Day Four: Artist Inspired

On this fourth day of Inspiration Week we are asked to use art as our inspiration. When I was a teen, tie-dye was the rage. We would tie-dye almost everything and wear it proudly.

Tie Dye history: During the late 1960s we hippies were against the conservative rules of our parents' generation, and we appreciated the arts and crafts, simplicity, and traditional ways of making things. Tie-dye was a natural outgrowth of these values, combining personal creativity and bright designs to create low-cost clothing. Tie-dye has roots in Indian bandhaniand Japanese shibori, both techniques that involve binding areas of fabric before dyeing to create color patterns. Indonesia, Nigeria, and Peru also have long traditions of tie-dyeing fabrics, as do many other countries.

To make a fashionable tie-dyed T-shirt, wrap strings around crumpled shirts and dunk them in vats of inexpensive dye. Once dry the dyed the shirts had swirling patterns of color that we enjoyed wearing with our jeans and sandals. Tie-dye was so popular during the 1960s that it has remained a symbol of trends and movements of the time-- rock concerts, psychedelic drugs, antiwar marches and hippies.

During the 1980s tie-dye lost some of its popularity. Deadheads kept tie-dye as their symbol throughout the 1980s and 1990s though(any Deadheads out there?)

Tie-dye became a mainstream fashion in the 1990s. Unlike the tie-dye of the 1960s, modern tie-dye was mass-produced and sold in retail shops at large malls. Some original tiedye designs made on silk or rayon, however, were considered fashionable artwork and sold at high prices in designer boutiques. Despite its popularity in the 1990s and 2000s, the bright, swirling, one-of-kind nature of tie-dye continues to be identified with the nonconformist lifestyle of the hippies of the 1960s

Forward to 2018: I bake a lot of cakes for a lot of people. Recently a client wanted a dream catcher cake for her one year old's birthday party. She was quite adamant that the colors be purple, pink and blue but the rest was left to me (except for the dream catcher part).

I decided to create a tie-dye cake! It is really quite easy. Make three batters and pour them on top of each other and swirl with a knife. I created the dream catcher with gum paste and candy molds (I love Pinterest, don't you?). The cake itself was vanilla bean flavored with a lavender frosting. I used Watkins brand food dyes because they are vegan of course. The cake was a hit and everyone enjoyed it.

Remember, whatever it take to inspire your creativity, embrace it. Have fun and find the artist within you!

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Oh what a beautiful cake! Tie dye cake is wonderful. I was a 90s kid who tie dyed everything I could get my hands on and I would have been overawed to get a cake like this!

Posted by: Emma Timson | 09/04/2018 at 05:58 AM