About Us

LaVonne Salleé was born in Roswell, New Mexico. Her father was an artist and her mother was a seamstress and waitress. From about the age of seven, she began sewing from her mother's scraps; since age 14, she has made and designed most of her own clothing.

Although majoring in art history in high school, LaVonne was taught that being an artist was a profession chosen by people as a last resort. Instead she married, had three children and for 25 years worked for a banking corporation; for 13 of those years, she was a bank fraud investigator. At age 47, she began menopause, and a series of crises took her into a deep depression. In her search for a meaning in life, Fabricollage was born.

LaVonne currently works at her art full-time from her studio in San Francisco.

One evening I had a dream about a mermaid giving birth. In my dream the mermaid represented the struggle in life (while on land) and how much easier life is when I go (swim) with the flow of the current instead of always trying to go against the current. From that dream, a series of mermaids were born. I gave them names that represented the kinds of things that make life worth living.
What kind of picture do I want my life to look like? It can be beautiful, painful, intense, peaceful or any number of things.

My life has consisted of various people, situations and circumstances. I relate that to the various sizes, shapes, colors and textures in Fabricollage™. Along the way, there were times that the sizes were too big or too small, the shapes were all distorted, the colors were dull and bland and there seemed to be no texture. I used to believe that the circumstances of my life were random and coincidental.

I use Fabricollage™ to remind me that I can continue to cut and shape, rearrange, add and eliminate until I am more satisfied with the whole picture of my life.

As with Fabricollage™, I may not have the ability to create everything about my life exactly as I would like it to be. I cannot copy my life so that I am just like anyone else, but if there is the slightest part of it that dissatisfies me, then I do have the power to change it over and over again if that is what it takes.

When creating a Fabricollage™ it does not feel like work or like a chore. It feels like Love. It fills me with pleasure. It gives me a sense of worth and accomplishment.

I would hope that Fabricollage™ would be an inspiration for others to be led to whatever it is they Love and then to add that to their life.


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