How a P.E.I. artist added her own twist to the ancient art of batik

For more than 40 years, Sylvia Ridgway from Victoria, P.E.I., has been perfecting her own style of batik.

Ridgway has come a long way since attending a night art class in Kingston, Ontario in 1973, where she first dabbled in the traditional Indonesian method, which she later found to be quite blocky and lacked detail. 

"When I first started, I wouldn't even dream of trying to get texture and water and things and now I can do that," Ridgway said. 

To understand how Ridgway's unique style has evolved over the years, you have to go back to that art class decades ago when she made her first batik.

She started by drawing an outline of her design on a white cotton cloth. The design featured an East Asian village with just three colours — yellow and orange buildings on a brown background.

Ridgway applied the lightest colour first, dipping the cloth into a vat of yellow dye.

Once the cloth dried, Ridgway applied wax over the buildings to protect them from the next colour. When the wax dried, she then dipped the entire cloth into orange dye. After the cloth dried, she waxed over the orange buildings and then finally dipped the cloth a third time into the brown dye to add the background . 

But Ridgeway wasn't satisfied with the blocky buildings and lack of detail. 

'I wanted the realism'

"I like to do things realistic. So maybe that's why I've developed a more non-traditional way of treating batik because I wanted the realism." 

That was the first and last time Ridgway dipped her pieces into dye. She began experimenting by using a water colour brush to add on the dyes.

But it's when Ridgway moved back home to P.E.I. in 1981 that her desire for more detail took off. 

"I was more inspired to create the scenery because it's a beautiful place to live in and I think anybody would be inspired by the scenery of P.E.I. colours."  

Now instead of just three colours, Ridgway points to one of her recent works of a colourful Island scene.

"The lighthouse has red on it and there's yellow buoys and there's blue water and blue sky. And the fields, one golden field and a green field and a brown field so you might end up with maybe twenty different tones."

'I don't create a piece in a day'

While her first batik only took a few hours to finish, it now takes Ridgway much longer to complete a project.

"I don't create a piece in a day. It takes me a few weeks to create a piece so it's a lot of steps, waxing and then dyeing and then letting it dry and then waxing and dyeing again, over and over," Ridgway said.

Her daughter Jennifer Ridgway has watched her mother's style progress over the decades. 

"She's taken the medium of batik and made something very unique. I've never seen anything like it before."

'I love to see it evolve'

"It's the difference between a cartoon and a water colour painting," Jennifer Ridgway said.

One of the most satisfying moments for Sylvia Ridgway is the slow, but rewarding reveal, as she removes the many layers of wax that cover the piece. 

"Oh, I love to see it evolve."

Ridgway starts by placing paper towels on the art work, and then running her hot old-fashioned iron back and forth over it.

"It's always a surprise really, because you don't quite know what you're going to get until you take all the wax off because it looks pretty ugly before that happens."

One of her latest pieces features a scene of flowers from her husband's garden. 

The piece will probably fetch about $700, which isn't much considering the materials, frame and long hours over the two weeks that went into the artwork.

Ridgway said she's too frightened to compute what her hourly wage might actually be. But on the other hand, "It's perfect for me. I've got my little studio attached to my house. I can come down here and be my own boss and come and go." 

Ridgway's work is sold at galleries across the Island, and she's sold hundreds of her pieces over the years. 

She even held some workshops a few years ago to teach her technique to others. 

But the 82-year-old is not sure if someone else will want to learn and continue this technique. 

"I may not be around forever, so I suppose I should be thinking a little bit more of passing it on to someone that might be interested," said Ridgway.

In the meantime, she's content doing what she loves.

"I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my art."

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