I started creating jewelry with domestic and exotic woods in 1988, utilizing the natural grain and colors to create unique earrings, barrettes, pins, and other pieces of jewelry. Wood jewelry is my first love of craft; the marks on wood from its natural grain and color, to the damage left by weather, bugs, and spalting is the best canvas to create from. I learned to work with the natural edges of the wood to design one-of-a-kind pieces.
I have been selling my art at craft fairs in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Ohio; the biggest being the Tennessee Crafts Fair in Centennial Park, from 1993 through 2006. This was my best fair and I did this fair for so long I made my daughter change the day she wanted to be married because it was the TACA fair weekend and I didn’t want to lose my space in this fair!
I still display my crafts at White Oak Craft Fair, in Woodbury, TN, and two studio tours, the “Stones River Studio Tour,” in Rutherford County, TN, and the “Off The Beaten Path Studio Tour,” in Dekalb and Cannon Counties.
In 2003 I took a weekend workshop at the Appalachian Center for the Craft, taught by fiber artist Jeanne Brady. The class was on dyeing. We were taught to change white space using fiber reactive dyes for natural fibers, such as cotton, and silk. Throughout my life I have made several quilt tops and wanted to try dyeing my own fabric for a quilt. During the workshop I bought a couple of silk scarf blanks from the crafts supply store and was mesmerized by the way the dye attached to silk. I have designed parts of backdrops for several plays at the Arts Center of Cannon County, in Woodbury, TN. I have made two quilts of hand dyed cotton, several wall hangings and a few whole cloth quilts but my main focus is manipulating scarf blanks.
I work with fiber reactive dyes on various types of silk, and now include working with indigo and/or rust on silk and bamboo rayon scarf blanks.
Forest Gems became my business name in 1993 for my wood jewelry business and now includes my fiber art.