About

Susette Carter Shiver

Visual arts, visual enjoyment

My History

I love color and the pieces shown in Hand Dyed Art show that. I take great pleasure in dyeing cloth and quilting by hand, making these pieces possible. To purchase go to my Etsy shop or contact me directly for custom orders through Etsy. 

Since childhood I have been an avid knitter, and have enjoyed crocheting and sewing. Now with the opportunity to work in my own fiber studio my personal style has emerged and is shown in the pieces you see here. Until I retired fully in 2019, I divided my time between the art presented here, my vocation as a cancer cell scientist and Professor Emerita at Georgetown University Medical Center, and music.  Throughout recent history (well a couple of decades) I have been an old time country musician playing music with my husband (The Shiver Show) and friends. We live adjacent to Asheville, NC in Leicester in western North Carolina, a world all of its own.  My inspiration comes from what I see outside my window on Hanlon Mountain and from my science. 

My Studio and Process

My downstairs kitchen is converted to a studio space with light pouring in from the east in the mornings.  The studio grows as I do. I use a variety of surface design techniques such as batik, silkscreen, stamping, and painting.  I enjoy the process of hand quilting and the patterns created on the fly.  Some pieces I also machine stitch in simple designs. All of my work reflects what I see around me through my windows and outside on walks and are facilitated by my photography.  New works include pieces inspired by my experiences as a botanist and cell biologist using various computer-assisted microscopes such as the laser scanning confocal microscope (confocal microscope for short).  

I love the surprises I encounter as I experiment with new colors and techniques.  They inspire and energize me.