About the Artist

Misty is the artist and maker behind Tickled Turquoise, where an idea that begins as a drawing often ends up becoming something entirely unexpected.

She learned two things about herself early in life: she needed to create, and she wanted her own business.

At about eight years old, she and a friend sewed doll clothes and planned to trek around town with their wagons loaded, fully expecting to get rich. The same two young entrepreneurs also made doorstops by folding down the corners of old Reader's Digests, hoping they'd be big sellers.

In case you're wondering, they weren't.

But the creative spirit stuck.

Growing up in a small Iowa town in the 1960s and '70s, Misty was surrounded by people who made things. Her parents were both crafters, and she spent many years alongside them at the Covered Bridge Festival in Winterset, Iowa, selling their handmade goods. Later, they opened a greenhouse and grew the most glorious flowers imaginable.

Her love of color, pattern, and making things beautiful comes quite naturally.

At sixteen, Misty read a book in which the main character designed fabric. That was it. She knew what she wanted to do.

Life, of course, had a few other plans.

There was a business degree, office jobs, adventures as a donut maker and lunch lady, raising three daughters, welcoming six grandchildren, and all the wonderfully ordinary things that fill up the years.

But the dream never went away.

Eventually, she taught herself Adobe Illustrator, began designing fabric, and discovered that one creative idea could lead to a hundred more.

Today, she creates original artwork by hand and digitally, bringing her designs into the real world through wood, paper, fabric, and whatever other material happens to catch her imagination.

Largely self-taught, Misty is drawn to color, pattern, and the little details that make something worth looking at twice. Gardens and birds, holidays and traditions, words worth remembering, and colors that simply make her happy all find their way into her work.

She doesn't set out to reproduce the world exactly as it is.

She draws what's in her head so the rest of us can see it.

Layering is one of her favorite parts of creating—not only layers of color and pattern, but physical layers that give a flat drawing dimension, shadow, and character.

There is usually a plan when she begins.

It is rarely the plan she ends up with.

And that's part of the fun.

At the heart of her work is a simple belief: art doesn't have to stay on a wall and be admired from a distance. It can be colored around a kitchen table, given to someone you love, unpacked with the Christmas decorations every December, or become part of a memory you didn't realize you were making at the time.

And yes, there are times when the dishes sit in the sink, the laundry waits in the dryer, and the dust gathers on the shelves.

But after spending so many years dreaming of making a living doing something she loves, Misty figures a few dirty dishes can wait.

Through Tickled Turquoise, she creates art meant to be lived with, made your own, given, kept, and remembered.

And if it happens to include a little turquoise along the way, all the better.