Laurie Roe
Meet the Designer-Artist
Where do you live?
I live in Grants Pass, Oregon.
What inspires you as a designer-artist?
So many things inspire me as an artist. In the case of working on upcycling Sari skirts, I find I am inspired by the often vintage fabric I work with. My goal is to work with the patterns on the skirt to add to it.
What medium do you work with mostly?
While I tend to work in watercolor or pen and ink, but I am transitioning into upcycling recycled Sari Skirts. I find I love enhancing patterns which might be considered "boring" or "Out-of-date." It's my hope by enhancing the fabric with additional pattern work that this will give the recycled fabric new life and keep it out of a landfill. While I predominantly use Crystal flatbacks gemstones (Crystal Preciosa is my favorite to work with), I also use fabric dye and embroidery to enhance a skirt. I am just starting to utilize nature gemstones as well.
Do you sell your designs? If yes, please list the URL.
I do sell them in several Facebook groups, though I am in the process of setting up a website. The Facebook Group below is my current primary place of selling what I create. While it is a private group, individuals can easily request membership.
What is the name of the piece you are submitting to be included in your Success Story? (How do we differentiate the skirts?)
The purple skirt is just named "The Amethyst Skirt," as it was a commission. The horse skirt is obviously named "The Horse Skirt", but it really reminds me of Rocking R Ranch/Vineyard. The green one is yet unnamed.
What inspired this design? How did it come together? For example, did you plan it out or did it define itself once you began working?
It is estimated that as much as 92 million tons of clothing end up in landfills each year. Only 1% of old clothes are recycled into new items. We as a culture have significantly departed from a tradition of reuse of fabric. Even in our quilting practice, we buy new fabric to piece together--rather than reusing fabric that already has.
Over a year ago, I stumbled across a company called "A Darn Good Yarn," as part of my desire to reduce my consumption of new fabric. While they sell a variety of items, one of their biggest sellers is a wrap skirt made out of recycled sari fabric. They work with their Artisan Coops in India--who made products out of recycled sari fabric. These could be used saris or fabric ends from factories. When you buy a wrap skirt (or other products) via their website, you can indicate color and pattern preferences--but what they send is based upon what the artisans create.
The skirts are wonderful, but sometimes they aren't exactly what one would like or have imperfections. Thus, I began to ponder the Japanese art of Kintsugi and my grandmother's knack for reuse born from her experience during "The Great Depression".
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of fixing or repairing broken pottery, so it is usable again. It typically uses lacquer dusted with or mixed with gold powder to mend the cracks or broken pieces, adding additional beauty to the piece. It has roots in the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi, which teaches the importance of searching for beauty in imperfection. It also acknowledges and respects limited resources.
While my grandmother did not know about the art of Kintsugi, she understood the importance of reusing limited resources, quilting being one of them. Quilting wasn't only an art form, but a way of life given the cost of fabric in her time. One reused scrap, old clothing, and so forth to make beautiful blankets.
Sari's often come with 'bling' or flatback gemstones already applied. I already beaded jewelry and hats, so I checked into seeing what Fire Mountain had. It was incredible what adding flatback gemstones could do to a skirt. Then I started testing other changes, like over-dyeing and simple embroidery--and realized just how much these changes could be used to upcycle sari skirts (fiber art in its own right) further into pieces of wearable art. It's amazing the impact of adding a bit of bling and doing some minor changes can do to a skirt or a piece of clothing.