It’s Time to Get a KAT!

Contributed by Charice Chambers

Wrap a KAT around your neck, a KAT scarf that is. Handcrafted individually designed scarves, all beautifully rendered in supple luxurious silk by designer Kitty Kincaid can revolutionize your wardrobe, kickstarting it into high gear. Her one of a kind scarves can make the most unexciting garment pop. Using a combination of techniques from batik to Italian marbling, each KAT scarf is a unique work of art.

Born and raised in Alaska, Kincaid also lived in Oregon and Hawaii. She earned a Graduate of Arts degree in Oregon and later followed it with an MBA in business. Along the way, she mastered silk screen printing, and for a time, produced products related to her sports interests. Always one to try new mediums, her mother convinced her to join a silk painting class through APU. There she learned the intricacies of applying silk paints and dyes to fabric using Guttas or resists which were intended to prevent the colorants from bleeding into unwanted areas of the design. Excited by the medium, Kincaid, who had always loved scarves, realized that they were the perfect products to showcase her painting skills. Soon she was off and running, developing her own signature style.

Kincaid also explored Italian marbling and admits her first attempts were abysmal. With some training from a visiting New York artist, her early failures were transformed from blobs into beautifully flowing marbleized silken wonders.

Kincaid was bewitched by the artistry of batik with it’s reverse layering of colors and waxes laid one on top of another to ultimately create a design. She decided to visit Indonesia to tour it’s myriad batik factories. There she gleaned much about not only the batik process, but gained techniques that helped to refine her skill with the canting, a sort of batiking pen. It is filled with melted wax which is then used to draw a design on cloth prior to multiple layer dyeing.

Returning home, what had started as a hobby, became a personal passion. Her professional career was not going in directions for which she had hoped. Taking a giant leap of faith, she poured her energies into her passion as a full-time silk scarf artist. She did trade shows up and down the West Coast as well as across the Midwest for a time. She has now scaled back her efforts to something a bit more manageable. Kincaid produces only 100 to 125 scarves a year for which she admits there is high demand.

Currently she markets her one-of-a-kind scarves on her website and in the Valley at Matsu Senior Services Gift Shop. Though crafted in silk, all scarves are both washer and dryer safe, a huge bonus for the customer.

The gift shop is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 am to 2 pm and located at 1132 South Chugach Street, adjacent to and across the street from Palmer Junior Middle School. In addition to regular hours, this week Kincaid’s silk scarves can be seen in the shop on Saturday, September 17th from 10 am to 4:30 pm in conjunction with the first annual Senior Walk and Vendor Fair.