This effort here on Etsy "Fine Art and Cool Stuff" was forged as a means to manage an urge to make art, collect "stuff", preserve and celebrate memories while promoting utilitarianism.

My own artwork utilizes mostly vintage "pre-loved" items as well as salvaged materials. The sculptures that are a part of the Stitched Dress Series have been exhibited over the years under the title "Pausing to be Continued".

The first dress in this series was given to me by my very dear friend Joy (!!) who thought it might fit my daughter one day. Joy loved her wool blue and white checked Bobbie Brooks design with a wide white belt, and could not part with it except to know that it would be appreciated.

As I folded Joy's dress and laid it down on my studio table I noticed that it looked softly forlorn, as if it realized it was now a cast off, but it had an hopeful air about it as well, as if it knew it was destined to yet have a future. The dress had a story to tell...if only it could speak...

I already had acquired numerous vintage dresses by then as my grandmother had given me several of her dresses when I was a teenager to use as material for the clothes I was making. I used a couple of them but soon found that I could not bear to cut them up: it felt like I was cutting up a photograph. They were cool to begin with, full skirts, side zippers, constructed so nicely from brightly printed patterns and beautiful colors. They were also so special to me having been enjoyed by my grandmother over the years, plus I had worn them too and had memories of my own embedded in the clothes' fabric. So I just hung on to them and over they years collected more vintage dresses which had that same "been somewhere, seen something" air about them.

Now that I knew what to do, I folded each of them until I could hear their whispers, their songs, their laughter...their screams, their sighs...and then I picked up my needle and some thread and started stitching up the shape they had become until they stayed in place.

Eventually, the utilization of other items besides dresses began to occur in my work: tall fun interactive curtain columns, tupperware towers, broken china tablecloths, stacked furniture... all manipulated until they became memories amplified.

As I searched for "new old" materials for my art I soon realized that there is so much previously treasured "cool stuff" out there that I might never be able to use it all but ! I still collected away anyway.

Thus as I mentioned above, in order to make room for new art and "cool stuff" and manage my ...urge to collect, this gallery was opened.

Hopefully, you will find something for your own collections as you browse theomerryart's virtual shelves!

If you have such a dress, or curtain, or a whatever! with memories attached, and would like me to work with it to preserve its history for you, I would be happy to accept the project as a commissioned custom work! Convo me to discuss!