The Batik Art of Mary Edna Fraser

By Cecelia Dailey and Mary Edna Fraser

A lavishly illustrated guide to the work and technique of the internationally renowned artist

Mary Edna Fraser has taken the art of batik to otherworldly heights. An internationally renowned artist, Fraser has had works grace galleries, museums, and public buildings throughout the United States—creating wonder, awe, and an awareness of the environment around us as few artists have had the talent and vision to manage.

Using fabric, wax, and dye, Fraser has transformed the techniques of batik from its ancient origins and forged new panoramas and vistas of our unique planet from the sky above us to the ground beneath our feet, and even down to the evocative landscapes that sprawl across the ocean floor. These images not only astonish us with their allure; they also remind of us of our place in the world and our responsibility to respect and care for it.

Part history and guide to the challenging techniques of this form, The Batik Art of Edna Fraser affords not only a full-color introduction to Fraser's stunning perceptions of the glaciers, icebergs, coastlines, atmospheres, mountains, and rivers that grace our globe, but gives us an intimate look at the artist at work and the philosophies that guide her singular imagination as well.

Bold, beautiful, thoughtful, and always visceral, Fraser's art invites us outside to see with new eyes the horizons that surround us—and inside to see ourselves in our inextricable connection with the land, the seas, the skies, the earth, as we are woven together as one in the fabric of our existence on this, our home, the vibrant blue planet hurtling through space and time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781611179439

Cecelia Dailey

Cecelia Dailey, an artist, writer, and media specialist in video, photography, and design, is involved in public projects related to the natural environment, the visual arts, music performance, and archiving. She documented Mary Edna Fraser’s work for ten years, managed her studio and business, and installed her many national exhibitions. Dailey has a B.F.A. in filmmaking and photography and a B.A. in philosophy from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Book preview

THE BATIK ART OF MARY EDNA FRASER

THE BATIK ART OF MARY EDNA FRASER

CECELIA DAILEY

© 2019 University of South Carolina

Published by the University of South Carolina Press

Columbia, South Carolina 29208

www.sc.edu/uscpress

28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/

ISBN 978-1-61117-941-5 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-61117-942-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-61117-943-9 (ebook)

FRONTISPIECE Oak Island, detail, batik on silk, 108 × 72, 2009.

Front cover illustration: Edingsville. Batik on Silk, 2009

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

What Is Batik? Self-Portrait

Inspiration and Influences

Tools of Batik

Studio Setup

Preparing the Silk

Kimono Silks

Over the Citadel

Chadwick

Homage to Hokusai II

Hobcaw Barony

Oak Island and Edingsville

Installation

Global Perception

Above Mobile Bay

Health and Safety

Batik Supplies

Procion MX Dye Recipe

Basic Steps for Making a Batik

Batik Supply Resources

GLOSSARY

WORKS CITED AND OTHER RESOURCES

INDEX

Her medium is batik—silk cloth colored by hand using a modern variation of an ancient method of dyeing textiles.

Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, Aerial Inspirations: Silk Batiks by Mary Edna Fraser, wall text

PREFACE

Mary Edna Fraser encouraged me, her assistant for a decade, to write a book about her process for students and collectors. This text is a guide to the breadth of techniques and styles that have brought her critical acclaim creating large-scale batiks on silk. We had many conversations around the lunch table in the kitchen as I took notes for the quotations from Mary Edna. Her editing and guidance were paramount to the creation of this book. She urged the production of a glossary and I read every art book in her library. I have worked alongside her on a daily basis, and I hope that my insight will bring the reader both instruction and inspiration. The technical information presented here is essential to batik artists using silk and other fabrics. It is also valuable to silk painters using Procion MX or other dyes, those working with installations, others experimenting with resist techniques, and watercolorists layering translucent paints on paper. Historians and patrons too will appreciate this retrospective.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Photographers

All process photographs were taken by Cecelia Dailey unless noted. Other photographers included Claude Burkhead III, Chase Cribb, Rick McKee, Timothy Pakron, Carolyn Russo, and Mary Edna Fraser. All final images of batiks were taken by Rick Rhodes and color corrected by Tim Steele.

Patrons

Thank you to Mary Edna’s patrons whose batiks are featured in this book. They support her life as an artist and generously lend their artworks for museum exhibitions.

Charleston International Airport, Charleston Waterways

Charleston Visitor Center, Charleston Coastline

College of Charleston, School of Languages, Cultures and World Affairs

Corporation Service Company (CSC), Global Perception and Slice of South Carolina

Emory University, Lullwater Aerial Garden

Ann Yokley Graves, Waterway

GulfQuest, National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico, Above Mobile Bay

Martin Harwit, Mississippi River Delta

Catrin Hesse, Backwater

Katherine and David, Moonlit Chrysanthemums

Family of Chris Lorusso, Morris Island

Margaret and Robert Minis, McQueen Inlet

Richard Owens, James Island Creek

Palmetto Bluff, May River

Susan Pearlstine, Chadwick I

Mindelle Seltzer, Edingsville Beach and Edingsville Beach

Phylis and David Sharpe, Homage to Hokusai

Philip Simmons Foundation, Salt Water Branches

Mary Lou Stevenson, Kilimanjaro

Martha Ann and Lee Stuckey, Ibis Sanctuary

Alice Timmons, Shifting Sands

Paul and Sybil Trevisan, Oak Island

Jane & Scott Young, Spring of 1994

Conrad Zimmerman, ACE Basin

Mary Edna Fraser photographing barrier islands with her Nikon FM-2 from her family’s 1946 Ercoupe. Photograph by Claude Burkhead III.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

McQueen Inlet. Batik on silk, 29 × 64, 1981. Photographing from the open cockpit of my family’s vintage plane, wind in my face translates to batiks on silk, distilling the adventure into art. Expansive vistas become meditative prayers for the planet in the studio, Mary Edna has written.

Flying over the Sea Islands of Georgia in 1980, Mary Edna Fraser took 35mm slides that would first become designs for large-scale art from the aerial perspective. Depictions of complex patterns of the coast have become her signature in her use of modern synthetic dyes on silk in the ancient medium of batik. Teaming with scientists, Mary Edna is motivated to illustrate threatened landscapes to create a legacy of lasting change. She uses her work to show the vulnerability of our world and rejoice in the wonder of nature.

Adventures—whether on land, sea, or air—inspire her content. Transcending the traditions of batik drives her progress as an artist. She explained, Making a new batik is like jumping off a diving board. It’s an exploration of the medium whether color, technique or scale.

Growing up flying in the family’s vintage 1946 Ercoupe out of Fayetteville, North Carolina, with her father or brother Burke as pilot, she has flown and extensively photographed her aerial backyard—as she calls the seaboard from Virginia to Florida. Experience in flying various aircraft with an instructor allows her to set up compositions. She captures compelling organizations of moving land and water revealed only by altitude.

Nile Delta Desert Islands. Batik on silk, 52 × 36, 1999. Based on an infrared film image provided by Dr. Dan Stanley at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, from his 1998 paper on the Nile Delta, published in the Journal of Coastal Research.

Venice, Italy. Batik on silk, 61 × 47, 2000. Cover of A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands, Columbia University Press, 2003. Mary Edna described her travel that inspired this work: On the evenings when we were in Venice, the San Marcos plaza became a shallow lake as the high tides washed over the Grand Canal and flooded through the storm drains. Day trips to the surrounding barrier islands, navigational charts, and satellite images combine to make this batik.

Mary Edna and her brother Burke. Photograph by Chase Cribb, 2011.

35mm aerial photograph from 1983 by Mary Edna Fraser. Orrin Pilkey recognized the beach as the former location of the town of Edingsville, destroyed by the Sea Islands hurricane of 1893.

As the technology of visual representations has changed, so has Mary Edna. She was a member of the first generation to have fast film that makes clear aerial images possible, and she then saw advancements in digital, satellite, and space imaging and the effect of Google Earth on mapmaking. Today she shoots with a Nikon D90 and an iPhone. Decades of excursions and ground-truthing the locations she translates to batik on silk have led to pioneering educational exhibitions, and her voice has a global reach. Geology, maps, and charts are studied and referenced. Collaborating with scientists has brought images her way, such as early NASA deep space photographs, and her art has been used by scientists to create compelling visual displays.

Her batiks educate a broad audience through her collaborations. For example, Orrin H. Pilkey, Duke professor emeritus of geology, and Fraser came together in their mutual appreciation and concern for barrier islands and beaches. Their first meeting was in 1993 when Mary Edna accompanied Pilkey on a Duke research vessel to Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina, with students. Her first task for