Artist: Abby Kiker | Location: Hattiesburg, MS
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Artist: Abby Kiker | Location: Hattiesburg, MS
Hattiesburg, MS
Abby Kiker is a professional costume designer for theatre. She has been a college professor teaching costume design for nearly fifteen years, and she is currently in the beginning stages of launching her own studio business, Blue tAbby Studios. Under this name, she plans to continue to design costumes on a freelance basis, as well as create personal studio art.
In 2011, she was working a summer contract for Unto These Hills, in Cherokee, NC. While there, she learned to use a bead loom. She quickly outgrew the child's toy kit that she bought (just for fun). She learned to hand draft her own patterns on graph paper, and she learned to plot more and more complex designs. Abby started by creating jewelry (bracelets, necklaces, etc), but recently she has been inspired to try more difficult pieces, in the form of wall art. These pieces are getting bigger and bigger, because she enjoys the challenge of "painting" with the tiny glass beads. She works on homemade wooden looms (her husband made them for her, before that first summer in Cherokee was over), and Abby finding that she is able to express stories through the textures and colors.
Abby lives in Hattiesburg, MS, with her husband of nearly ten years, and her son, who is loving kindergarten this year.