WV Executive

In the early 1970s, after a short stint as a Baltimore schoolteacher, Michael Davis made a career decision. He decided not to earn his living doing anything that involved a time clock, a necktie or a boss.

Like many others who came to West Virginia during those years, Davis found that the production of handcrafts suited his temperament. Tie-dyed garments were popular and he took to the craft naturally; enjoying not only self-employment, but also the physical labor of creating something organic, fluid and colorful.

Making and selling tie-dyed garments obliged him to alternate periods of solitude with the social flurry of craft fairs, a rhythm he liked. It wasn’t making him rich or famous, but it was a good life.

A decade later, the craze for tie-dyed tee-shirts was waning, and Davis was reconsidering his career. Although he still enjoyed tie-dyeing, it no longer offered the creative challenge he craved.

Dyeing for Balance

He was willing to put in long hours of back-straining work, but not at a job that squelched his creativity. He was willing to sacrifice a high salary and benefits, but not beauty. He was willing to live in a remote corner of a rural state, but not to give up his dream of traveling the world.

Could he find a way to achieve that balance? More to the point, could he do it with fabric and dye?

In 1981, in an issue of The Crafts Report, he saw an announcement that the Surface Design Association was holding its annual meeting at Arrowmont, a school for arts and crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. “I immediately called and signed up for Yoshiko Wada’s introductory class in Japanese dyeing techniques,” Davis says.

He arrived the night before the workshop began. “It was dark when I got there. I walked through a building where they had a shibori exhibit and saw a framed piece of arashi shibori by Ana Lisa Hedstrom. I was knocked out by the beauty and intricacy of this small piece of fabric. It was like snakeskin or mushroom gills or butterfly wings that wanted to take flight.”

The Silk Wrap

The workshop confirmed that arashi shibori, in which fabric is wrapped around a pole before being tied and dyed, was something he could do well. Moreover, he realized, its creative possibilities were nearly endless.

Davis says there is a world of difference between pole-wrapped shibori and the sort of tie-dyeing usually produced in the United States. “Pole-wrapped shibori can be much more intricately and variously patterned,” he explains.

Along with Japanese dyeing techniques, Davis turned to silk as his fabric of choice. “I like silk — the feel of it, the flow of it. On my first trip to Japan in 1992, I met people who claimed silk has the quality of absorbing toxins from the wearer’s skin. They attributed almost magical properties to it. Who knows? Silk helps transform a caterpillar into a butterfly. I associate silk with transformation.”

Silk, along with the influence of his teacher, transformed Davis’s life. Although he didn’t know it when he signed up for her class, Yoshiko Wada’s dye work, writing and promotion of the techniques collectively known as shibori had already earned her a reputation as the world’s leading authority on the art.

“I came home and changed everything,” Davis says. “As soon as I started doing arashi shibori, we began getting into the better craft shows and the wholesale business started growing.”

A New Business

Davis and Laurie Gundersen, his wife and business partner, converted a former goat shed into a studio with heat, skylights, hot and cold water, cutting table, double sink, stove, sewing machine and storage space. They developed garment patterns and devised a machine to speed the wrapping process.

Davis formed his own business, Shibori West Textile Designs, in the mid-1990s. In addition to producing wearable art, he developed several sculptural lamp designs and began to experiment with stretched and mounted shibori “paintings.” One of the latter won a $500 award in the 2003 West Virginia Juried Exhibition.

Meanwhile, his growing skill at arashi shibori techniques began taking him to more exotic venues. Upscale shops in Santa Fe, La Jolla, Key West, New York and Chicago placed wholesale orders. And Davis learned that offering to set up trunk shows of his wares gave him a way to travel.

Travelin' Show

In 1992, one of Davis’s textured jackets was accepted into a prestigious textile competition in Kyoto, earned him his first visit to Japan. Later the same year, he made a second trip to the country to attend the first International Shibori Symposium.

Since then, five more international shibori gatherings have been held in Chile, India, England, Australia and Japan. Davis recently returned from the most recent, which took place in Tokyo.

Once again, his work spawned the travel and the travel promises to influence his work. He explains, “On this most recent trip to Japan I became friends with two of the better-known textile artists in the United States, Joan Morris and Carter Smith. Both appreciated my current work, but more importantly, they encouraged me to stay involved in the creative process, to remember that art is not about repeating past successes. They told me to value my decades of dyeing cloth, but to step again into the unknown, the realm of play, fun, excitement and experiment.

“The three week stay in Japan was the trip of a lifetime. And, because the arts are so highly respected there, it is especially gratifying that I’ve been invited to do a trunk show next spring at a gallery in Kyoto, The Original Box Kamogawa.

“The things I love most about Japan are the same things I love about West Virginia — the generosity of the people and the natural beauty.

“That’s why I chose to live in West Virginia over 30 years ago. That’s why I’m still here. And my guiding principle is the same: Follow your passion, not the money. All businesses have problems and challenges. But when you are doing what you love, it’s an adventure, not just a job.”