Women Entrepreneur Series: Cartwheel Jess

     Jessica Rogers has been an active maker in the Kansas City area for many years but she has recently launched a brand new line of hand-dyed home good and accessories called the Indigo Collection.

    Made in the traditional Japanese method called Shibori, she hand dyes the fabric (in her back yard!) then hand sews it into everything from yoga mats, baby rompers, scarves, tapestries and wall mounted pieces. Jess will be debuting this limited edition collection at Boulevardia June 17-19 in KCMO.  That means that if you want one of these luscious items, you'll need to purchase it soon because this is not an ongoing collection. She wants to keep that feeling of freshness by constantly creating new and different collections, including some larger fine art quilts and mixed media pieces.

  Jess says that she feels that with the arrival of her baby boy Sonny last year, she is now at a point in her life where it's clear to her what path she wants her art to take. "Since my time is more divided now, I realize want I truly want to focus on and that's not reproducing the same items but creating new ones in collections that are always evolving."

The Indigo Collection is available on her site www.cartwheeljess.com and at Boulevardia.

Gee's Bend Quilts

 I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't heard of Gee's Bend and their incredible history of quilt making until just recently. Their simplicity and graphic quality inspired one of these pieces from my Saturation Point collection.  NPR did a wonderful story called "The Quilts of Gee's Bend - A Showcase of work by African-American Artists."  It explains in-depth about the history of the people of Gee's Bend, the quilts and the art that came from a necessity. 

Below is a terrific example of their color blocking and mixing by Arlonzia Pettway from the book "Gee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts," Tinwood Books 2002.

Now off to pack for my trip to NYC!  See you at Surtex and stay tuned for my updates!