Fifty-plus artists will grace the streets of the LowerTown Festival May 15 and 16th in Paducah. On Sounds Good, Kate Lochte meets Tahmi DeSchepper who will bring her woven metal, fused glass jewelry from Fairfield, in Southeast Iowa.
Tahmi weaves fabric out of thin gauged metal and embeds it behind glass, which is then fused into shapes to distort and magnify the weave. Depending on your perspective, the piece can look very different depending on how you look at it. She says she gets a lot of inspiration from textiles, going back to embroidering and tatting at a young age.
She uses a kiln to do her fusing, taken different layers of glass and stacking them on top of each other. She then uses tack-fusing to make everything stick. Weaving can be a repetitive process, and the repetition of bending the metal can cause metal fatigue. So she's developed a process of trying different types of weaving where she could create an interesting pattern in a consistent way, inspired by medieval techniques she learned about while studying for her degree in ancient and medieval history.
Tahmi DeSchepper is one of fifty plus artists whose works will be for sale and on display in the booths of the LowerTown Arts & Music Festival in Paducah May 15 and 16.
See more about her woven metal jewelry at tahmi.com. See a map for LowerTown Arts & Music Festival, along with more about all the artists showing works as well as the schedule for music performances on Main and Harrison Street stages at the Festival's Facebook page or lowertownamf.com.
