The pattern on each block is hand-carved by me. I use a pink carving material called speedycarve which allows for easy cleaning so that I can use lots of different colors in one finished piece.
It hard not to see interesting patterns everywhere I look now. While in India, I was fascinated by the stone carved “windows” called jalis or jaali. They can be found in palaces and in every day ancient buildings. The Jali allows light and air in while minimizing the sun and the rain, as well as providing cooling through passive ventilation.
As an example, I used this photo I took from the palace in Jaipur as inspiration for a block. I drew the pattern in an octagon shape to be able to tesselate the pattern on fabric.
Then I scanned the drawing to my computer and printed the image on a laser printer. I transferred the image onto the carving material with a warm iron and then carved out the pattern by hand.
This Jali kitchen towel contains 38 individual prints where the block is inked and pressed into the fabric. Making these works of art a labor of love takes between 1-3 hours, depending on the complexity of the design.
