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.

Colorful Damasks

Here is another sneak peak at one of my newest collections "Colorful Damasks". I'll be showing this collection, along with 15 other brand new collections, will be shown in booth #357 Sunday, May 19-Tuesday, May 21. If you're a licensee, I'd love to meet you and show you some of my 35 collections or if you can't make it to the show, please contact me at tammy@tammysmithdesign.com for a password to view my collections page.

For those of you who don't know about Surtex, it's a surface design trade show that I exhibit at every year in NYC. Over 300 artists exhibit their surface design work in the hopes of being able to license it to companies for their products. It is held in conjunction with the Stationery Show and the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair).

New Patterns for 2013 Surtex-Musicality and Lock and Key

This week I'm going to start showing some of my new collections that will be debuting at Surtex this year.

 Below are Musicality and Lock and Key. Last year I focused on mostly abstract patterns so this year I'm doing more illustrative work. More to come tomorrow!

Surtex time again!

I finally finished my ad for ArtBuyer magazine that will be distributed at Surtex. Can't wait to be in NY now but it feels like I still have so much to do! Please come see me in booth #357 and stop by and say hi!

New Invites and E-Cards for Halloween

I've been busy designing new Halloween invites and e-cards in my Pingg studio! Here's a few examples below--click on the Pingg button on the right side of this page to take you to my studio.

On the Other Hand...Something Completely Different

I am very excited about a new direction I've decided to go in! It's both a departure of sorts and also revisiting my past...I'll explain. When I worked at Hallmark here in KC, I was in the Party and Giftwrap department. We didn't design the cards that Hallmark is most known for--we designed the surface pattern. The decoration that went on everything from wrap to bags to plates, napkins, and cups. I became well versed at creating a repeat in Photoshop (after computers came along-before that we did it by hand with photocopies.)

So I have decided that in addition to continuing to create my 3D pieces (and finishing that commission piece from the last post), I am going to Surtex next May to begin my reintroduction into licensing! I am shooting for having at least 12 collections of 8 coordinating designs each. I started a couple of weeks ago and now have a few card and collection ideas percolating...it's really exciting to work in another dimension for a change. I think it uses a completely different side of my brain than building mixed media pieces, or at least it feels that way. How about you? Heading in any new directions?