Susan Radke

My name is Susan Radke. I am the brand Seranya and own Seranya Artwear along with Seranya Studios Art Boutique. I've been creating with products from Dharma Trading for over 10 years. In addition to being a landscape design artist, I'm a self-taught fiber artist who adores silk and denim, creating scarves and hand painted denim jackets. I draw much of my inspiration from the colors and textures of nature in all forms - rock, water, land, plant and animal. But I also draw much of my inspiration from Native American artistry and perhaps a little strangely - from contemporary and abstract artists like Kandinsky.

To create beautiful fabrics and embellishments, I love Jacquard Lumiere, and Neopaque paints for my jackets and t-shirts and Dye-na-flow is great for my silk painting classes. Without the need for steaming, my students are able to learn the dynamics of silk painting/dying and still take home a gorgeous creation of their own in just a couple hours. I also love to use various silk dyes, including Green Label, for the scarves, camisoles and silk hoops I sell in my boutique and at juried art shows, Dharma's fiber reactive dyes for hand painted/dyed t-shirts. Most recently I've been learning how to spin various fibers into yarns. The next step will be to dye those yarns in my signature colorways - that will mean acid dyes or maybe I'll try to use the newly introduced Lanaset dyes.

I also enjoy upcycling and reconstructing clothing which I embellish with paints and dyes from Dharma, and recently have used Dharma's Silk/Merino roving blend to create luscious nuno-felted scarves over a substrate of silk chiffon from Dharma. Basically, I'm able to get most of the supplies I need in one stop shopping with Dharma. There's still so much to explore in my fiber art adventures. I have begun purchasing blank fabrics and creating my own printed, dyed and painted fabrics for fashions and I'll be introducing a whole new line in spring 2016. I am blessed to be working in the art industry and continue to explore new techniques learned from others or that I create myself as well as research old and even ancient techniques of fiber artistry. If only I could create more time....