Silks, Sun, & Cyanotype

By Annelise Uduaghan

Cyanotype is a light-sensitive dye process, also known as sun printing: you lay objects down, and let the sun do the rest. I started this interview asking Connor why she had chosen cyanotype, or maybe why it had chosen her. Surprisingly, I came to find that her journey began five years earlier with an enveloping love for silk.

At 18, as Connor was leaving for a backpacking trip through Europe, her sister gifted her a silk scarf, an omen of good luck. Hiking along with a heavy overwhelmed bag, she began shedding down to the necessities. Surprisingly, the silk scarf became crucial — it had versatility, lightness, durability. “Every gal needs a silk,” Connor declared, and so her reverence for this textile began.

It was at this point in our conversation that the symbolism of silk began to unfold. What could it mean that a fabric so delicate to the touch could still withstand the demands of a physically demanding trek? What could that lightness and durability have encompassed in that moment, at a time when a young woman found herself trudging through Europe on foot?

Years later, that reverence for silk found its way back to New York, and to Cardinal. A material which coincidentally is loved by both Connor and Chelsea at the shop would manifest into many collaborative projects and The Silks, as Connor calls them, have now become a beloved summer essential at Cardinal Gift Shop.

Spirited and ghostly, sun-baked memories captured on silk — cyanotype — a process that ask of us what we wish to remember...and perhaps forget

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So…how did Connor’s fondness for silk transform into The Silks, her cyanotype collection?

It was during a break from city life, while seeking some tranquility in her hometown in Maine, Chelsea suggested that Connor try cyanotype as a means of decompressing. And so it began, unlike her painting or drawing practice, this medium had a new sense of flexibility. Connor explained to me how the randomness of cyanotype seemed to even encourage mistakes. “It’s gonna be beautiful no matter what…which is really refreshing.” It is that same quality which she felt gave it life.

Connor had been collecting items from her mother for some time, not sure what to do with these delicate objects. Antique lace, gems, and necklaces were instinctively scattered across silk, turning into sun-baked memories. Looking at the Silks, I found myself wondering what Connor was trying to preserve through this photographic medium. Her answer seemed to live in the objects themselves: intimate keepsakes passed between women, gathered from family, daily surroundings, and her own life.

Till date, these same motifs remain, sometimes with the addition of purses or bras. Each print is a testament to cyanotype as a medium of preservation, temporality, and memory.

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When Connor and I spoke about what the Silks evoke now, she mentioned her bedroom, draped with fabric strips like a child’s pillow fort, a woman’s vanity, and textile artist Lucy Brown, whose work explores women’s history, identity, the body, and nostalgia. These references helped me understand the Silks as more than beautiful compositions. To me, they begin to read as reflections on womanhood: not as something fixed or neatly arranged, but in flux.

If nothing else, Connor’s Silks offer a way to carry memory: a record of womanhood not pinned down. The scarves move, ripple, and catch the wind, keeping those ideas in motion. Slipped into a pocket or tied around the head, they become something we carry with us. Connor told me she had always wanted to “give the fabric love,” and this became her way of doing so…

End.