Fun, quirky and designed to make you smile. Michele Tway’s bird and animal sculptures are a celebration of color, design and whimsy. Michele is a 4th generation crochet and fiber artist. For the most part, her family worked in two dimensions - their afghans, doilies and embroideries can be found throughout her home. Michele, however, prefers working in three dimensions and mixing mediums and techniques.

You might not see all of them, but, Michele uses at least 50 different materials on her mixed media sculptures. In the true spirit of assemblage art, she primarily uses materials from other artists, friends and family. Michele turns their left-over materials into a single, unified piece infused with her own and often a dozen or more other artists’ creative spirit. She’s used everything from a single, one-yard length of sock yarn cut off a newly finished pair of socks to beads from a retired jewelry maker to recycled pillow fringe and even the feathers off of a hair clip.

Michele assembles techniques much like she acquires her supplies. She takes ideas from everywhere and finds a way to use them in her own unique way. She pairs the additive and carving techniques of sculptors with those used by teddy bear and doll makers. Jewelry making techniques can be found on the eyes of all of her sculptures as well as the internal armature. She’s built upon traditional and modern crochet techniques to make her own hybrid version of free-form crochet. Add in elements of 2,000 year old Chinese embroidery, costume making, haberdashery, and whatever new idea she might find tomorrow and you begin to see that every one of Michele’s sculptures will be unique and truly one of a kind.

Her work is inspired by natural species, but Michele does not strive to perfectly recreate them. After all, she says, “Where would the fun be in that?”

Michele’s work is primarily available at the Folk Art Center when she is participating in one of the exhibitions or conducting an Educational Demonstration. Check Michele's website ( https://micheletway.com ) or Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/micheletwayfiberartist ) for dates and times.