Batik is an Indonesian fabric art form using the process of wax-resist dyeing. The technique originated on the island of Java.
One person who appreciates and now creates batik art is local artist Gloria Avner.
“I’ve loved drawing and ‘making’ as far back as I can remember, but never thought of art as a possible way to make a living until I retired from a 40-year career spent studying, traveling, collecting and selling art from other cultures,” Avner said. “My partner and I specialized in the folk art of indigenous people, the artifacts that tribal people made for their own use — from hand-carved bone medicine containers from Borneo to wooden canoe paddles from Peru, bronze gold weights from the Ashanti tribe in Africa to the shields and spirit boats of the Asmat tribe in New Guinea.”
Before the College of the Florida Keys built a new campus in Key Largo, the classes were held at Coral Shores High School. It was here where Avner started taking painting courses with Marcia Deem. She took more art classes at different schools around the country, including the John Campbell School of Folk Art in North Carolina, and then at places like the Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
She found her greatest passion, batik, on Mount Desert Island in Maine. Her professor, Betty Allen, taught her the age-old art of batiking, with a new twist.
“All batik uses hot wax as a resist to build layers of color, but instead of painting inks on silk or other fabric, Betty was using delicate rice paper and watercolors,” Avner said. “I loved it, the unpredictable surprises and happy accidents that come with the process.”
Avner has now been teaching this batik technique for almost 20 years.
“The technique has lots of steps, but is a very forgiving medium that anyone with guidance can be successful,” she said. “My students work for four hours and go home not just with two complete paintings, but with renewed self-confidence and pride. Their pleasure at discovering this joy in creativity is a delight to me.
“If you asked me what I like most about painting batik style I would have to say it is this indescribable being in partnership with chance, or God, however you name the unnameable,” Avner continued. “Some people call it ‘painterly’: a combination of skill, control and pure non-realistic brush stroke energy. It’s invigorating and unexplainable.”
The colors of the Keys are a great source of inspiration to Avner.
“The local plants and wildlife, the infinite variety of birds — especially herons — the rocks, the light and water as we drive over bridges, never fail to make me want to put pen and ink or brush and paint to paper and canvas.”
Avner’s work can be seen and purchased at the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, the Tassel Building at Mariners Hospital, Bitton’s Bistro at MM 82 in Islamorada and primarily at Our Place in Paradise, a beautiful gallery at MM 88.7, Oceanside. Avner teaches batik several times a month at Our Place in Paradise.
“I love our community of artists here in the Keys and am a proud member of AGPI, the Art Guild of the Purple Isles, happily entering work in the Guild’s many shows. The life of an artist is a fulfilling one. And in the Florida Keys, the community makes it especially so,” Avner said.
