Chickadee Lea is an ongoing collaboration between Amy Tromiczak of Umlaut Textiles and Carter Norris of Carter Lea Photography.
During 2020, the pandemic changed their plans. They found themselves homebound and essentially out of work. Amy had left her job to work for a non-profit that lost funding due to COVID-19, and the travel shutdown cancelled Carter’s intended year of work and travel in New Zealand. Instead, she joined Amy in Bakersville, NC.
While Amy spent homebound days planning, organizing, and using the weaving studio, Carter transformed the closet under the stairs into a darkroom. As months went by, they merged ideas, plotted collaborations, and taught one another, eventually creating Chickadee Lea. Chickadee- Amy’s nickname from her grandmother; Lea- Carter’s middle name. Inspired by their name, their home in the Appalachians, and Carter’s Western NC heritage, their logo is the North Carolina Chickadee.
Though both have individual studio practices as fine artists, they enjoy working with one other to experiment with color, pattern, and fiber to create functional works.
About Us
Amy Tromiczak
Amy Joänne Tromiczak has been weaving for over ten years. Originally from Minnesota, she now lives and works in Bakersville, North Carolina. She attended the Professional Crafts: Fiber Program at Haywood Community College in Clyde, North Carolina, graduating in 2015.
Folk culture, functionality, and sustainability are primary influences on Tromiczak’s art. Her aesthetic tastes reference the Arts & Crafts Movement, as well as artists like Anni Albers. She produces handwoven garments, scarves, and interior textiles under the name Umlaut Textiles.
Tromiczak’s awards include the California Fibers-Beyond the Boundaries Award from the Small Expressions Exhibit, Handweavers Guild of America, in 2016. She has participated in many exhibitions and has published work for organizations including the Surface Design Association. For more information on her work and CV, check out the web link below.
Carter Norris
Carter Norris is an alternative process photographer, currently based in Bakersville North Carolina. She attended UNC Greensboro, receiving her B.A. in art history, with a studio concentration in photography. Norris utilizes multiple shooting methods ranging from pinhole to 35mm photography, as well as various darkroom and early photographic chemical processes for capturing reminiscences.
Her style and subject matter are influenced by photographic pioneers like Julia Margaret Cameron and Anna Atkins. She seeks to express her own emotions and experiences through humor, folk culture, and utilitarian methods to challenge the male-centric art historical narrative that informs the binary between high and low brow art.
Pieces from her recent series, Comfort, can be viewed in the Silent Fire Project, a collaboration between Yale ISM and Nasty Women Connecticut. For more information on her work and CV, check out the web link below.