September in the Gallery – Coastal Inspirations by Mirka Knaster

Coastal Inspirations by Mirka Knaster

Given the enchanting marine and forest environments I live and work in on the coast of northern California, inspiration is always at hand. I witness, with awe, how the ever-changing light transforms the colors and textures of land, sea, and sky from dawn till nightfall. The movements, sounds, and hues of water are integral to my daily experience. Stitching textiles and handmade paper by hand and by machine, dyeing with indigo or rust, adding black bamboo from my garden, beads, wax, ink, paint, wood, etc., I aim for an aesthetic of elegant simplicity that I’ve admired in Korea and Japan.

Bio: 
Since my earliest years, I’ve stood in many worlds, not indigenous anywhere yet, chameleon-like, adapting everywhere. My life began along the Adriatic Sea, with childhood summers later spent at the Atlantic Ocean. I was educated on the east and west coasts of the U.S. I’ve lived in the Andes, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Hawaiian Islands, and traversed much of Latin America, Europe, Asia, southern Africa, New Zealand, and beyond. I now reside on the Mendonoma coast, where the Pacific Ocean has a major impact on my daily sensory experience.

Natural environments, East Asian aesthetics, the places I’ve lived and traveled, 20th-century abstract art, and my meditation practice are the most important influences and inspirations for my art.

After decades of putting black words on white paper as a writer, I find working with different kinds of fiber an exhilarating engagement with color, texture, line, shape and space, pattern and design. I’m fascinated by how textiles (and even paper) have been central to human life since earliest times. They play a universal role in celebrating beauty and imparting feelings, in telling stories about the cultures that create them and marking stages of the life cycle as well as expressing the relationship people have to their environment.

I approach the creative process as an open-ended improvisation. Pieces emerge intuitively, even serendipitously. Because I generally don’t sketch ahead of time, I gradually feel my way into each piece, choosing this color or that textile, dyeing cloth with indigo or rust, incorporating paper, metal or wood, cutting a shape or adding another layer for transparency, working up texture, selecting a thread, stitching another mark or brushing on paint or ink, and including bamboo from my garden. Along the way, I embrace and celebrate the surprises.