We asked our next (and much anticipated!) Zoom Café guest a few fun questions so you can get to know her better—and get excited about crafting beautiful cuff bracelets together!
What is your favorite thing about being a woman?
That I can be and look exactly the way I choose!
You are known as a fashion icon and as an artist. Which love came first, fashion or art?
The creative process was the main motivator. It is difficult to separate the two! I have always loved dressing up and it was encouraged as an act of play, not consumption or to be trendy. When studying art, I often would turn the art into something for the body as a form; not necessarily fashion or apparel, but more of a performance piece. I would call them “Fibrous Raiments” using an archaic term to differentiate it from clothing or apparel!
You inspire us with your transformational recycling and upcycling… What was your inspiration to turn toilet paper rolls, plastic mesh, bottle caps and more into statement-making jewelry and other accessories?
Because of their availability and abundance they speak to me. “Here I am! What can we do together to create something new?” We become friends!
If you could invite one famous artist or fashion icon to dinner, who would it be and why?
Tilda Swinton because she IS her own person. She is always stunning and elegant without the expected Hollywood glitz!!! She does not try to be a sex symbol but rather a true artist!
Your work is in the collections of many museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Where are you showing your most recent work?
I just had a one-woman show for 2 years at The Ilias Lalaounas Jewelry Museum in Athens, Greece! It was an exceptional installation with additions of life-sized photographs.
I also exhibited 3 pieces at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in “Off the Wall: American Art to Wear” from November 2019 to April 2020. One piece remains in their collection, acquired in 1993 from the exhibition, “Ahead of Fashion: Hats of the 20th Century.”
Recently, work went to museums in Victoria, AU and a museum in Stockholm, Sweden as well as “The Ring Show” at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, then traveled to Houston and Memphis. And two recent acquisitions went to the Stewart Program of Modern Design, Montreal Museum of Art.
Check out this charming INTERVIEW with Debra, and see you 5/20/22 @4PM (EST) in the Zoom Café. Don’t forget to RSVP above!