By Susan Aurinko
You tie a beautiful silk scarf around your neck, and off you go, perfectly accessorized. But it’s likely you never thought of how that scarf came to be, who designed it, what inspired it, who printed the finished design on the silk? This month I’m going to take you on MY silk road and show you how several of my LensFlair Edition scarves came to life.
Let’s start with the Morikami long scarf. Morikami’s origin story began at its namesake Japanese Garden in Delray Beach, Florida, where my husband and I have a home. I was wandering in the garden a couple of years ago with my camera, looking at all the fascinating shadows that fell on the forest floor. I glanced at a concrete bench beneath some palmettos, and noticed how the shadows crisscrossed the bench, forming striking patterns. Captivated, I photographed the bench from several angles. I realized that repeated twice the photograph would make a wonderful long scarf! Later I photographed the actual scarf on the same bench as well as in Chicago on my beautiful model, Marielle. The most fascinating thing about this straight photograph being on a scarf is that the tiny leaves that fell on the bench each have their own shadow, giving it a three-dimensional effect. If you’re ever in the area, spend some time at the garden and museum, it’s fabulous! https://morikami.org/ 
Examples of Poesie Squares
If you’re a regular reader of this column you will have heard about the wild adventures of the first photo-expedition when I began Lensflair Editions in 2012. I had been gathering images of graffiti and torn posters on walls in many countries I visited as a photographer and decided it would be fascinating to turn a bunch of the most provocative images into a grid to make a scarf from. Little did I know that years later I would turn that grid into an entire series of scarves titled “Poesie des Affiches” – Poetry of the Posters. The first grid is now called The Original, and the others titled by color. The second was altered by my first collaborator, Federica Ghidelli, who added a layer of texture from another photograph of mine over the grid – we titled it Europa. After that, I began experimenting with color resulting in a whole rainbow of Poesie scarves!
I have recently had the great good fortune to license the work of the late outsider artist Purvis Young from the Larry T Clemons collection. My posthumous collaboration with this giant of outsider art has so far produced four wonderful scarves, two long scarves and two squares. The simplicity and yet sophistication of Young’s art is a joy to work with. These scarves are the only ones I’ve created that do not contain any of my photography – I simply designed beautiful scarves using Young’s paintings and drawings in various ways. I studied hundreds of pieces and chose the ones that fit my vision and then incorporated them into my designs. It’s been a challenge yet a great joy to work with the art of someone whose life was so incredibly different from my own.
I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to share my process with you. I hope you’ll spend some time on the website and get to know all the scarves that have been born on My Silk Roads! www.lensflaireditions.com
Until next time, be kind, enjoy life, and accessorize with scarves!
Warmly,
Susan
