I Colori della Seta

by Roberta Baiardi

Roberta lives and works in a small town between Rapallo and Sestri Levante, near Genova. She creates accessories and clothing made by herself with hand-painted silk technique. She has a decades-long experience, her passion was born in the late ’80s when, in a small artisan shop in Amsterdam, she met this art, and fell in love with the process and the endless possibilities that it can give life to. Once in Italy she started experimenting at home.

It began as a hobby, in the spare time she painted on scarves, stoles, abat-jour and so on, and experimenting with different colors and techniques, sometimes bringing what she had done to some local market. Now Roberta takes care of the decorations of the works made by a local seamstress, including custom wedding dresses. The silk painting is perfect to meet the sophisticated needs of those who want high-level custom furnishings and dresses.

Roberta is inspired mainly by nature, especially by flowers and animals. Silk painting is a delicate work that requires precision and speed. The result is suffused, a smooth polychromy that enhances the sinuosity and brightness of the silk itself. She mainly uses the processing technique called “Serti”. It is a matter of circumscribing the decoration with natural materials that prevent the expansion of color beyond the drawn guide line; the color used to paint the silk must be very liquid to ensure that it is well absorbed into the fabric. More layers of color obviously means a more vivid color, but in this way the difficulty of application increases and there is also the risk of ruining the fabric.

She also uses the “Tachisme” technique based on the use of salt grains. The salt is placed on the freshly colored fabric so can absorbs the color and create a special and unique shaded effects, a sort of aurora on silk. Regardless of which technique she every creation is unique, carefully studied and worked in a painstaking job because, as she likes to say:

Silk is the great protagonist of my works.