In Search of Wild Silk

Please join us to hear Canadian fiber artist Karen Selk talk about her search for wild silk, a fiber that is much more than the miraculous journey of metamorphosis from caterpillar to silken luxury. It is tightly woven to an ancient living culture raising tasar, muga, and eri silkworms in remote forests of central and eastern India. Raising wild silkworms, reeling cocoons, spinning fiber, and weaving silk cloth provides sustainable work and a regular income while protecting the environment, lifting the status of women, and maintaining a traditional lifestyle.  Karen will share over thirty years of field research, using photos and stories from weavers, spinners, and silkworm farmers to transport you into their homes and villages to witness the love and dedication involved in each part of the process from soil to cloth.

All things silk have provided Karen Selk with a thread that binds together travel, research, writing, artwork, educating, and managing a successful silk business.  Her passion for learning about everything silk has led her throughout Asia and the wild silk forests of India in particular for more than 35 years.  The culmination of her field research has recently been published in her new book: In Search of Wild Silk: Exploring a Village Industry in the Jungles of India. She lives surrounded by the Salish Sea on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.

Karen will be joining us virtually and you can watch her presentation with us in person at the SEFAA Center or remotely via Zoom (just register to receive the Zoom link).

Cost: Free for individual SEFAA members; $5 for non-members.