FAST Member Interview- Wyncia

If you’re a member of FAST and would like to be featured in the weekly interview, visit this thread in the yahoo group to get the questions, then send your answers (and a picture or two if you’d like) to me at merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com (or a convo to merigreenleaf). These will be posted in the order I receive them.

What is your name?
Wyncia Clute. I live in the foothills above Boulder Colorado.

What is your Etsy shop? Does your shop name have a meaning?
My Etsy shop’s name is simply Wyncia’s Shop: Bags, Dolls, and More at Wyncia.etsy.com. I have had a website and blog for several years which is www.wyncia.com. I wanted the shop to tie in with my name for recognition, and because it is unusual and quite nice. It is from a Southern name Lou Wyncia which is from a Welsh name Llewyncia or something close to that.

Besides your Etsy shop, do you sell anywhere else? Do you have a website or blog?
In addition to the Etsy, I sell at local craft fairs and my co-op Uniquely Natural Healing Arts and Gifts (www.uniquelynatural.com and on Facebook as Uniquely Natural). I have been lacking the confidence to go out looking for consignment placements, though it is on my list.

How long have you been making art/crafting? What was the first thing you remember making?
My mother was a sewer, needle worker, and a puppeteer who was always making something. I have followed her path, though work and family restricted my time for years. Now with children grown and work reduced to part time assisting in my husband’s business, I devote my primary energies to developing my craft and creativity. The first things I remember making were doll clothes and puppets.

What kind of fiber arts do you do? If different from the previous question, what was the first fiber art thing you made?
I work with fabric to make bags, stuffed figures, and 2D images from fabric built of scraps of fiber and paper adhered to a gauze base.

What’s your favorite thing to make?
Bags are still my favorite. I like that they are useful, the pragmatist in me comes out. When I started sewing again about five years ago, I first made insulated ice cream bags for grocery shopping. Remember the triple layered paper and foil bags stores used to put our ice cream purchases in? As a girl I would go shopping with me father on Saturday mornings. He bought a ½ gallon carton of Neapolitan ice cream that the grocer put in that special bag to help keep it cold. Well, our stores do not do that anymore. We have to bring our own bags. So I made my own, then some for friends, then other shopping type bags with insulation…and I was off.

(Click the below link to read the rest of the interview and see more pictures)

What do you think is the strangest or most unusual fiber arts item you have made or been asked to make?
I have taken a photo and layered it on sheer fabric to create a dream like image that moves with the slightest breeze. It is a very personal piece of a row boat in the moon’s beam, on a lake at night.

Where is the craziest or most interesting place you’ve ever crocheted, knitted, felted, spun yarn, etc?
The car, which is not so odd.

What is your favorite place to work?
I love to work at home in my studio. I have a skylight for natural light and an opening in the interior wall that looks over out living room and out the windows to the plains way below us.

What inspires you? Where does your inspiration come from?
The fabric itself often. I collect samples of Japanese fabrics and others. I put them together as I work. I seldom plan ahead, but design as I go. Serendipity; I love it.

What is your favorite color? Do you tend to work with that color, or do you find yourself working with other colors?
I prefer warm colors. I find I have to make myself chose blues and greens.

Do you prefer a specific type of fiber?
I prefer natural fibers: cotton, hemp, flax, wool.

Is there any other kind of art (fiber-related or not) that you’d like to learn?
I am anxious to start making cloth and paper beads and buttons! And I have a mixed media altered book in mind. So much to do!!!

Tell us a bit about yourself- where do you live, what’s your job, do you have a spouse/children/pets, any other hobbies, that kind of thing.
I live with my husband Larry Kinney who works in energy conservation and building science as an inventer. We have our old dog Pooh who makes a specialty of sleeping outside all day. We have five grown children between us who live from Syracuse, NY to Kauai, HI. If we were richer in money we would see more of them. I especially look forward to visiting my daughter Maggie who is a yoga teacher, Reike practitioner, and adventure tour leader in Kauai. I have not visited her since she moved from Maui in February.

Tell us one quirky thing about you (or one thing no one knows about you).
I dream amazing dreams that are like complex movies that I walk through. Almost every night I travel to a lake in the Adirondacks where I spent summers with my mother and grandparents as a girl. It seems to be persistent home to my soul.

Tags: etsyfast, member interview

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 8:27 am and is filed under featured member. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.