Composting fabrics part 1

I’m glad I chose to explore the process of decay in textiles. At first, I thought I was venturing into something entirely new, but after doing some research, I discovered that many artists have long been fascinated by this topic. They see decay in textiles as something beautiful—a continuation of the artistic spirit within cloth. If you’re interested, here are a couple of links worth checking out:
https://garlandmag.com/article/decay-is-beautiful/
https://www.outlook8studio.com/tags/decay/

Even before this year began, I had already decided to experiment with fabric decomposition. Last fall, I buried pieces of cotton, a 50/50 blend of cotton and linen, dupioni silk, habotai silk, and wool in a bucket filled with soil, leaves, and some rotten tomatoes from my daughter’s garden. After seven weeks, I checked to see how the fabrics had changed. The cotton was completely disintegrated. I’m currently using the 50/50 cotton-linen blend in Decay #3. The results from the silk and wool fabrics will be part of Decay #4.

In the cotton-linen mix, most of the cotton fibers had vanished, leaving the linen fibers loose and fragile. I had to find a way to secure them to a backing. I used Super 77 spray adhesive, then quilted the experimental cloth to the background using invisible thread and added hand stitching. I do wish I had used the original 50/50 cloth as the background itself, though I did take a photo of it next to the decayed sample.

Decayed piece next to the original fabric: