Sharing a Language of Color Between Music and Visual Art Rhode Island School of Design students investigate new forms during a Silk Road Ensemble residency
Silk Road Ensemble percussionists in blue jeans and indigo-dyed t-shirts sat cross-legged on the library floor at Rhode Island School of Design. Before them were a dozen ceramic vessels, from teacups to flower pots, which they played as instruments in a workshop during the Silk Road Ensemble’s January 25 – February 1 residency at RISD. After commenting on the musicians’ works in progress, students showcased the results of their six-week “Silk Road Ceramics” and “Pojagi and Beyond” classes: blue and white porcelain bowls and a wide variety of sculptural forms, including floral-inspired works designed to resonate like instruments when struck, and a seven-meter patchwork cloth ranging in hue from sea foam to midnight blue. Agata Michalowska, a senior and printmaker at RISD, enrolled in “Pojagi and Beyond” hoping to be inspired. Pojagi, a traditional Korean technique of triple-stitching patchwork wrapping cloths, was a significant departure from her printmaking studies. Michalowska didn’t know until class began that she’d be using indigo to color the fabric, but indigo’s history and the dyeing process fascinated her. After months of repeatedly dipping fabric into the indigo vat to achieve a deep, dark blue, Michalowska described her connection to the material. “The darkest tones speak of time,” she said. “The energy and labor I have invested in the dyed pieces of fabric make them precious.” Conversations with members of the Silk Road Ensemble buoyed Michalowska. “The positive reactions to my work assured me that I am on the right track,” she said. “It might not seem much, but for an artist who is seeking a specific reaction to the work of art, this kind of feedback is very important.” Her work with indigo even altered her plans for her final degree project, which, by encasing stones in indigo-saturated cloth, explored how value is given to objects. The second part of her project, embossing prints on handmade paper dyed with indigo, brought her journey full circle back to printmaking. Color is the overarching theme for the collaboration between the Silk Road Project and Rhode Island School of Design. “Color is not a tangible aspect of objects – it is light. It is an experience just as music is,” noted Michalowska, “but at the same time it seems tangible, it seems to be imbedded in objects. Artists work with it as a physical form – of paint and pigment. Because color has these two aspects, it can be a good common ground for both music and the visual arts.” As this residency demonstrated, color can be a pliant shared language. |
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