Valerie Doran Bashaw, of Kansas City, Missouri, is a fiber/mixed media artist and fine arts educator.  She received a Bachelor’s Degree from the Kansas City Art Institute and Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan. She teaches studio art courses (Fiber, Design and Art History and Art Survey) at the college level and works with senior citizens and special populations, in addition to summer classes at the Ghost Ranch.  She is active in the local and Missouri arts culture. “I absolutely love to teach, to connect and inspire my students makes me so happy!”

She has 30 years of experience developing unique, one of a kind works created by dyeing and printing (surface design) on natural fabrics, silks, cottons and linens.  Influenced by the Japanese technique of shibori; cloth is wrapped around a pole, bound, dyed and perhaps bleached and dyed again. Shibori patterns on cloth produce lovely images reminiscent of shadows in nature, wood grain, water flowing and more.  She also has developed a method of wrapping fabric around bamboo, yielding undulating repeated patterns, beautiful when combined with the shibori results.   New work is rust printed, and embellished with metallic threads, hand embroidered.  See www.wovenwind.net for more information.

Valerie creates wall pieces of resist-dyed silk fabrics, sewn/pieced together and stretched over a frame. Inspired by geology, geography and the weather, these pieces often are like regional landscapes. A large commissioned work was installed at the University of Kansas Hospital in 2011 and works are in public and private collections. “My work is quiet, often meditative, my intention is for you to sit with it, be quiet and come into balance”.