During a time of endless possibilities, Drora and Ital Caldron single out their methods of work most discriminatingly.

Unlike many of her colleagues in the current textile movement, Drora welcomes the pictorial cloth and the dominance of painting in Western visual thinking. She restricts herself to the use of choice wool and silk which are manufactured specifically for art making and to one technique, meticulously performed, stitch by stitch. The technique does not vary and is neither affected by the dynamism which bursts out from the canvas nor does it create it. Like most artists today, Drora is her own "painter", but in a way which is reminiscent of the Medieval approach. She sketches a cartoon, a graphic delineation of an idea, directly on her loose canvas. The cartoon functions as a container which fills up with meaning as the embroidery proceeds. The sketch is the analytical aspect of her work. It determines the composition, weight, movement, the juxtaposition of hues and gradations. This is an analysis which is conditioned by emotions, and in this instance there is no contradiction between the two. The embroidery is the realization of these ideas and it evolves intuitively. It is a momentary interpretation affected by nuances of feelings and insights, moods energy, fatigue, things that occur "out there" or in her soul. They dictate the colors, their combinations, the contrast and the light.

Typical of textile is the relative autonomy of structural units or motifs. Zooming in on details may generate an experience which is distinct from that of the entire piece. In Drora’s work this experience may also bridge the tremendous gap between the tiny and closed motions of the embroidery and the sweeping and bursting movement of the entire design. Focusing at details reveals a sort of a diary of occurrences which may bring the spectator closer to the rhythm and intimacy of the work in progress.

The autonomy of the detail is even more significant in Ital Caldron’s work. While Drora is fully aware of the selvedges of the fabric as the edges of her image, Ital creates framed spaces, each being a microcosm and an experience in itself, having it’s own coherence, rhythm and chromatic resonance. Most of her works have a mesh which fences each experience off, but paradoxically it also serves as a system of pathways which connects them and turns them into a concerted whole. The color combination is incomprehensible in western terms, yet the artist manages to bridge over what seems to be irreconcilable and, in fact, even creates an unprecedented state of harmony. The image in Ital’s work is a direct derivative of the process of needlepoint embroidery, which is by nature that of filling up spaces. It coincides with the actual surface of the cloth, and in this sense Ital’s work echoes the traditions of textile design and carpets at least as much as it alludes to pictorial traditions. Sometimes it seems that the compositions may, theoretically speaking, stretch infinitely, that each one is a separate realm. This is an ambiguity and a riddle which is up to the spectator to solve.

Both artists are colorists. The experience of color in their work is inseparable of its being a dye which becomes a part of the fiber’s molecular structure and is directly reflected from wool or silk. The structure of the fiber, the spinning of the yarn and the construction of the cloth make each color appear in great many values. Crossing the stitches in two directions, as Drora’s work, intensifies this effect.

Rugs, wall hangings, embroideries, needlepoint, yarn paintings - the spectator may select the term that seems to best relate to these artworks and best define their nature and standing.

Varda Ben-Tal
July 1995

Drora and Ital Calderon
Post Office Box 7753
Beersheva, Israel 84852

tel. 9727 6270907

e-mail: drorarn@hotmail.com