Artist crafts with zippers

"Zipper Mania with Wendy Hill" opens July 3, the same day as the Eighth Annual Fiber Art Stroll, in Sisters. The exhibit of quilts, jewelry, tote bags, vases and bowls, 3D creatures, and more can be seen through July 10 at the Sisters Library.

Meet and talk to Wendy at the exhibit on July 9 and 10, coinciding with the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and the Save it for Sunday events.

Hill started collecting zippers in 2008. After putting out a call for zippers in the Midstate Electric Ruralite magazine, Wendy received over 90 packages of zippers from all over the western United States. Since then she's been "upcycling" the zippers, also known as "repurposing." This is a way to use a material in a new way, not as originally intended, often keeping the material out of the landfills.

The artist re-imagined these zippers as fabric, embellishment, beads, and piping in her quilts, tote bags, jewelry, three-dimensional objects and more. Zippers open up a new way to create fiber art, which is a good match for Wendy's belief that form, not function, is at the heart of her creations. She calls herself an "object maker," but she uses the same sensibilities in her work as any other visual artist.