When R. Melinda Hoffman was a child growing up in the inner city of Chicago, the alleyway behind her family’s home was no stranger to trouble. One night, a gang set a car on fire, and it exploded. By morning, she and her sister found the pavement scattered with broken safety glass.
“It was sparkling everywhere,” she says. “We convinced our mother to let us gather it up. We washed all the pieces and made little fairy castles. I think that was the beginning of seeing beauty in things other people overlooked.”
That early instinct still guides Hoffman’s work. Now based in New Mexico, she creates sculptural adornments and hand-stitched leather vessels that blend form and function with her lifelong affinity for found objects. Many pieces begin with castoffs, from rusty tea balls to porcupine quills, and take shape from there. “I’m drawn to ordinary things people pass over,” she says. “If you show an object in a different light, it becomes something of beauty.”
On Saturday, January 3, The Lucy Clark Gallery, in Brevard, will host a one-day pop-up of Hoffman’s work, with 10 percent of sales benefiting Penland School of Craft as it rebuilds its water system following Hurricane Helene. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m…