Hand-painted silks can offer healing to those who wear them – and happiness to those who receive them – says an artist who teaches others to make and share the delicate clothing items.
“We’re walking billboards of beauty,” said Cydney Galbraith, while taking a break from teaching a workshop in Cochrane this weekend. “Art is a medium that we can really use to speak to someone without words.”
Galbraith is a three-time Canadian national champion cyclist who competed on the world circuit for close to a decade. She said she was inspired a couple of years ago by a vision to create wearable art pieces, and she has since started her own company, Love’s Pure Light Luxury Silks, to fulfil her dream.
She spent two days at Smyth Art & Studio this weekend, teaching a group of budding artists how to use salts, paints and a rubberized type of cement to create silk garments.
Galbraith said the process is simple and easy to do – it can only take a few minutes to build out a creation on silk.
“Anyone can do it,” she said. “You’re surprised at how you create something so beautiful, so quickly.”
The workshop was the first collaborative class offered by the new Smyth Art & Studio on Centre Avenue, which opened in December and is owned by Cochrane artist Heidi Smyth.
Shreba Quach, one of the seminar’s participants, said she was thrilled with the results of her pieces, which included a blue silk tie for her husband.
“I have learned a lot,” she said. “I learned that something beautiful can happen out of something really simple. That’s a powerful lesson for me personally.”
