Colin's Creatures

www.colinscreatures.com

Colin's Creatures is a collection of hand carved, lifelike, fine porcelain wooly animals, primarily sheep figures (approx 5" tall).

I make the head, legs, horns and such out of porcelain for its detail. The body is a cast stone for stability with a wonderful substantial feel and the fur is a woven fabric of wool, mohair or alpaca from the same German source that Steiff teddy bears uses.

Artist's Statement:  My customers tell me that my creatures speak to them and put a smile on their faces. That has become my mission.

Location: Asheville, North Carolina, USA

Online Stores: Colin's Creatures, Etsy

Languages spoken: English

 Porcelain and wooly sheep by Colin's Creatures

Tags:  sheep, lambs, sculpture, wool, farming, animals, children, clay, figurative, agriculture

TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles

 www.tammachat.com

handwoven beauty ~ fairly traded

TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles is a fair trade social enterprise based in Nova Scotia, Canada. The co-founders, Ellen Agger (photo) and Alleson Kase, are passionate about handwoven, naturally dyed textiles and about supporting the women in rural Thailand and Laos who create them. These skills - passed down from mother to daughter for generations - are now at risk of being lost, especially the skills of creating hand-reeled silk yarns. We support this small-scale, village-based sericulture and the organic production of these silk yarns by accessing markets for this work in North America and beyond. Each year, we travel extensively in Thailand and Laos, meeting with women's weaving groups and development projects that work with village groups, collaborating on new designs, learning from each other. The work is rewarding, the women sericulturists, dyers and weavers are highly skilled artisans and the textiles -- truly "slow fashion" -- are beautiful.

We organize fair trade eco-textile events.
We wholesale to select shops that value fair trade and art quality, handcrafted textiles.

Mission:  TAMMACHAT’s naturally dyed silks and cottons combine contemporary styling with traditional skills to bring you timeless fashion accessories and home décor. Each piece is exquisitely handwoven in limited editions. Each purchase helps a woman artisan in rural Thailand or Laos celebrate and sustain her culture, family and community.

What's most important to us is:

• to support women artisans through fair trade (including building long-term relationships and ongoing commitments)
• to support their efforts to use sustainable practices that protect their environments and their health, and
• to help preserve these cultural traditions.

Location:  Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada
Online stores:    
   TAMMACHAT 
   Etsy 
   BLURB photo books 
   Ethical Ocean
   Source 4 Style  

Blog:  TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles

Other Social Media:  
   Twitter

   YouTube
   LinkedIn 
   Ethical Fashion Forum

Memberships: 

  SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates)
  Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council
  BALLE-Nova Scotia (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies)
  Ethical Fashion Forum
Languages spoken: English, a little Thai, Italiano, Français

Eri silk scarf from central Thailand. Handspun silk, natural dyes.

From TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles. 

TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles on Facebook

Tags:  weaving, handwoven, naturally dyed, social enterprise, fair trade, organic, silk, cotton, Thailand, Laos

Katy Korkos Studio

http://katykorkos.com

I'm a prolific artist who loves to find a way to communicate with others through my work.  I'm looking for collectors and other artists who find that my work speaks to them. The happiest times of my life are when I'm in the studio making something and when I'm out hiking in the mountains getting inspiration to create.

My work is shown at The Johnsons Gallery, Madrid, New Mexico.

Artist's Statement:   Katy Korkos is a long-time Los Alamos resident, and has shown her work regularly throughout New Mexico as well as throughout the United States since the mid-1990s.

Her primary medium is fiber, which encompasses paper as well as textiles. Many of her pieces can be called studio or art quilts, with roots in traditional quilting. Her works on paper are primarily collage or assemblage pieces.

The common theme among much of Katy's recent work is the artist’s fascination with the iconography of birds.

“I often use birds as a design motif in my work because of all the things they symbolize to me: expressiveness, song, flight, beauty, freedom, cages, nesting, the potential in an egg, living in the trees, fragility and  endurance,” Korkos says.

Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

Online Stores: Katy Korkos
Blog: Katy Korkos
Memberships:

   Studio Art Quilt Associates
   Fuller Lodge Art Center
   Surface Design Association

Languages spoken: English, German, Italian

"Strata" by Katy Korkos

Tags:  layers, hand-dyed, texture, stitches, recycled, worn, birds, cloth, light, collage

Peggy Dlugos

 

http://pdlugos.etsy.com

I am a mixed media fiber artist living in Manitou Springs, Colorado, a small Victorian town at the base of Pikes Peak. I consider myself extremely lucky to have grown up in New Orleans, Louisiana where there is art everywhere you look--in the landscape, the architecture, the history, the food, and most of all, the people. Though I am a self-taught artist, I consider the creative stimulation I received from growing up in such a wonderful place to be the best education I could have ever received. I love to learn and continue to educate myself through books, workshops and online classes.

I learned to embroider and sew as a child. This was how I first learned to express my creativity. Over the years, I have enjoyed quilting, fabric painting, paper making, book arts, felting and making fiber art jewelry. My fiber art bracelets came about as a way to use up bits and pieces leftover from other projects. They have been a great lesson in how to create something from nothing.  My bracelets are sold at SWISH, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Artist's Statement:  For me, it is all about the details. Whether I am making jewelry, needle felting or art journals, it is the fine detail work that I enjoy the most. It is my goal to create art that is meaningful and beautiful. It is through the integration of various media and attention to color, texture, layers and embellishment that I strive to accomplish this. As Renoir once said, "Why shouldn't art be beautiful? There are enough unpleasant things in the world."


Location: Manitou Springs, Colorado, USA
Online Store: pdlugos
Blog: Playing with Texture
Other Social Media: Twitter  
Memberships: EtsyFast
     Exploratory Fiber Arts Group (Colorado Springs, CO)
Languages spoken: English

 "Tuscany" by Peggy Dlugos

Tags: fiber art bracelets, hand needle felting, mixed media book arts, fabric embellishments, embroidery, landscape art, nature, art journals, wet felting

Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc.

Adinkra stamps from Ghana

http://www.culturalcollaborative.org

I have always been interested in cultural connections and have been fortunate to have done a lot of travel.  I landed in Ghana, next to the ocean.

In Ghana I am called Aba, a female born on Thursday.

My guest house/cultural center is in a fishing village in a suburb of Accra.

Many people go to Africa and only have a superficial connection. We want to change that by introducing you to the culture and people on a personal level.  We offer culturally relevant tours, volunteer opportunities, workshops with indigenous artisans, opportunities to write curriculum or perhaps you'd like to learn how to cook African food.


I divide my time between Boston, MA and Ghana. When in Boston, I sell work by Ghanaian artisans from my house.  Because I work with so many artisans, the stock is always changing. My best sellers have to do with adinkra: the adinkra stamps, charts, cloths...  I am also willing to ship, so if there's something you're interested in let me know, or if in Boston, stop by. Email me for more info.

-Ellie Schimelman

Mission: Cross Cultural Collaborative, Inc. is an educational non-profit that invites people to Ghana to promote cultural exchange and education through the arts.

Our vision is to place people from different life experiences in an environment where they can exchange ideas and find universal connections.

Location: Accra, Ghana, West Africa and Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Online shops: Cultural Collaborative, African Craft in Aba's Shop
Blog: Cross Cultural Collaborative
Languages spoken: English

 Handmade paper booklets from Aba House

Tags:  adinkra, kente, traditional african cloth, indigenous textiles, Ghanaian, handmade paper, cultural tours, ocean

Norma Schlager

"What Goes Around Comes Around" by Norma Schlager
www.normaschlager.com

I am an art quilter who has always been happiest when creating something.  I started as a traditional quilter and have made many bed quilts and baby quilts and even taught at local quilt shops and through the adult ed programs.  But, there came a time when I no longer wanted to follow a pattern.  Now all of my wall hangings are my original composition, mostly using my own hand dyed fabrics.  My designs are intuitive  and my finished quilts are often different than what I first had in mind. I draw my inspiration from many places, such as my extensive travels, nature or just the pure love of color.

My quilts are mostly abstract, often using wiggly or "wonky piecing" with vivid colors and high contrast.  I occasionally add fused raw edge applique and the icing on the cake is the extensive free motion machine quilting that I love to do.


Location: Danbury, Connecticut  USA
Blog: Notes from Norma
Memberships: SAQA, Fiber Revolution, SDA
Languages spoken: English

"Salsa City" by Norma Schlager

Tags: art quilts, fiber artist, textile artist, hand dyed fabric, original designs, abstract designs, art quilter