Re-thinking Batik: The Language of Cloth

Now touring the US is a wonderful show called "A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama’s Mother and Indonesian Batiks" featuring some fine examples from the extensive batik textile collection of Ann Dunham. The show opens June 18 in San Francisco at the California College of the Arts and runs through June 21.

What a way to whet my appetite for pattern, as my friend Dan is just back from Indonesia and will be having a trunk show June 26-28 with all his latest textile wonders!

Through his business The Language of Cloth, Daniel brings together different styles and materials to create new batik designs. Hand-woven silks from Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand; jacquard silk from Korea, and flax-silk from Indonesia are decorated with elements from Japanese kimono patterns, Ainu motifs, European embroidery patterns, as well as traditional Javanese batik motifs. The show will also include reproductions of antique batik cloths from collectors, some reinterpreted in new colors, others reproduced exactly.

"Carbon Emissions" trucks spewing smokey mega mendung

My personal favorites are the contemporary twists added to the traditional batik patterns, like my prized Cluster Bomb sarung. A new piece this year, "Carbon Emissions" is a mega mendung "cloud" motif, with the addition of trucks and cars, in smokey colors.

I am also quite smitten with some of theses Ainu-inspired scarves:

Ainu pattern interpreted as batik ornament: batik tulis on hand-woven Thai silk, with design adapted from applique patterns on Ainu attush robes from Hokkaido, Japan

The Language of Cloth Summer Trunk Show takes place
June 26, 27, 28 11 to 6pm
650-B Guerrero St., San Francisco
415.613.9693 www.languageofcloth.com

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Miniature Portraits

Recently I have been spending some time cleaning and getting to know the miniature portraits collected by my great-grandmother. Many in her collection were acquired from a sale at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and most of those were portraits of Marie Antoinette.
I will be posting the entire collection in sections here as I have time.
 

Portrait of Marie Antoinette in a green dress, gouache on ivory, signed “Chatain.” Backed with white kid leather and set in a simple ornamental oval frame with watch-crystal type pillowed/beveled glass. Very likely painted as a copy of another painting, as a souvenir.

Oval portrait of a dark-haired lady dressed in the Italian fashion, watercolor on ivory, unsigned.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette with a rose, signed "A.T." gouache on ivory backed with white kid leather, in gilt wood frame.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette in an apricot dress, unsigned watercolor on ivory. This painting is much smaller and older than its elaborate frame, which dates from the late 1870's.

Very fine and pretty portrait of a young girl, gouache on bone ivory, signed "Gericault 1812" backed with white kid leather, in its original simple brass frame.

Click any image to view at larger size.

Want to know more about miniatures?
Read here about my obsession with Miniature Eye Portraits

Elle Shushan in Philadelphia has a fine business collecting and selling miniatures.

Check out this huge on line gallery of a number of collections on this extremely informative site: "Artists and Ancestors"

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

The Silver Kitchen

This gorgeous custom kitchen was recently featured in the Spring 2009 issue of Better Homes and Gardens "Beautiful Kitchens." This room features a silver and ecru color palette and is dressed with rock crystal and stainless steel. I painted a faux limestone finish on the walls and used venetian lime plaster to create the irregular stone-like finish on the range hood.

These warm stone finishes compliment the silver pearlescent cabinets and white calcutta marble counter. Silver is a recurring theme color in this Piedmont, Ca. home, where I contributed color design and well as many other decorative finishes.










photo courtesy Camber Construction, where you can see more of my work in this house.

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting