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All work is ©Dorothy Bowen and may not be copied or reproduced in any manner
without the express written permission of the artist.
Website ©2012 PlacitasArtists.com All rights reserved
©Dorothy Bowen
Web of Creation, 1
Katazome on kimono silk, 20 x 20â”
©Dorothy Bowen
Triskele
Katazome on kimono silk, 18” x 14”
©Dorothy Bowen
Web of Creation, 2
Katazome on kimono silk, 20” x 20”
©Dorothy Bowen
Silk Scarf
Rozome, 54 x 8â”
©Dorothy Bowen
Partnachklamm 3
Rozome on kimono silk, 22” x 28”
©Dorothy Bowen
We Have Nets to Mend
Rozome on kimono silk, 28” x 22”
©Dorothy Bowen
Homeward Bound
28” x 22”
©Dorothy Bowen
Kyoto Magic
Rozome on kimono silk, 14” x 18”
Artist's Biography
Born in 1945, Dorothy grew up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, surrounded by the Blue Ridge
Mountains. Originally an oil painter, she earned an A.B. in Art Studio from Randolph-Macon Woman's
College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She also studied printmaking at
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
In 1970 Dorothy received her M.A. in Art History from UNM, where she studied lithography, painting,
anthropology and Pre-Columbian, African, and Native American Art History, writing her thesis on
Navajo Pictorial Weaving. Dorothy then worked under E. Boyd at the Museum of International Folk
Art in Santa Fe as a research associate in Spanish Colonial Textiles. After ten years with MOIFA, a
major exhibition was mounted and several articles by the artist were published in the catalogue, THE
SPANISH TEXTILE TRADITION OF NEW MEXICO AND COLORADO.
In 1980, Dorothy learned batik from Australian Jeffery Service, Artist-in-Residence at Placitas
Elementary School. With her experience as a painter and a decade of technical involvement with
textiles, she discovered a medium which tied everything together.
She has been working professionally in batik ever since, and has exhibited her work in numerous
juried shows with awards. Although she began as a portrait painter, most of the batiks are
landscapes, dealing with the coming of rain to parched land. A Southwesterner since 1967, Dorothy
knows the frustration of desiccating winds, of harsh sun that bleaches the very fabric of life. Rain is
always a welcome respite, a renewing force that restores hope and energy.
From her studio in Placitas, New Mexico, she can watch as storms sweep across the Rio Grande
Valley, as mists swallow entire mountain ranges, hoping that at home the earth will be blessed with
a few drops. Most often, the rain falls as virga, never reaching the ground. Or it can come with such
violence that most of it is lost in runoff.
To achieve these atmospheric effects in a medium known for "crackle" (dark lines where the final
dyebath penetrated through cracks in the wax resist), Dorothy has had to develop a unique
technique which minimizes the cracking and which allows for added control over the flow of the dyes,
which are applied with a brush to the wet cotton or silk.
This technique is closely related to the Japanese tradition of rozome, which the artist recently
studied with Kyoto artist Betsy Sterling Benjamin.
www.pburch.net/dyeing/dyelinks.shtml is a very informative technical related to dyeing.
