Your Neighbor: Mary DeArment

For artist Mary DeArment, words have a broader meaning than their dictionary definition. DeArment uses words to create designs for her business, Words with Designs … Designs with Meaning.

DeArment’s style is one-of-a-kind: simple words such as “welcome” or “family” are transformed into a kaleidoscope-style print. Her designs can be applied to greeting cards, wall art, jewelry, textiles and more.

“Words lend themselves to endless possibilities,” she says as she sketches her most recent design, above, which features the word “breathe.”

Before she started Words with Designs … Designs with Meaning in August, the Philadelphia native was an artist, dance therapist and teacher.

She remembers seeing shapes and colors in the clouds as a child.

“It was in my blood to see the world through an artist’s eyes,” she says.

Her designs take eight to 10 hours to complete, on average.

As she works on “breathe” at her desk engulfed in natural light, she inhales deeply. Just like her design, which starts in the center and expands outward, “It starts from the core,” she says as she exhales.

She scraps the first two sketches. The third — the word written from the center of the radiograph out — is moved from the drawing board to the computer, where she will perfect it using InDesign.

DeArment says working with words means endless possibilities.

“It’s fun because, as I’m drawing and creating a piece, unexpected things come out of the designs, always.”

Neighborhood: Palmer Ranch
Your neighbor since: 2013

Contact Harriet Sokmensuer at [email protected]