Inspired by Pinterest

 By Jo Reimer

Batik fabric

While taking a break this morning and browsing pins from some of the boards I follow on Pinterest I spotted a pin from Elvi... a stack of ornate fabrics. 

That sparked an idea that's worth pursuing.

I have LOTS of fabrics and quite a few pieces of old embroideries, hand dyes, and batiks, and my brilliant idea is to scan the best of the fabrics, print them and use the prints in my collages and journals.

I grabbed a few small textiles and scanned them at 300 dpi. I've only printed one, enough to know that this idea is worth some time. The plan is to scan the best of the collection and take the images on a thumb drive to Office Depot or a print shop and have them printed onto a thinnish paper that will be more suitable than the heavy photo paper I have at home... and definitely less expensive than my printer inks, especially when there's a special price on printing.

Sure, I could cut up the actual fabrics and use them but some of these are too valuable to cut, and now I'm thinking of other things to scan:

Piles of jewelry

Scarves

Buttons

Pattern envelopes

The list is endless.

I hope this idea has a snowball effect. Why not make painting of textiles? How about gluing embroidered textiles to a canvas, covering it with gesso, and painting over the resulting texture?

Excuse me while I rescue an old embroidered pillowcase from the giveaway pile. What a great edge texture this will make on a painting!

Embroidered Pillowcase, c. 1950

And DRAW the designs from the textiles, further abstracting the images. Create repeat patterns. Make mirror images. See how far you can take the inspiration. Then tell me about what you've done.