Inspiring Artist - Iviva Olenick

I have been writing, creating, reading, dreaming, and breathing about love these days.
My jewelry designs for the past year have all been inspired by some sort of love.
falling in or out of love,
embracing love,
pushing love away,
trying on love,
trying to offer others my most loving self,
remembering to love myself.
The results in my jewelry designs have been big, bold, with twists and curves, lots of intricate details, sudden ups and downs, asymmetry, with a loudness and a subtlety at the same time.
I have been pleased that each one is a story on its own and that each story has so many possibilities.
I decided that I would search on Etsy to see what other artists are doing with the inspiration of love. So I searched love, and love stories, and love letters. You can imagine all of the cliched pieces that I found, lots of hearts, swarovski crystals, and bluebirds. Not my thing.
Then I stumbled upon work by Brooklyn based artist Iviva Olenick and completely fell in love with what she is doing.

Iviva creates narrative embroidery. Each piece she creates is rich with honest passion and has a delicate blend of heartache and hope. She has a blog www.wereisobesotted.blogspot.com where she too talks about love and how it influences her art. If you feel any connection to her work from these pictures that I've posted, be careful on her blog. I got lost for hours reading and connecting with her artfully sewn life.

Here to Stay 2009
"You camped out in my head for months. You'd start to leave and something would tug you in" "It looks like I'm here to stay" "Even now I find myself talking to you on good days and bad days as if you're standing beside me"

What's Missing 2010
"He wants me to fill what's missing in him. I can't. I can't believe I fell for him either."

Mine Again 2009
"He didn't like sweatpants, or my green fleece bathrobe. I got rid of the sweatpants and kept the bathrobe. He liked to make fun of a pair of high-waisted, "grandma" underwear. When he left, I embroidered curlicues on my underwear, and strode around the apartment in it. I had to learn to make everything that had been ours mine again."

(All work credited to the very talented Iviva Olenick)