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I am in awe of this new endeavor from Austin artist, Curlin Reed Sullivan. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that Curlin is a good friend of mine. What I love about this project is that it symbloizes not only Curlin's immense talent and artistic eye, but also her enthusiasiasm for trying new things and collaborating with other artists.
I've had the pleasure of collaborating with talented friend and milliner, Laura Del Villagio of Milli Starr to design a hat we've donated to the Hello Birdie Auction sponsored by Uplift Austin and Big Red Sun. It's been so much fun learning more about Laura's millinery craft. She hand-blocked this hat with parasisal straw and we embellished it together. I needle-felted aflowergal who's chatting with the sweet little needle-felted bird who's popping out of his birdhouse. it was so inspiring and fun to work together...create together...design the floral trims from our collective supply of vintage and new millinery flowers and leaves and berries.
When it comes to trying out new techniques, Curlin has no fear. She gleefully translates her iconic "flower girls" into media of all shapes and sizes. She has a successful line of greeting cards, prints, mixed media shadow boxes, embroidery kits and even ceramics. I love how child-like she is with her art and craft. She gets so excited about trying new things and jumps right in to new techniques like needle felting - something with which she's just recently begun to experiment.
Curlin is a great example for not limiting yourself to one medium out of fear, or to working alone because you don't want to share the spotlight. I remember working with Curlin in our surface design class one year ago. She mentioned that her goals for the coming year were to branch out and work on more collaborations with other creative folks. Her brilliant works in the last year have been a great study in the fantastic things that can happen when you collaborate and open yourself up to new things, and most importantly, set a few goals for yourself.
