Chelsea van der Meer's silk-scarves come from need to make art
"My whole life I've just needed to be making something all the time, whatever it was with whatever I had," said the 23-year-old artist.
Originally from Williamsport, Pa., van der Meer majored in graphic design at Pennsylvania College of Technology. After moving to Indianapolis five years ago, she earned a degree at Ivy Tech Community College, where she thrived in traditional fine-arts courses.Since then, van der Meer's works have been exhibited at Wug Laku's Studio and Garage on Indianapolis' Eastside and in the Stutz Building at the now-defunct Pivot Gallery. A notable design project of hers is the 2007 CD and Web site art for the band blueprintmusic. She also interned with the design firm Lodge Design.
Van der Meer exhibits through Midwest Emerging Artists, and she created the artwork for the 2009 Broad Ripple Music Fest sampler CD.
But it was a fabric-arts class with Ivy Tech's visual communications department chairwoman Stephanie Lewis Robertson years ago that inspired van der Meer's current path.
"She (Roberts) was amazing," said van der Meer. "She motivated me and taught me the basics with dying silk."
"I was really thinking about why I took to it," she said. "There's just something about the quality of silk that's like water."
Using mostly charmeuse and chiffons, van der Meer applies many dying techniques to her one-of-a-kind scarves that vary in size from 25-by-25-inch squares to 30-by-90-inch wraps.
"The results are very organic and subconscious. Art I've made in the past is very conscious -- I've decided everything. When I'm doing a painting or something, I decide how everything is going to be. But, with this, it's organic," said van der Meer. "You really never know what a dye is going to do when it meets another dye. It's a surprise when the wax comes off sometimes."
She said those surprises are luscious colors and fluid patterns that complement the fabric and look great. Her techniques include stamping, masking off colors, wax batik and multiple layers of color and painting swaths of color in with a brush.
This winter, a cotton scarf series she produced sold out, but more will be available through her Etsy shop soon at www.Etsy.com/shop/chelseaofthesea.
She also produces how-to videos and charming thank-yous for customers across the country while packaging up their orders. "I want people to feel a connection from the time it's made to when they have it, that there's a spirit and energy in it."
Of her videos, she says, "I want to be a very transparent artist. If someone wants to know something, I will share. I wouldn't have any problem with more creators in the world. There is just really nothing like the feeling you have when you are creating."
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