The Fabric Of Decay
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday June 15, 2000
Julie Ryder designs textiles using decomposing fruit.
JULIE Ryder's fabric design hinges on a technique that stinks. She uses a unique dying process she dubs "nigredo", meaning blackening. The process is simple, but risky: she takes antique Japanese kimono silks, lays fruits and vegetables on them ... and leaves them to rot.
"It's really revolting," Ryder says of the process discovered after conducting a class experiment. In 1994, the first test with her textiles students at RMIT in Victoria uncovered mere shadows on fabric that had fruit rotting on it for a few weeks. Ryder incorporated her knowledge from years of experience working in microbiology and in veterinary labs. She chose silks that reacted well with acidic fruits - lemons, oranges and cumquats - and kept them on fabrics for four or five months. "When I came back to them, it was really revolting," she says. "Little fruit flies hatched and died. It smelt so much and it looked bad."
Ryder was at first repulsed by her creations: she scraped off the sludge and tossed the cloth in the washing machine. When she dragged it out again, the magic unfolded before her eyes - circular stains in vivid reds peppered the silk. This stunning result sparked a more refined approached. Today, Ryder designs with intention, but she also relies on "accidents" to create the finished product. Though she measures pH levels, encourages certain effects and keeps the cloth moist during the long wait, nature creates beautiful and unpredictable effects that are usually achieved only with harsh chemicals. Each piece is then finished with hand stitching, applique or screen-printing.
Her piece, Disintegration, planned for exhibition, had sections of silk dissolve during the dying process. Ryder liked what she saw. She felt her piece had an added spiritual quality, and the finished product became a key work in her 1999 exhibition with Craft Victoria, d-composition. "If it was just a process that you got results from, and if you could control it, I wouldn't like it as much; I wouldn't have kept doing it," she says.
Ryder is taking her work to London, with the assistance of the Australia Council, to exhibit with other artists including jewellery designers in Alchemy in Australia at Lesley Craze Gallery from July 1.
Later this year she will exhibit for the first time at the Tamworth Fibre Festival. "Good exhibitions of textiles give people another insight," she says. "Textiles shouldn't be a poor relation of other media."
This modern-day alchemist draws inspiration from the medieval idea of transformation. Transformation, she says, is akin to death. Her pieces, with names such as Deconstruction, Decay and Dissemination, indicate an emphasis on the darker side of living, which needs to be explored to have more understanding, she says.
Ryder is also influenced by the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi, which is about the beauty of nature. "But nature is imperfect," she says. "So, you see, beauty in the deteriorating shape of a leaf, mud cracks or anything nature has done ... it's perfect."
The pieces of cloth are designed to be viewed from either side, and some works include surprise elements such as hidden stitching. She believes the fabrics should be viewed from each side because they are "as beautiful on the outside as on the inside". She also believes thinking about the philosophy of her work while creating it authenticates each piece, and marks the function of the work more than simple decoration.
"I see this as a way of mark-making and that's what I love about it."
Ryder's fabrics can be found at Planet Furniture
419 Crown Street, Surry Hills, 9698 0680.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald