Batik on silk for me is a love affair with light and color. That is what I wish to share, so I present my work as spatial screens of light, rather than images pinned to a wall. I started doing batiks more than 30 years ago. I had a friend who was working in this medium, and she showed me the basic principles of the technique. I was drawn to the process right away. I was an architect already at the time, and it resonated with what I was enjoying about architectural design. I enjoy the unexpected beauty and order that emerges from a rigorous process. Batik occurs in a layered sequence governed by certain laws of how fabric fibers absorb dye color. There is a play of idea and gesture within a given set of rules about the elements; colors emerge with a structural quality; light is channeled and revealed.

The silk filaments are volatile with light and color, and they are steady in holding a pattern – a memory. Pattern is a process of repetition, an incarnated and memorized trace of life force. The wax is also a material with vital patterning. As I paint with the melted wax on the silk, I feel the thrill of participation, of bringing to light a gesture, a color, a line. Knowing that the silk will ineffaceably preserve every gesture could be paralyzing. Sometimes when I have the blank canvas of white silk before me, I feel the heartbreak of doing anything. But then there is the factor of time and layers. If I move through a thought or an idea and another is offered up in its wake it creates a larger pattern, where a single line - be it perceived as a mistake or as a perfect note - is absorbed into a larger energetic entity. I work steadily, with a fascination and a sort of faith in the process.