Mission Statement:
To find my visual language, express and process messages from my subconscious and dreams by making beautiful things and sharing my stories. Helping other artist find their voice, be inspired to heal their fears, create, share and prosper. Building a community of soul artist who want the world to be a kinder, supportive and creative place.
I find a connection to historic craft traditions with fiber art. Not only through the Appalachian traditions from which I learned to spin and weave, but in making wearable art which is a nod to the long line of hobby and professional seamstresses in my family.
I spent 25 years as a professional commercial artist, learning to communicate visually through color and composition of type, images and medium. I find myself using those same communication skills when I make fiber art. Only now I am expressing what is in my heart (as opposed to selling a client’s product) using texture, color, shape, and tradition. Rows become words, yardage becomes ballads.
Rather than gather inspirations for specific projects, I gather inspirations by just observing my everyday life. Not just nature, but by slowing down, noticing all the little day to day curiosities. Maybe it is a map of an urban development, the color of the aggregate in a parking lot, the geese in formation overhead or even a beautiful tray of sushi. These inspirations surface from deep within my subconscious first in my daily art journal entries, and eventually in my fiber art. I am a firm believer in not overthinking my work with left-brained analyzations, but to let my right-brain play, surfacing feelings and dreams engineered by my inspirations.
I work in the moment only focusing on the area before me. I use texture, color and composition to express what is resonating with my subconscious within that very moment, being conscious how that dovetails with the design of the previous sections visible within the working area of my loom, creating a visual timeline of my subconscious. A length of cloth tells a story of what has gathered in my heart through thousands upon thousands of inspirations. That fiber art wearable becomes a way to drape one in that expression of my heart. That in turn becomes my inspiration to live my life even deeper, and to share those inspirations through my art.
Who Is UrbanGypZ?
Stacey Budge-Kamison, UrbanGypZ, has been spinning, knitting, crocheting, weaving and dyeing fiber art since 2001 and currently works in her home studio in Cary, NC. She can also be found knitting in public, hammering out her latest e-course at local cafés and spinning yarns in her booth at her favorite arts festivals. Formally trained as a graphic designer, she uses those same visual communication skills of her former career to express her creative work through texture, color and design of textiles. Inspired by handmade yarns, she loves the challenge of embracing the unpredictability of her medium and works to design in the moment inch by inch as she created fabrics that showcase the each yarn’s unique properties. With an avid following online, Stacey teaches and speaks on creativity and fiber art, as well as publishes a weekly blog article on right-brain creativity, encouraging other fiber artists to find their unique voice and the courage to step onto their own path as artists. Stacey has been designing and tech editing patterns professionally since 2002 and is thrilled to take her love of fiber arts and love of print media design into new offerings for her fiber art customers.
Email Stacey at stacey@urbangypz.com
CV
Exhibit
UM Art Alumni Show, Montevallo, AL, February 1996, February 2009, February 2020
Trunk Show, Purl’s Yarn Emporium, Asheville, NC, June 2010
Trunk Show, Black Mountain Yarn Shop, July 2011
Trunk Show, Downtown Knits, Apex, NC, November 2011
The Mimi Strang Collective Holiday Exhibit, Asheville, NC, December 2011
Twist, Black Rock Center For The Arts, Germantown, MD, November-December 2016
Truth To Power 7, Pleiades Art, Inc. Durham, NC, July 2019
Reclaiming My Time, VAE Raleigh, The National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC, September-December 2019
Fresh, Artspace Raleigh, NC May 2020
Juried Art & Craft Festivals
Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), Black Mountain, NC, October 2008, October 2012
CraftyFeast, Columbia, SC, July 2010
Indie Craft Parade, Greenville, SC, September 2010, September 2011, September 2012
The Indie Craft Experience, Atlanta, GA, June 2011
Urban Craft Uprising, Seattle, WA July 2011
Handmade Market, Raleigh, NC, November 2011
Art Star Craft Bazaar, Philadelphia, PA May 2012
Workshops
Art Journaling for Fiber Artists, Designing with Grids, On Higher Ground, Taos, NM 2014
Lectures
Finding Real Inspirations, WNC Fibers/Handweavers Guild, Hendersonville, NC, January 2014
Marketing for Fiber Artists, Local Cloth, Weaverville, NC, September 2014
Right Brain Inspirations, Piedmont Fiber Guild, Gastonia, NC, January 2015
Right Brain Inspirations, WNC Knitter’s Guild, Waynesville, NC, July 2016
Education
BFA, with a concentration in commercial art, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL 1988
See my LinkedIn profile here