My Background in Textiles and Art itself

I started sewing my own clothes at age seven.  After a year of "traditional" quilting in 1992, I got bored with the repetitive stitching and same cotton fabrics, and all the traditional RULES….so I took the techniques and worked them into clothing, using all types of fabric…adding surface embellishments and collecting ethnic textiles and artifacts.  The “Pandora’s box” effect took hold, and that’s how it all began!

Creating wearable art and wall designs of my own, I began to study surface design and embellishing techniques from local artists, artists from abroad, and books with pictures!  Love pictures…hate instructions….   I learned techniques such as hand felting hats, Japanese and Peruvian braiding, tassel making, off-loom woven jewelry, beading, wirework, fabric printing and dyeing, etc....   I have also come up with a few original fabric manipulations/embellishments of my own (see my articles in back of portfolio and list of publications, awards, runways shows, and galleries)

My love and respect of animals, nature, color, and texture inspires my work.  My choices of colors and use of ethnic textiles, has contributed to my style evolving into a very multi-cultural and “statement” appeal. I look at anthropology and ethnic attire, and think of the original creators as the "wearable artists".

I like making statements with my work and often draw ideas from other art mediums, and now the newest of which is body painting so enjoy the ride with me as who knows where it will take me! 

I also create wall designs, both framed and directly upon walls, such as a house I embellished in 2001, and I redesign mundane furniture into lively speak to you type works with a combination of paints, beads, crystals, artifacts, trims….well, you get the picture.

“Being bold and expressive, free-spirited, flamboyant, eccentric, humorous, and oh so passionate, is the way to live and love….and it is why we are here!”   Take your lead from nature itself. 

 I am most alive when I am in the process of being passionate.  ~Elaine Fortune