Platters With Purpose
by Niamh McCooey
Brazilian artist and designer Silvia Song has recently produced a beautiful new series of indigo dyed platters. These hand turned oak dishes are dyed in a traditional Japanese Indigo vat, and the indigo plant used in the dyeing process was grown with seeds from Tokushima, Japan in Berkeley, California.
An attentive maker, Song used indigo leaves that were dried, then composted for 100 days in order to make each of these pieces. Using a traditional technique of fermenting composted indigo, she then used handmade lye water to activate the live cultures needed to create the blue dye.
Song’s quiet objects reflect her architectural training as they play with space, stillness and light. As a keen observer, Song is interested in how form and shape develop in the natural world as well as the passage of time, be it erosion from water or wind, or the breakdown of plant materials. Her work seeks to find those unspoken languages and spaces that happen between man and nature – and in the meantime, make for gorgeous artisanal homeware.
