The Fabric of Home

Artist Qiana Mestrich’s Mountain Lodge in West Saugerties

Right after Qiana Mestrich was born her mother was paging through a fashion magazine when an ad caught her eye. The advertisement (which Mestrich still has) was for Dupont’s new synthetic silk. “It was supposed to be this feminist fabric,” she explains. “It didn’t wrinkle, you didn’t have to iron it. It was a luxurious replacement for silk.” Even the name was cutting edge. “Dupont wanted a unique name that didn’t mean anything in any other language,” says Mestrich. “So a computerized combination of random letters created ‘Qiana.’”

Photos by Winona Barton-Ballentine