Happily Hooked digital crochet magazine now has 31 issues under its belt. I’ve been writing crochet health interviews with a variety of fabulous crafters for publication in that magazine since it launched. I love doing these interviews and they continue with this month’s publication of my interview with Elizabeth Pond-Kirk.
Starting with this issue, I’m also doing profiles of crochet artists, which is always a favorite topic for me to research. I loved doing an interview with wire crochet artist Deanna Gabiga for the October 2016 issue of the magazine. You can read the entire article about her amazing work in the digital version of the issue. There was one part that ended up being excluded because she had such rich information to share that the article was just too long to include everything. I’d love to share that excluded excerpt with you today:
“This “Invasives” series was a collaboration with artist Michelle Schwengel-Regala. The two had been following each other on Instagram for a long time and Michelle reached out to Deanna as soon as she arrived in Hawaii, inviting her to join in on a few local art events. Each of the artists and separately, and unbeknownst to each other, applied to Contact 2016: Foreign and Familiar with installation proposals addressing “invasives” and the organizers of the project realized that the theme and materials could be combined together into a larger, more impactful piece. Asked about this collaboration, Deanna says, “It was great to work with another fiber artist, and I knew that she would do well with her part so there weren’t any worries on my end. It felt good to work with her and great to do our Artist Talk together.” The two installed their show in March and were invited to keep it up past the show’s end date, then it was selected to be shown at another venue so they worked together to configure it for the new space. Deanna says that not only was the collaboration great but that completing a larger project like this allowed her to connect with so many different people who came to her studio, many who could recognize the wire crochet work.”