Lily Barnes

It starts in the moment you find yourself being captivated by an especially bright leaf on the street…a beautifully broken, spiraling shell in the sand…a patch of mint green moss in the deep woods…or any other peculiar, special piece of nature that draws you in. Suddenly, this tiny, seemingly insignificant specimen is carrying your mind into an alternate universe. You leave your everyday life—no more human problems—and all you feel is pure wonder for the natural world.

In these fleeting moments of wonder, I am trying to wrap my head around the entire universe. It is impossible, but I have a deep obsession with patterns in nature, and through them, my mind can begin to process the vast beauty and intelligence of life. Nervous systems, lightening bolts, cosmic events, leaves, river systems, and more, all operate in the same beautifully artisanal formations. These patterns range from microscopic to astronomical. There are so many unanswered questions about how and why the ten types of patterns in nature occur so vastly. Science, art, philosophy, and religion have been trying to figure it out for centuries, but perhaps the answer is at the intersection of them all.

My collection, Biomesmeric, is a manifestation of how I see and process patterns in nature in my mind. It is not wholesome, greenish-brown, granola, and “earthy crunchy.” The bright, energetic colors of my garments, along with the flowing, repetitious silhouettes in my collection, depict how I see nature as exuberant, mesmerizing, trippy, colorful, and otherworldly that, to me, summarizes the natural world

Using silk and bamboo yarn, each look was made with a fine art approach and an emphasis on craft. The colors are inspired by Craig Burrows’ UVIF photography, which captures plants’ molecules in an excited state that gives off a moment of natural fluorescence. At the epitome of my collection, my final look was created over the course of five months. I sewed 760 yards of cording into 36 yards of silk, then constructed and hand sewed the pieces together. The design is inspired by one of my favorite naturally occurring patterns, fractals. I wanted the garment to envelope the form and be adjustable to many body types with the side ties, but also to serve purpose off of the body too. It can stand alone as a sculpture, and the ties on the sides are also for displaying the garment on a wall as a fine art piece. It weights about 40 pounds and is very comfortable and durable.