Newfangled Nana - Newfangled Love

It's a God given gift -- being able to see hidden beauty -- to have the ability to take something that others cast off as useless, hopeless, finished and discarded and to be able to recreate it, re-purposing it, giving it new life so that the once despised object garners from others a fresh appreciation, a newfangled love.


Artists think differently, don't they?  They see the world in possibilities.  For Jennifer Davidson, aka Newfangled Nana, raw fabric pieces are her medium.  She scours fabric stores looking for just the right materials to tell a story.  


Just as each stitch pulls together her theme, every stud solidly says this is not just a pretty cover, it's a personal journal, a diary of sorts. 

I admired Jennifer's work the first time I saw it.  I told her someday -- some day --  I wanted to have something of hers.  

What I didn't realize was that when my someday would come, I wouldn't just be getting something of "hers", I'd be getting something that was uniquely mine.

"My" piece started its life as a simple, off white settee - one I'd used well, seating families and children and babies and pets in the course of my photography career.  To my discredit perhaps as a photographer, I'm not sure I ever used the strangely designed little couch to its full glory.  

Because the settee's uniqueness resides in its back piece, its character had always been overshadowed, hidden by the placement of the more prominent persons being photographed. 

We drove together to her favorite fabric stores.  She listened to me as I told her I was classic but crazy, traditional yet a little wild.  To help celebrate not only the photographer but also the singer/songwriter/musician in me...  

Jennifer chose to decoupage the legs of the settee with pages from an old hymnal. 
  
This finishing touch sings its own praises along with ours.    


With every intricate pattern chosen and every bold yet complimentary color selected, the strangely twisted yet graceful bones of the settee would now declare aloud to all who would enter my own house that they were welcome to witness a new work that had been done.  The old had passed away...

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, 

he is a new creation. 

The old has passed away; 

behold, the new has come.  

2 Corinthians 5:17  

       

Newfangled Nana's focus is currently on upcycling furniture for the annual Shabby Love Barn Sale while taking only a few private upholstery projects each year.

You can reach Jennifer at:  newfanglednana@startmail.com
or at her website:  newfanglednana.com

Kelly's Settee Before NEWFANGLED NANA

Kelly's Settee After NEWFANGLED NANA