Featured Artist : Ray Pierotti

My graduate degrees are in music composition and languages, but when I moved to New York in the 60s, I started my career as a visual artist and never looked back except to translate into painting all of my musical skills and sensibilities. For me, there is a direct connect between sound, color, and shape (or as some would say, form). I discovered Inkodye while directing and teaching at the Sawtooth Center for Visual Arts in Winston-Salem, NC in the early 80s. I was looking for a painterly medium, intense in color, but always transparent, that did not require steaming to fix. Inkodye filled the bill, especially when I realized that I could dilute it with tap water, build layer upon layer until I reached full intensity; and be able to work in between the Inkodye layers with thin applications of acrylic paint and color pencil. The physical process is time consuming, like life; each time a layer is applied, it is like experiencing another moment in life's ongoing exploration. I found this manner of working more closely aligned with my philosophical and spiritual outlook. Though there are always some chance elements encountered in the multi-medium, multi-layering process, I've learned how to control the process, and can envision the eventual outcome of the painted surface. I teach the multilayering process in short term workshops and couple the process with helping artist resource their own creative insights by meditative exercises.

Working with Inkodye as the primary colorant in the multilayering process, I am able to create colorfast textiles that can be used for a wide variety of applications. With the process, I produce traditional-like paintings, wall panels, screens, window treatments, and a variety of other interior and architectural applications. I have installed window and screen treatments that, after 15 years, have still not lost any of their color vibrancy. Once the Inkodye is fixed (I just place in full sunlight to develop) it needs no other treatment and is colorfast.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Ray Pierotti, Artist