Mojave Desert Panorama

The panels themselves started out like the puppets, as two-dimensional illustrations drawn on a grid. A compilation of different locations surrounding the freshwater lake I grew up on in Arizona. Using reference photos taken over several trips home to visit family, I’ve built this homage to my adolescent habitat. An amalgamation of memory and reality to draw one complete mountain range and continuous image.  

Using large patterning paper, I drew out a 10″ x 10″ square grid across the entire backdrop to organize my workspace. I then pinned each section one by one to my studio wall to begin the layering collage process.

Bright contrasting colors for intense moments, soft pastels for naivety, and clear blue skies for clear decision making. This work is impressionist relying on bright, bold, and broken colors to make the audience feel a place as well as see it.

I decided the best course of action would be dying fabric to meet my particular needs. I dip-dyed 8 panels of unbleached muslin in MX dyes to create color transitions from location to location.

My dip dye method required 4 large pots of dye, all having different colors included in the ombré effect. I then placed individual sections of the fabric in the dye for different amounts of time. I had to be careful not to oversaturate the fabric where the different colors began to merge. Once fabric has absorbed a certain amount of dye it won’t absorb any more. Oversaturating a transition area from one color to another would result in hard color lines instead of the desired transitional ombré.

Each fabric texture and color was thoughtfully chosen to evoke rough country and the reflective shine in one’s eyes. Shimmers of heat hitting sand and the uneven ground carved by flash floods and time.

This created a three-dimensional collage quilt structure. I wanted a tactile place my puppets could physically interact with and against. I have created the stage for a great dance to take place with my puppets.

A space befitting the objects’ struggle within it. 

 To create perspective, I used strips of fabric at differing widths. Smaller strips for the lake at a distance and thicker strips for water up-close. These large strips as well as the base fabric underneath received an extra treatment of shibori stitching.

Shibori Technique

Shibori: a Japanese fabric dying technique when a gathered running stitch is used to create a dye resistance prior to dyeing in indigo. After dyeing, the running stitch is removed revealing a pattern of negative space.

I continued this technique to create waves and depth. Shibori was also utilized to create an 18-yard-long piece of silk that serves as a practical water effect while the protagonist swims to her safety.

Two people will stand backstage on either side of the piece waving it lightly between the backdrop and puppet to create the organic movement of being submerged in water.

I chose to weave on a floor loom using unconventional materials to create a solid structure depicting this plant life. I started by making three different types of reeds. First, simple wooden sticks cut to various sizes. Second, 1/2-inch-wide strips of Wonderflex ironed flat around jewelry wire for shape. Lastly, 1/2-inch-wide strips of Worbla melted around jewelry wire. These reeds were then painted to create varied cohabitating plants and stages within their growth cycles. Donated animal hair transformed into the fuzzy weed plants texture.