The art of shibori

Art doesn't wear Nancy Kramer out. Her art is worn out by others.

As a fabric artist, Kramer works with cotton and silk as her canvases. She dyes them solid colors and then uses silk screens to print specific patterns upon the fabric. She is also proficient in the art of shibori, a Japanese technique of tying and clamping portions of cloth together to protect them while dying other parts of the fabric. She recently taught this unique art to a class at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center.

“In the U.S. we turned it into tie-dye, but what we're doing in class and what a lot of fiber artists are doing is looking at the original way the Japanese created designs on fabric,” Kramer said.