THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Shellie Pomeroy of Silk & Willow creates silk ribbons and fabrics for weddings. She focuses on plant-dyed silks. What sounds like a niche industry has long since become a successful business idea.

She lives in New Paltz in the Hudson Valley, a small suburb of New York. Her studio is a unique inspiration. To lose yourself in it, you have to pass cool hues of red and light blue scraps of cloth. There is a kitchen here, where Shellie dyes fabrics and experiments with them.

Amongst other things, she had the idea behind Silk & Willow when her children were going to a Waldorf school. There was a toy made of natural materials in the classrooms her daughter studied in. She encountered plant-dyed silk.

Her two daughters soon learned how to dye material for knitting. As teenagers, they carved their a wooden tool for their mother. “Silk & Willow is actually a family adventure that led to a business idea”.

Her ideas draw on nature. She observes the colors and surfaces of the objects she studies. “I always find something beautiful in every phase of development,” she says, “Even if they each have an imperfection.”

Shellie Pomeroy loves contrast in its quietest hours. Here, soft colors encounter a bright flower extract. Her materials are an extension of her everyday life. Small scraps of fabric that once hung from a teabag are now a part of her collection of napkins and bedding. In the future, she wants to work with other artists who share her love “of materials in their rawest form.”

Our world is shaped by fast results. It is time to pause, to watch the process of becoming. This is now finally possible again thanks to Silk & Willow.