Hurricane Carrie Creations started as a mother-daughter "let's do a craft like when I was a little girl" mother's day adventure. I ended the evening with a necklace put together with a paper clip, mom (Dar) had a long strand of crochet with some beads on it...
That summer, my husband and I stayed at a B&B in Cedar City, Utah. I'd figured out how to attach a real clasp to my necklace and was wearing it for a fancy night out when the owner offered to buy it off me. I told her she could have it and I would just make myself a new one. Turns out she was opening a gift shop and could I make more for her to sell. A few weeks after they were delivered, she called me asking for more as they had all sold.
Dar and I did our first art show that winter, I juried into my first gallery (Trimble Court Artisans) that spring and Hurricane Carrie Creations has been growing ever since.
When I was young, I was gently discouraged from pursuing art. I can’t paint and I can’t draw to save my life – stick with the math and science was the message I heard. So I did, and I love those subjects, but they just didn’t fill up my entire being with wonder the way my crochet does. When I create a piece of jewelry and it turns into so much more than the sum of its very simple parts, I feel like I just created a little tiny bit of life. Then one day I received the greatest compliment and inspiration: “it’s like you’re painting with beads and wire” and I thought – yeah, why not! And so the seeds for my willow trees were sown. It has taken a few years for those seeds to grow into trees, but I plan to continue growing a huge forest!