Featured Artist : Mary Murphy

I am a fiber artist in Central Wisconsin. I make fabric from dyed silk fibers (Tussah, Bombyx and Soy) and then use the fabric for purses, scarves, backgrounds for wall art and other items. I have just recently been using the silk fabric to decorate your waterfall jackets with a lot of success and great feedback.

I initially purchased all my dyed fibers, but when I couldn't find a pale blue for the sky, I bought the Dharma acid dye to dye my own silk. When I decided to work on scarves, it opened the door to not only dyeing the silk scarves, but lead to dyeing my own silk fibers and other specialty fibers, and ribbons into the dye bath.  It's fun to see how different fibers come out of the same dye bath.

Dharma products I use are the following: Acid dyes (mostly Dharma but a couple Jacquard too); iDyes, just started using your Procion Fiber Reactive Dyes, Dye-Na-Flow paints,  bombyx and soy silk, party ribbon (and one or 2 other undyed yarns), silk scarves, rayon waterfall jackets, silk ribbon (quite a few other products I'm sure).

I am a self-taught artist. I have been sewing, quilting, and embroidering since I was a child. I also did a lot of rubber stamping and scrapbooking. All the tools, techniques, and foofalah I've collected came together when I discovered the process of "silk fusion" several years ago and really found my "voice" in art. Never good at drawing or painting, I find this medium allows me to paint with fibers. I take a lot of inspiration from the Wisconsin countryside where I live and the colors of the dyed silk.