For two months the lights at the large, older brick home on Morningside Street in Belhaven Heights burned the night. There’s no “artist at work” sign on the outside; however, a peek inside the house reveals organized chaos, with silk batik scarves draped from clotheslines stretched across the length of a spare bedroom/studio, in doorways and on a screened back porch.
The designs on Patti Henson’s silk scarves are as varied as her talent; some scarves feature intricately detailed cicadas, fish and dancers. Others display geometric designs. Her batik varies from the traditional style, which is usually layers of monochromatic variations.
She has worked late to prepare for the Chimneyville Crafts Festival, the largest one-weekend venue for the more than 160 members of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi. Henson specializes in printmaking and textiles, and has personalized the traditional batik technique. “I sort of corral the color into an area; like a coloring book,” the 51-year-old lifelong Jackson resident said. “By doing that, I can get red and green in a piece and not come up with muddy brown.”
Each layer of color involves painstakingly intricate hours of work. Henson draws the design on the silk, and then paints hot wax onto the silk, leaving the areas destined for dye untouched. Then the wax is removed, the article gets pinned back on sawhorses to suspend it for painting, and Henson applies another layer of wax. Sometimes the dye is layered atop a previously dyed area; sometimes the wax corrals an area for a single color. For every color applied to the article, wax is hand painted every time.
One of her three cats recently found—and quickly reduced to dust—a 13-year cicada that Henson plucked from her yard she had been using as a model for her cicada-designed scarf. “The bad thing is I won’t be able to get another one of those for 13 years,” Henson said.
Times are hard for artists like Henson. When the economy tanks, people cut costs by eliminating art from their purchases. Henson worries sometimes about making ends meet; yet, she can’t imagine being anything other than an artist.
More than 200 artists will be presented at this year’s Chimneyville, more than ever before. At this year’s festival, its 27th, to be held at the Mississippi Trade Mart in Jackson on Dec. 6-8, guild members will sell and exhibit works in metal, wood, fiber, leather, glass clay, pine needle, gourds and paper.
Henson was among the first members to join the guild, back in 1975. This year Henson designed the logo for the festival. The logo features Henson’s distinctive leggy dance-style figures carrying various handcrafted art—a delightfully whimsical design reminiscent of a Greek temple frieze in the round.
“Not only is the festival a celebration of creativity, but also of camaraderie,” said festival director Kit Barksdale, adding that most members are from Mississippi.
—Katherine R. Dougan
