CHEYENNE, Wyo. — If you catch Sarah Rusk walking around Cheyenne on any given day, chances are she’s carrying around a small backpack stuffed with an assortment of knitting needles, embroidery supplies and half-finished yarn projects.
Rusk, who also goes by the business WyKnots, is a self-taught fiber artist who specializes in creating mixed-media embroidery designs and crochet and knitted items.
A bit of a shy creator, she is sometimes secretive about what kinds of projects are hidden away in her backpack. She wants to get better at sharing her work publicly, though, and allowing several of her original embroidery designs to be featured at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens is a first step.
Lined up meticulously on the second floor of the garden, Rusk’s threaded works are on display until June 3.
Local artists are often invited by the garden’s board to host a two-month-long exhibit, said Brandi McKinley, guest experience coordinator at the gardens and manager of the Tilted Tulip Gift Shop. The board discovered Rusk during her first public fiber art show at the Freedom Edge Brewery in September 2022.
When Rusk’s brewery friends invited her to host the exhibition for First Friday Artwalks, she felt nervous at the thought of strangers seeing her work.
“[To see my art displayed] felt very exposing, very vulnerable,” she said. “I’m a bit secretive and a lot of times hearing other people’s opinions about your work is very scary.”
Even as a kid, Rusk had a tendency to be discreet about her art projects. That feeling only intensified when she enrolled in Laramie County Community College in the early 2000s to pursue a degree in Fine Arts and Computers.
“I really tried my hardest in art, but I’m also influenced by people around me,” she said “People who were fairly mean would say stuff behind my back that would make me not want to be an artist. I think that’s part of the reason why I’m very secretive, because I don’t want anyone’s opinion.”
Feeling discouraged from painting and drawing, Rusk said she didn’t create art for a long time after completing the degree. It wasn’t until she took up crocheting, which she taught herself as a way to bond with her future grandmother-in-law, that she discovered her niche.
“It felt like an art that felt good to do,” she said.
Rusk liked how working with her hands calmed her mind. Soon, she picked up embroidery, which she would later choose as her main medium for exhibitions, then knitting. Filled to the brim with ideas, Rusk began carrying around art supplies so she could work on her projects anywhere.
“I have so many supplies and it’s growing and it’s growing,” she said. “I love carrying it around and working on it.”
Rusk usually gets her embroidery ideas by observing nature, scrolling through Instagram photos, or browsing through the works of local artists at First Friday Artwalks.
For the garden’s exhibit, Rusk was inspired to capture realistic portraits of wildlife, landscapes and plants. By incorporating other types of media, such as watercolor and dried flowers, into her embroidery work, the pieces appear more natural and lively, Rusk said.
One of her favorites is “Bison,” a thin black yarn outline of a Bison skull shaded with brown and black watercolor. A product of her early attempts at painting watercolor on cloth, Rusk said she likes the “organic” feel the dark strokes add to the piece.
“[‘Bison’] was one of the first times with watercolor and you can really see where I added too much water and it started bleeding,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh no, I ruined it!’ but I actually fell in love with it. I love the organic; it doesn’t have to be perfect.”
In “What is Real?” — one of her more fragile pieces — Rusk picked purple-blue flowers from her backyard, dried them and then stitched the petals into a faithful sketch of a flower bush.
“Each real petal has some form of stitch on top of it; there are some fake little stitches,” she said. “I have people who come in here like, ‘Oh, why is that here? That’s not embroidery,’ but it is.”
Unlike other embroidery artists, Rusk likes to expose the loose threads on the back of her finished pieces. She wants people to see and appreciate the intricate yarn knots used to create the designs on the front.
“A lot of times people have a tendency to finish the back, but I don’t because I want people to actually see all the knot work,” she said. “I think the backing is as beautiful as everything on the front; it’s like organized chaos.”
McKinley said she is impressed by Rusk’s approach to embroidery and is glad the board decided to spotlight fiber artwork.
“When you hear about embroidery you just think that it’s sewn in there,” McKinley said. “When [Rusk] brought it in, I was like, ‘Oh my, this a whole different level.'”
Although insecurities still plague her mind, Rusk said she’s reminding herself to be confident and learning to accept the positive feedback she receives.
“There is a lot of imposter syndrome, thinking, ‘Oh, I’m not good enough, I’m going to let someone else do that, I can’t believe I’m doing this stuff,'” she said, “but I’m trying to learn and grow and keep moving forward.”
