Artist I Love: Kim Eichler Messmer

I met Kim four years ago when we were both teaching at the International Surface Design Conference in Kansas City.  I fell in love with her layered narrative quilts, and her respectful almost scientific approach to dyeing.

I used to teach a lot of dye classes in Chicago, and I loved the process.  I love the quick potential for layering, particularly with thickened dye that you can screenprint with.  The thin washes of color and texture can add up to something pretty amazing pretty quickly, and for someone who spends months and months working on the same effects with embroidery, this is pretty cool.  The problem for me was my lack of patience.  A lot of people balk at the idea that I could lack patience when they check out my work, but I find that everyone has the things that they are patient with, and the things they aren't. For me, spending the time to really understand dye recipes and dye chemistry was never on my top ten list.

Unlike me, Kim has got dye all figured out, and as a result, she creates amazing dyed,  pieced and quilted works that are colorfast and beautiful.  I love the way she repeats images to suggest stories.

Her new website just launched, and a new collaboration with West Elm launched this last winter.  She's on fire!   She's also got an etsy site where you can buy her work as well as  her meticulously dyed fabric for your own projects.  Her colors and resist techniques are awesome.