12 layers of wax and more than 20 dips in indigo, this piece reflects a love of labor and a love of natural indigo.
This work utilizes the ancient resist technique batik, where the maker resists dye in areas of cloth by progressively laying down wax before dipping the fabric into a dye vat or pot. This process is repeated until the desired imagery is achieved, the fabric is then boiled to remove any remnant of the wax.
“Indigo Woman” was dyed in Ubud, Bali with Asam indigo, harvested and processed on site at Threads of Life studio. Through the use of multiple tamarind indigo vats, this work was conceived as an ode to Rusk’s ongoing partnership with indican producing plants, farming, fermenting and finally producing pigment to build “living vats” .
It highlights the intimacy of this process, the belief that indigo is a mother, and born from her is a strength and a magic that has resounded throughout the world for 6000 years.
Linen
Organic Indigo, tamarind vat
Beeswax resist