Swimming Upstream

Mixed Media — mulberry bark cloth, sumi ink, stamped pigment ink

29 x 5 inches
2021

I recently learned a new art process,  the traditional art and craft of making kapa, Hawaiian bark cloth, using the inner bark of the mulberry tree. The process is time consuming and physically intensive requiring soaking the bark in water for days,  hours of beating the bark on a stone anvil with wooden sticks followed by folding and unfolding the bark then beating the bark again on a wooden anvil with wooden beaters or mallets, then drying the kapa.  Multiple layers of kapa make up this piece.

This artwork expresses my belief in the power of being in community to persevere during challenging circumstances.