#MondayArtworkSpotlight: Laura Raboff’s (@lauraredshoes) Cricula installation in "Inside Out: Seeing Through Clothing."
Clothing imagery has long been a part of Berkeley-based artist Laura Raboff’s work, although her use of natural materials in Cricula signals an exciting new direction in her practice. The lacey, golden material of this installation is composed of cricula, a kind of silkworm cocoon harvested from cashew trees in Indonesia.
The difficult and delicate process of creating each dress involved cleaning each individual cocoon, ironing them flat, and then stitching them together with gold thread into lightweight, dress-like forms. Each dress is carefully constructed to allow light to filter through and shadows to intertwine with the light.
According to the artist, these works evoke unspoken memory, and a layering and synthesizing of complicated feelings that are sometimes at odds with each other.
