FIBER  Artist:  Deb Waters


WELCOME to my website!   I’m including information about me here for those of you with

a curious nature.


My first 14-year career was in management and education in non-profit organizations. I wanted to help change the world for the better.  In my mid thirties, I went back to school to earn my Master of Arts degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences, and my work focus was people in the workplace: enhancing skills,  meeting goals efficiently, and expanding effectiveness for the company or agency, as well as creating job satisfaction and success of individuals and their business. I enjoyed 20 years as an independent organization development consultant to businesses and government throughout Washington state.


I discovered knitting in my 50’s and, in anticipation of my retirement, I created WatersColors Art to Wear. Creating fiber art has become my passion, and now that I’m fully retired, I find so much joy in it, I’ve expanded my line of products and styles, and revitalized my website. 

                                              I take pride in designing and creating hats

                                        that are both luxurious and practical.  I have carefully

                                      hand-knitted every stitch, and as of early 2011, I have made

                                           over 500 hats, each one unique and one of a kind. 

I create adornments for my hats that add color and pizzazz.  I want my hats to add beauty and style as well as function to our lives, and let our personalities and joy shine through.  I love seeing a woman don a hat and marvel how lovely she looks in it.   Go to the Hats section to see my hat creations.


I set out to conquer the world, but I got distracted by something sparkly!


          After designing several hat styles, I began making hat pins

           to adorn them.  This eventually led to other jewelry

             designs as well as my new ribbon art.  I love collecting

   beads and findings other artists make then design ways to put them together in new and different ways.  I also enjoy making old pieces into something more wearable today.

You can view my creations in the Jewelry and Ribbon Art section.



A PASSION FOR ANIMALS

I also have a passion for fostering rescued terriers who are on their way to their new and improved lives.  With all my fosters, I try to make up for the unpleasantness (or horror) they’ve experienced before coming here, and help locate their forever family for adoption.  I have adopted my own two spunky Cairn Terriers and one Westie Terrier ~ they make me laugh every day. We’ve created adventurous, joyful lives together.

Saving one dog won’t change the world,

but it WILL change the world for that one dog.




5% of the sale of hats and jewelry will be donated to one of these dog rescue groups ( you can choose the recipient, or I will):  Col. Potter Cairn Rescue, CPCRN which is a national group devoted to rescuing and placing Cairn Terriers <www.cairnrescue.com>;  Best Friends Animal Society which is a large animal sanctuary and animal advocacy group based in Kanab, Utah <www.bestfriends.com>;  or Old Dog Haven, a WA group that rescues and places large, older dogs in their Final Refuge program home placements for hospic-like <www.olddoghaven.org>.  You can decide if you want the contribution in your name, in someone else’s name, or to remain anonymous.


5% of the sale of paintings and giclees will be donated to the Michael M. King Counseling Center Fund at Western WA University in Bellingham, WA to support learning opportunities for counseling interns.



WATERCOLOR  Artist:  MICHAEL KING

The section on Paintings displays the watercolor paintings done by my husband




Michael M. King 1939 - 2006

                  

  You can learn more about him and his art work below and in the Paintings section. 



                                                                      



 

Michael King in August 2004

Background and Philosophy Written by

I have been drawing and painting since I was a child.  I attended college as an undergraduate at Ohio State University where I received a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art).  After a stint in the Army (my final post was next to the Pentagon where I converted the Arms Room into a studio and painted seascapes for a new mess hall), I moved to California (yes, I went west as a young man).  I enrolled at the University of California – Berkeley where I received an MA in painting. 

At Ohio State I was trained in the style du jour called abstract expressionism and worked solely in oils.   By the time I attended Berkeley acrylic paints had been invented and their characteristics had led to a new style du jour called color field painting.  I expect you will find remnants of both of those styles in my current work, but I have tried out many other approaches over the years. 

I have found myself drawn again and again to artwork that is paradoxically free and unrestrained and at the same time exacting and carefully observed, and I aim for that combination in my work. 

I have come to have little patience with the larger art world’s pomposity and, for lack of a better term, weirdness.  I do not feel it should be necessary to be “in the know” to appreciate a work of art.  Consequently, I like my own work to be approachable. 

I love color, as I expect is obvious.  Artists today have available an abundance of pigments only dreamed of in previous centuries.  I also love realism and while at times I will bend it to my needs, you should readily be able to recognize what I am painting.  Realism alone can be boring, however, so I like to allow many passages of a painting to blend and flow together, adding mystery.  Flowers can offer the best of both color and realism, so they often become my subject. 

For many years I wanted to paint like Andrew Wyeth.  Very recently I discovered the work of Charles Reid and have found much inspiration in it.  I learned that when he was young he wanted to paint like Andrew Wyeth too. 

There was a time when my interest in art waned.  In hindsight I expect that the realms of abstract expression and color field painting in which I was trained were too limited to find sustaining inspiration.  I got interested in psychology, became a licensed psychologist, and did no artwork at all for about 20 years.  I returned to it with renewed energy about a dozen years ago and have now settled into a style that I find endlessly inspirational and challenging.  Two years ago I began pursuing opportunities to show and sell my work.