Traci Paden's wearable art adds colorful silks to In-Town Gallery

"Blue Butterfly," a hand-painted jacket by Traci Paden.
"Blue Butterfly," a hand-painted jacket by Traci Paden.
photo "Festive," a hand-painted silk jacket by Traci Paden.

If you go

› What: Art To Wear” by Traci Paden.› When: Through April.› Where: In-Town Gallery, 26A Frazier Ave.› Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday (until 8 p.m. first Fridays), 1-5 p.m. Sunday.› Phone: 423-267-9214.› Website: www.intowngallery.com.

This month's featured artist at In-Town Gallery ushers in "a fresh new style of art" for the gallery.

With this "Art To Wear" showcase from Traci Paden, visitors can't help but notice the colorful silk jackets, short kimonos and scarves as soon as they enter the front door, says spokeswoman Jennie Kirkpatrick. Paintings, pottery, metal sculpture, jewelry, turned wood, molded glass, photography and other fiber arts are interspersed throughout the gallery, she says, but Paden's brightly colored silks immediately command attention.

"It is colorful, imaginative and finely crafted," Kirkpatrick says.

Paden honors the tradition of woven silk, which can be traced to ancient China more than 2,000 years ago, but also uses more modern dyes, waxes and paints in vibrant colors. She begins with white silk stretched lengthwise then paints on a resist she makes from the yucca plant. The resist saves the white lines and shapes from the dyes that will be painted later.

Once she has drawn her design, she loosely paints a chosen color, then follows with other dyes to carry out the color scheme she envisions. Some of the delineated designs are filled in with a French acid dye especially formulated for silk.

After all the designs and colors have been applied to her satisfaction, the fabric is rolled into sheets of blank newsprint and placed in a cabinet to be steamed for six hours to lock the dye into the fibers. The fabric is then washed, rinsed and prepared to be sewn into garments.

Each scarf and garment is cut and hand-sewn by Paden. Popular motifs include Monarch butterflies, dragonflies, poppies and a jazz design featuring a keyboard.

"From the day I discovered silk and painting on silk with dye, I felt I had found magic," Paden says. "I thought about it all the time. It invaded my dreams each night. I became so passionate about painting on silk that I made it my career."

That discovery was more than 20 years ago and the full-time career that followed began in 2001. She received her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, then moved to New Orleans, where she had spent a great part of her youth, teaching art there for six and a half years. A grant from a pilot program, called The Artist Entrepreneurial Project, gave her the funding to try to make a career of her art.

While teaching at Colorado Mountain College, she met her husband, a native Chattanoogan, and they moved to Tennessee. In addition to In-Town Gallery, Paden's distinctive clothing is on display in Laguna Beach, Calif., Jupiter, Fla., and Anchorage, Alaska. A cover story about Paden's art will be featured in an upcoming international magazine for silk painters, Silkworm.

Paden's front-wall exhibition will continue through April, then move to another part of the gallery.

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