ART YOU CAN WEAR
Festivals feature handmade creations.
Lisa Butts is a school financial administrator by day but an artist in fine glass jewelry at night. She cuts sheets of glass, creates designs, fires them, grinds and polishes until she gets unique translucent pendants that may surprise her as much as anyone.
“Glass reacts different ways,” she said. “You never know how it’s going to come out of the kiln. But that’s the beauty of it.”
Butts will be among 44 artists offering their work at art2wear, a planned series of indoor art festivals to be held in cities in the Southeast. It kicks off Friday through Sunday in Germantown.
The debut event at the Great Hall and Conference Center will offer handcrafted jewelry, apparel and accessories as well as live demonstrations on weaving, metalwork, lampwork glass and more.
A preview gala is 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday with the grand showcases 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The series, which will feature the work of artists in seven mostly Southern states, is produced by ArtWorks Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to pro- moting local art, according to executive director Greg Belz.
“This is all wearable art,” said Butts, president of the Memphis Association of Craft Artists who said she hasn’t encountered a similar show. “It’s a novel idea, and I think it has intrigued people.”
It creates new opportunities especially helpful to artists who may be better craftspeople than marketers of their work, she noted.
“A lot of people say they don’t produce enough work to do a whole booth at a
show,” Butts said. “And finding those retail outlets and wholesale markets that will represent you is very time-consuming. ... Art2wear expands the audience for our work.”
Butts, who works at her home studio and garage in Germantown, creates glass pendant necklaces and hammered metal pieces for $ 50 to $200 and sells them at three shops in the area as well as shows here and elsewhere. She said it might take about 55 hours to create three or four pieces of jewelry, which must be fired at least twice.
“I use a lot of mixed colors,” she said. “My favorite palette is warm fall colors.”
“I’ve been waiting for something like this to come to Memphis,” said Lisa Mergen, a fiber artist and former Memphian now living in Nashville. “This is going to be a perfect mix of fiber and jewelry.”
Mergen hand dyes and paints silk and velvet to create women’s jackets, scarves, tops and fiber necklaces. She also creates a textured bubble jacket made of silk and Lycra which she stretches on a frame and dyes in layers, then cut and sews according to her own design.
Mergen’s scarves generally sell for $60 to $200; fiber necklacesfor $95 to $150 and her silk and Lycra bubble jacket for $395. She wholesales her work but notes that many fiber artists cannot afford to exhibit at big wholesale shows.
“It’s our turn to get our work out there,” she said.
Another fiber artist in the show is Memphian Felicitas Sloves, originally from the Netherlands, who creates handbags, as well as apparel and accessories of handwoven fabric.
The preview gala here will include hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, strolling musicians, and the first chance to buy. The showcases Friday and Saturday will include food sampling and spa and salon services as well as craft demonstrations.
Belz anticipates expanding the showcases to 12 to 18 cities per year. The next event takes place May 2426 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.