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© 2009 Albuquerque Fiber Arts Council, Inc.

2009 FIESTA FEATURED ARTIST

“Out of Time: Ten Thousand Days with a Brush”

  DOROTHY BUNNY

             BOWEN

Rozome artist and teacher from Placitas, New Mexico  

                 
                   Bosque Fires. 20 x 32 in..  Rozome on Kimono Silk.

We proudly announce that Dorothy Bunny Bowen is the 2009 Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta Featured Artist.  Known for her exquisite landscapes worked in batik, she is also a kind and generous teacher with a scholarly interest in textiles and textile techniques. She exhibits in a number of galleries and her work has won many awards, including First Place in the Fine Art Professional Exhibits at the 2007New Mexico State Fair. Plan to meet Dorothy Bowen during the Fiesta where she will present a solo exhibit of her artwork--“Out of Time: Ten Thousand Days with a Brush”. Dorothy Bowen was nominated as the 2009 Fiber Arts Fiesta Featured Artist by the New Mexico Silk Painter's Guild.

Rozome demonstration of silk stretched, waxed and painted.

An oil painter and art historian, Dorothy Bowen began working professionally in batik in 1980, when she was introduced  by Australian Jeffery Service to this process of using wax to reserve areas of color on fabric. She applies up to twenty layers of dye alternating with wax to achieve the desired range of colors. Most of her batiks are landscapes, dealing with the coming of rain to parched lands of the Southwest, where rain is always a welcome respite, a renewing force that restores hope and energy after the desiccating winds and harsh sun. She has taught many workshops on different dye and wax resist techniques over the past 12 years at Ghost Ranch, NM, and in other states. 

Since 1999, Bowen has worked in the Japanese wax resist tradition of rozome, which she studied with artist Betsy Sterling Benjamin. Bowen recently took rozome workshops with noted Japanese artists Yusuke Tange, Shoukoh Kobayashi and Keijin Ihaya.  Rozome was used traditionally to decorate kimonos, and is valued in artwork for allowing subtle shading as well as precise edges and layers of color and imagery.

            God's Glory in the Morning. 28 x 22 in.     Greenman. 20 x 16 in.. Rozome on Kimono Silk.

Bowen began to experiment with environmentally safer soy wax for her batiks in 2002, and has presented her research at the Boston World Batik Conference in 2005 and at the Kuala Lumpur International Batik Convention in 2005 and 2007. She is author of an article on soy wax in the Fall 2007 Issue of the Surface Design Journal.

                    Crystal Shore. 28 x 22 in. Rozome on Kimono Silk.                                             

Bowen studied oil painting and printmaking in college in her home state of Virginia.  After moving to the  Southwest in 1967, she earned an M.A. in Art History from the University of New Mexico, with a thesis on Navajo Pictorial Weaving, and worked at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe as a research associate in Spanish Colonial Textiles. Several articles by the artist were published in the catalogue that accompanied a major MOIFA exhibit, The Spanish Textile Tradition of New Mexico and Colorado.

To see more of her work and learn more about rozome, visit her website www.db-bowen.com  .  Photos provided by Dorothy Bowen.

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The Value of a Featured Artist

A solo exhibit of work by one individual offsets the group shows on display elsewhere in the exhibit hall.  Technical mastery, sustained production of work, evolution of themes or color explorations are what distinguish professional work from the amateur  in all types of art.  Candidates for the Featured Artist are proposed by the guilds and the person selected is given a booth for a solo exhibit during the Fiesta and is publicized in the Fiesta press releases and advertisements as well as in featured articles in local journals.

The Fiber Arts Fiesta has been fortunate to have had Featured Artists who have that special passion about fiber art--Annrae Roberts, surface designer, in 1999; Helenn Rumpel, fine art embroidery, in 2001; Mary Colton, tapestry weaver, in 2003; 2005, Valentina Devine, knit and dye artist; and in 2007, Katy Widger, art quilter.  For the 2009 Fiesta, we welcome batik artist Dorothy Bunny Bowen.