Meet artist Darbury Ayn Stenderu. She is the wife of bassist and co-founder of the grunge band Nirvana. Stenderu and Krist tied the knot in early 2004.
She lives with her active politically musician hubby in a century-old farm house they are restoring and lead a pretty quiet life near Deep River, Washington, in rural Wahkiakum County, Washington. The couple has been married for almost ten years, Novoselic was previously married to high school sweetheart Shelli Dilley.
Stenderu was not there for the crazy days of her hubby’s time with the iconic band but she knows that time was very and still is very important to him. He might a 48-year-old man studying for an online-university degree in social sciences but the work he did with his late friend and Nirvana’s leader, singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain still lives.
Equally successful in her own world is Darbury, now Mrs. Novoselic; who is a highly regarded textile artist. She has an eclectic list of celebrity clients. Music people are well-represented, from rockers as dissimilar as James Brown, REM’s Peter Buck, and Sarah McLachlan to opera singer Dominique LaBelle and independent label guru Mitzi Johnson. Models and actresses, including Linda Evangelista, Whoopi Goldberg, and Drew Barrymore, are fans.
“I make clothes that reveal rather than clothe”
It’s clear that Stenderu’s first love is the creative production, while the stores exist more to support the art habit than for any other reason. Stenderu says her customers are “people who want to be fashionable but in their own way. Stenderu honors the uniqueness of body types. She even makes her own mannequins.
Along her collaborator and friend, Carrie Houseman they formed A Bee in 2007 and have been reviving the role of monumental fabric hangings that hold their own with architecture ever since. They also refer to their work as “magic carpets, ornamental textiles that read as organic sculpture”
Some of her work exhibitions include the 2007 solo show at Nepenthes Gallery in Sapporo-Shi, Japan and most recently the 2011 Earthly Paradise; Memory, Myth, Metaphor at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in San Jose, California. Juried Art Shows: The American Craft Show in San Francisco both in 2008 and 2009 and the Smithsonian Craft show in 2009.
Her work was also featured in The Fiber/Arts magazine, November/December back in 2008; American craft magazine December/January 2009 and in Surface Design Journal in the fall of 2011.
In 2008 she received the Award for excellence in Fiber from the American Craft Council and in 2009 she was also awarded with the Arts and Crafts special Award from the WA State Grange Convention.
You can find the talented artist on twitter as “Darka Novoselic” here.
