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.

Kramer's preference lies with silk-screening, a process that involves applying a thick dye paste with a squeegee through a mesh filter pressed against the fabric. She draws inspiration for her designs from the natural environment. Dry leaves and flowers can be exposed to silk screens through photo emulsion, which produces a far more accurate design than one hand-drawn by Kramer.

“I'm always looking for images in my garden,” she said.

Unlike shibori, which requires a few hours to complete, silk screening can stretch for days. But once the image has been created in the screen, Kramer can replicate it on spool after spool of fabric.

“Once the process is set up, it's not like it's a wasted effort. It has long legs to it,” Kramer said.

She typically works with scarves, which she dyes one color before either adding another color with a silk screen or erasing part of the original with a discharge paste. Even changing a fabric's color can be tough, as some materials turn out splotchy until repeat dying produces a uniform hue.

Kramer also designs coats, but that process proves even more difficult.

“It's more complicated, I'm not a seamstress,” Kramer said.

The allure fabric art holds for Kramer is its ability to survive outside a studio. When she considers the tragedy of work never finding an audience, Kramer recalls the Russian poets whose subversive works were consigned to desk drawers for fear of the consequences.

“It doesn't just end up locked away in a studio or a closet, it ends up in the world with someone walking around wearing it,” Kramer said. “It's cool that people wear what I've made.”

Kramer's position as a professor of art at Cayuga Community College has limited her output to the summer months, but she has still found plenty of time to sell her scarves. She exhibits them every November at the American Association of University Women's annual “Celebrating Women in Art” show and her work is carried at the cate&sally clothing store in Skaneateles.

Fellow CCC faculty member Diana Valdina has purchased several of Kramer's scarves at such showcases.

“They're very fluid and the styling of the different designs she uses are beautiful,” said Valdina, a professor of English. “I've given several as gifts and I have several of my own.”

Fabric art became the focus of Kramer's artistic ambitions on somewhat of a whim. She took her first silk screen classes after moving to central New York from Harrisburg, Pa. with her husband in the late 80s.

“I told him there needed to be a good art school wherever we moved,” Kramer said.

That school was Syracuse University, where Kramer completed a master of fine arts degree in 1992. While working in the printmaking department, she enrolled in silk screen classes to fulfill elective requirements. But she was fascinated by the process of directly designing fabric, rather than creating designs that are applied in an assembly line.

“That's how I got started, I just loved it and kept at it,” Kramer said.

As an art professor, Kramer also passes on her knowledge of fabric art to students in her textile design class.

“It gives them a surface they can create designs upon that can be sold,” Kramer said.

Prior to her arrival at the college as a full-time professor in 1995, Cayuga had not offered art students a degree of their own. Students could only take art classes in preparation for pursuing a four-year degree at another institution.

Kramer strengthened the academic quality of arts study on campus by bringing a studio art and design degree to the college. She has witnessed the program swell from five students its first year to about 50 currently. David Richards worked alongside Kramer for 10 years as chair of CCC's humanities division and watched as she changed the art department.

“She's very popular with the art students, she's very good at motivating them and bringing out the best in every student,” Richards said.

The textile design class was another of Kramer's creations.

“There wasn't much study in fabric art, it's something she really brought in and made a factor at the college,” Richards said.

As Kramer continues to teach her students the delicate process of fabric art, more and more will learn to wear their art not on their sleeves, but around their necks.

Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net