About

Hi! I’m Darci, a fiber artist living in Norman, Oklahoma. I specialize in miniature thread painting embroidery and hand felted wool art.

Thread painting is a style of embroidery where individual stitches are used like strokes of ink or paint to create a realistic likeness of an image, at least for me. I love creating meaningful memories for my patrons, many of whom order commissions as a gift for a special occasion like a wedding or anniversary, or a memorial of a beloved person or pet. My felted wool works are done with a combination of wet and needle felting. I am currently building my portfolio of new felted work, so please check back soon for more.

I fell in love with fiber art as a student at the University of Central Oklahoma almost 30 years ago. I didn’t even know it really existed as an art form until then! I proceeded to take every class I could, mostly in various forms of weaving, felting, and paper and book making. While raising my kids, I had a successful business making stuffed dolls. It’s fun to see them pop up sometimes, as there were well over a thousand of them made over about 12 years. I was burnt out and needed something else to do, so I started a daily embroidery project. I did one one-inch circle a day over the course of a year. I learned a lot about embroidery, which I had previously only used as an embellishment on other art. With the restrictions of doing the same size and shape every day, I had a lot of room to experiment. I tried thread painting just to get more detail in realistic images, and loved it! This project eventually became part of ArtNow 2019 at Oklahoma Contemporary, where all 365 circles were displayed, and won the Viewer’s Choice Award.

The following year, I did two year-long projects side-by-side. It was a year of tiny, thread painted foods. I sent one food to everyone that signed up to donate locally to help hungry people. It was an amazing experience! It ended with sending foods to 368 people, all 50 US states, 18 countries, and six continents. The second project was a piece with all 368 foods embroidered on one piece of fabric, based off of the 1 Year of Stitches project by Hannah Claire Sommerville in 2016.

Since focusing solely on thread painting, I have had work shown in numerous exhibitions. I am extremely proud of my work, and am still always looking for ways I can make it even better. I am drawn to any interesting shapes and colors, lights and shadows. A couple of years ago, I really liked that you could see that my work was made with thread, whereas now I am focusing more on making it not look like thread. I love when it gets mistaken for a photograph! Some of my favorite, recurring themes are space, nature, and portraits.

Want to see more or take a class with me? Check the links below.