My road to making wearable art has been a winding one, but interestingly enough, all of the little and big turns along the way have ultimately pointed in the same direction.

Having spent my childhood and formative years in Communist Russia, when it was still called the Soviet Union, my ability to develop as an artist was extremely limited by cultural constraints, from the availability of materials to the choices for professional development. At the time, the sensible decision was to get involved not in the visual arts, which had always been my unspoken passion, but in languages and music due to my family heritage. But both have made an invaluable contribution to my development as an artist through exposure to other creative fields, relationships with many interesting and accomplished individuals, and travel.

Ever since I can remember, I had a problem wearing what was mass produced and available in stores. I would paint my boots, tear up a curtain for fabric, and dry things I found in the forest for adornments. I learned many different skills, growing up in an environment where everything needs to be created, not just from scratch, but from next to nothing by way of materials. That gives an artist-at-heart the prerequisite open mind and perseverance for what was to come. In retrospect, I couldn’t have wished for a better training.

In the 1990s, I entered the world of mixed media, using photography as the "delivery mechanism" to render objects that often could not be easily preserved or moved (like fruit, vegetables, flowers, rusted farm equipment). I admired the unifying transformation of the colorful originals into the myriad of monochromatic hues that black-and-white photography offered. My works can still be seen at www.abstractphotography.com and in public and private collections in the United States and abroad, including two which are in the permanent collection of The National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Ultimately for me, creating art that could only be displayed on walls was too limiting for my vision, and after rediscovering the many incredible opportunities of fiber arts, I settled on creating art which can be enjoyed by and shared with a much larger audience. I feel like I have found my final destination as an artist in art-to-wear clothing, with the absolutely limitless opportunities for growth, experimentation and expansion that it offers. My goal is to take it as far as possible, a challenge I will enjoy infinitely along the way!