Elana Bloom

About the Process

I moved to Tucson in 2019 and the Sonoran Desert formed me into a natural dyer through access to a diversity of enchanting dye materials, while the diversity of women in my life drew out a desire to depict a multitude of female forms that take up space. In my practice, I dye paper and textiles with foraged plants and then use the tiniest scissors and fine-point tweezers to cut and place the components of each subject. My collages center around women in conversation, with themselves and each other, and my studio serves as a backdrop to those insights, a place where the architecture of my imagination can emerge alone or with friends. Much of the paper for my collages evolves out my practice of naturally dyeing silk scarves, the paper serving as a barrier that prevents the silk from touching itself while it steams (with leaves pressed inside). I then further dye this paper with various techniques to create papers in a variety of colors, patterns, and tones. From there, drawings come to life as cut and paste collages on canvas panels or birch wood. I find great satisfaction in both the highly unpredictable nature of natural dyeing and the highly-controlled nature of collage and live for the interplay between these two mediums.