Tranquil Moments

by Lin Hsin-Chen

Solutions to adversities often found in peaceful moments. From natural dyes, I learned that even splendid life ends in simple and solid colors. It is the profound nature philosophy. This work is my visual feedback after experiencing the earthquake.

Calming down and getting life back on track after experiencing disasters is a life issue. When I was creating this work, I experienced the destructive earthquake in Tainan. It is hard to imagine that buildings are falling apart due to crustal deformation and bringing fears to the tranquil life. For this reason, I changed my design to weaving instead of piecing, in hopes of finding stable latitude and longitude lines for my broken homeland and recovering from the disaster speedily. There is no specific horizontal sequence in my work. I wove it freely with curves to depict an alternative beauty of rebuilt buildings with cracks.

The reds on the water lily are lac insects. They absorb nutrients from the host plants and produce red dye. The red dye they produced creates gorgeous and rare hues on silk fibers. The composition of animal protein, lac insects and natural silk, make unique and precious colors. Thank you Sue for the challenge!

Materials: self dyed fabrics with natural dyes from native plants in Taiwan, wool yarn, cotton, linen, silk

Techniques: hand woven, hand appliquéd, quilted, embroidered

Size: 100 x 64 (cm)