OCTOBER 2020
SOUTH GALLERY
Alder Studies | Elissa Pettibone
Elissa Pettibone has been exploring historic and local dyes for over a decade, experimenting with plant based dyes as an alternative to caustic dyes within the textile industry. Her experience with plant dyes started at The North House Folk School in Minnesota, throughout college at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and professionally on the east coast, primarily in Philadelphia and New York City, and now throughout Alaska. She has lectured, taught classes and produced custom natural dye orders for corporations, designers and artists. Her work is an investigation into the limitless spectrum of color that exists in our surrounding flora.
Artist Statement
Biology and chemistry dictate the outcome of all plant based dyework. Last summer, I learned that the combination of iron and alder provide a basic gall ink on fiber, almost fully black in color on protein fibers, which describes the high concentration of tannic acid within the plant. I hadn't seen another plant do this here in Alaska with such a strong reaction to the iron, so it only made sense to delve deeper. These works are studies of different mark making techniques using alder leaves, iron and a few other pH modifiers on linen. I look forward to working further with these processes with different parts of the alder plant along with different harvest times.
