Got Silk? Orrington designer’s luxurious kimonos, scarves and dresses accentuate the sensuous

Michael Shyka stood in his Bangor studio with a foam paintbrush in one hand and a pot of melted wax in the other. In front of him, a swath of silk – 55 inches wide by 21/2 yards long – stretched taut on a frame like a painter’s canvas. The sweet, smoky aroma of molten beeswax mingled in the air with a heady honeysuckle perfume.

Shyka walked around the silk, which was propped up on sawhorses, and daubed wax to cover the brilliant pink of a cabbage rose and the jade green of a pine tree. He took a step back to assess his work and saw a Chinoiserie scene in shades of deep plum, berry, mauve and brilliant green spread out before him. In the corners, tiny figures carried water on their shoulders. The peaked roofs of pagodas reached toward a large gold Chinese symbol, which is the painting’s focal point.

“This is a design I paint a lot, but it always changes; it’s always different,” Shyka said over the beat of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Shining Star.” “This, I don’t know what it’s going to be – I don’t know if it’s going to be for a dress or scarves or what.”

Shyka, 41, is a textile artist and clothing designer who turns his hand-painted lengths of silk into body-skimming dresses, bold kimonos, fluttery tops and airy scarves. For years, his work attracted a loyal following of models and society matrons to his studio in Miami Beach. Several years ago, he returned to his hometown of Orrington to be closer to family, and he has since attracted a local crowd, as well.

“People are awed by some of the stuff he has done,” said Rick Gilbert, who runs the European market at Sunnyside Greenhouse in Bangor, where Shyka is a regular vendor. “They only see the scarves, but then I make them open the book and they see the blouses and the dresses.”

“The book” is a small portfolio that includes magazine clippings, promotional postcards and a spread from Harper’s Bazaar in which Ivana Trump models several of Shyka’s hand-painted dresses. He designed them while working for Michael Katz, a fellow silk painter with whom he apprenticed during a semester at Parsons School of Design in New York. At the time, Shyka was a recent Massachusetts College of Art graduate, and the job was ideal.

“The first week, people were buying stuff off the table,” he recalled, laughing. “I thought, this is my perfect job. I’m selling stuff before it’s even done.”

After a stint in San Francisco, where Shyka designed fabric patterns, he moved to Miami and set up his own studio. He drew inspiration from the bougainvillea that grew in the courtyard outside, from the sea and the sun-drenched palette around him.

“A lot of my designs are Florida-like – the patterns,” he said. “But I love Florida colors.”

He stood at a rack where lengths of fabric hung, awaiting his scissors. On one hanger, fuchsia orchids punctuated a length of plummy brown crepe. Nearby, a deep navy background provided a subdued backdrop to a rainbow-hued harlequin pattern. Then he unfolded a burnished golden charmeuse on which yellow finches perched among bright pink bougainvillea blooms.

“This would make a beautiful slip dress,” he said. “I love working with color and with fabric. … Sensuous is an important word. That’s why I like silk: because it’s so sensuous.”

That’s exactly what Sally Bates thought when she treated herself to one of Shyka’s kimonos. It was a splurge – his kimonos and dresses are in the $200 range – but she says it was worth it. The bold pattern of owls against a purple background appealed to the artist in her.

“I love kimonos, but I had never owned one before,” Bates said. “Then I saw Michael Shyka one morning at the market on Buck Street, and I saw the kimono, and there was no way I was leaving without it. It was just too beautiful.”

Bates, an economic development officer for the city of Bangor, was so taken with Shyka’s work – and the artist himself – that she tirelessly recruited him to take part in the city’s summertime outdoor market.

“Michael himself is a gentle person and when you meet him, you like him so much that you want to wear something he made,” Bates said.

Shyka, in return, has equal reverence for the women who wear his clothing. Though his $30-$40 scarves are a hit in the Bangor area, he’d love to design a custom gown or outfit for a local woman who plans to attend a formal event, or even a teenager who wants a prom dress that will stand out from the crowd.

“My saying is, every client I have I treat them like Jennifer Lopez,” Shyka said, smiling. “They’re a celebrity. I treat them like someone special because that’s what they are to me.”

Some day, the chinoiserie print will become something special, as well, but on a recent afternoon, Shyka decided it needed a little more work. He walked over to a table covered with plastic yogurt containers and picked up one that contained crimson dye. Then he returned to the fabric and painted around the cooled daubs of wax – he uses a resist technique similar to batik, sets the dye with steam and dry-cleans the finished piece to remove any traces of wax.

Behind him, a sherbet-striped silk dried on its stretcher, propped up on one end. On the other side of the room, his own painting of a woman’s face shared wall space with a photocopied page from the “Buddhism and Far Eastern Art” textbook and magazine clippings of exotic flowers. On the couch, his tiny Maltese, Shaggy, curled up in a ball, sleeping.

After a few more rounds of dye – including a hot pink to turn a yellow flower orange – he walked around the fabric, surveyed his work and decided he was finished. Then he picked up the silk by its frame and stood it up against a stark white wall.

“Oh my God,” he said, laughing. “It’s a bit much.”

But sometimes, especially in a place where summer is fleeting and bright, floral colors are the exception to the rule, a bit much is just right.

Michael Shyka’s studio is located at 38 Columbia St. in Bangor and is open by chance or appointment. To contact Shyka directly, call 949-8131. Shyka also sells his work most Saturdays – except today – at the European Market at Sunnyside Greenhouse on Buck Street in Bangor. Starting June 14, Shyka will sell his scarves at the outdoor marketplace along the Kenduskeag Stream. For information on that market, visit www.downtownbangor.com.