’s 800 B.C. Silk painting has been done for many centuries. As long as it is not exposed to the elements – smoke, grease from cooking – these will kill the painting.”

She answers our questions including: how her mother encouraged her to take art classes, how she launched her silk painting career, the paints she uses and what makes them so luminous, how she applies her gold, what silks she uses, how she mounts and preserves her silk paintings, and what the future holds for her. Read more in the Silkworm V17 1st Issue.

Abi Ferrin

by Julie Cox-Hamm

On Friday, August 6th, Abi Ferrin will be a guest speaker at our conference. As some of you know I have been working with Abi on her fabrics since January, 2008. We have produced around 12 exclusive fabrics for Abi’s collections.

Abi is unique to the fashion business because she practically fell into it. She was working for Paramount studios in Los Angeles and going to red carpet events. She made her clothing for those events and several young starlets noticed. They wanted what she was wearing. She began what has been a courageous and inspired journey into the fashion business.  Read more in the Silkworm V17 1st Issue

Abi Ferrin

Julie Cox-Hamm

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