Patricia Farley

Artist Patricia Farley has been making wearable art in her studio for over twenty years. As a largely self-taught artist she has been creating with her hands for as long as she can remember. After studying textiles, weaving, and garment design she focused on the surface design of fabrics. This led to her more direct and spontaneous approach to colors and patterns, and it allowed her garment designs to become more personal.

Batik is a favorite technique used by Patricia to achieve the desired colors and patterns featured in her hand-made fabric. It is an old technique which involves drawing with melted wax with a traditional tjanting tool, brush or stamp. Patricia then mixes her own colors of dye and hand-paints the fabric around the wax-resisted areas. She repeats the process to create layers and a depth of colors. No two pieces of fabric will be the same and there are always surprises. The final steps are washing the fabric, ironing it, and then fashioning the fabric pieces into a finished one of a kind piece of wearable art.