Katya Hutchinson - Dogwood and Dunes

Small Kite

Big Kite

Dogwood and Dunes 

Katya Hutchinson 

“Connection” implies many layers of meaning, especially when pertaining to international exchange.  There are physical, cultural, and interpersonal connotations of the word.  When designing my kite, “Dogwood and Dunes”, I attempted to explore some of these meanings to create something that stood-out as unique, but also successfully created a union between the culture of the Emirate nations and North Carolina.  While my initial concepts relied on a connection of land and sky (featuring clouds and earth symbols) I decided that connection was already being made by the very act of flying the kite itself- we would already be bridging the land and sky by lifting our tethered kites from the ground.  I settled on a simple concept that merged elements of North Carolina aesthetics, and cultural aesthetics of the Emirates.  

Process wise, I stuck to something simple. Because I intended my design to be endlessly repeatable and involve multiple colors, I decided on screen printing. I made nearly twenty of my design, hand coloring the blossoms for some extra dimension and to keep them true to how I saw them in nature. With chinne-colle I was able to arrange and place these multiples on my large kite.  

The predominant feature, the dogwood blossoms, are easily associated with North Carolina.  Not only is the flower our state flower, but they are something that impressed me after moving to the state- they are heavily featured around ECU’s campus and the neighborhoods surrounding, and when they are in bloom they pop against the surrounding greenery.  Using the dogwood blossom, I first created a symmetrical design. For inspiration I relied heavily on images of Islamic art. Symmetry represents (to my understanding) a sacredness in its perfection which reflects the perfect nature of Allah.  Although traditionally figurative aspects aren’t included in Islamic art, I noticed that the students in our exchange used almost exclusively figurative ideas, and the recurrence of flowers was something I noted. I also used images of varying mehndi and henna designs to influence my pattern, attempting to make something that was reminiscent of the intricate swirls and interwoven florals I found. When scaling the image up, my aim was to mimic a textile pattern, repetitious but ornate like many of the images of pattern’s found in Sharjah’s textile shops in the industrial district. Even the shape of the design (a diamond) was made so that when combined it continued to be symmetrical and geometric in implication.  

Lastly, I chose colors that would be a nod to both the Emirates and to ECU.  I chose gold- as both a nod the gold-rich Emirate nations and the decadent metallic threading of talli as well as showcasing ECU’s university colors of gold and purple. The key lines of my image (although hard to make out due to the thin lines) was a rich earthy brown that what inspired by the deep color of henna on skin before it is set and stained.