D’Ette Cole incorporates found objects items in every aspect of her work. You could say this is her signature, but D’Ette’s style is not easily summed up.

“It’s Texas flavor without being hokey,” she says. “No cowboy boots hanging on the wall.” What does pop up in her art and décor are elements of surprise.

One of D’Ette’s newest projects transforms empty plastic water bottles into hanging light displays, which almost looks like a plastic chandelier. This epitomizes D’Ette’s body of work. What was once a collection of trash is now a functional, polished display. Her goal is to tell several stories with one piece, juxtaposing new and old, common and unique.

Based in Austin, D’Ette business Etta Industry comprises graphic design, décor, photo, event direction, and art work. Ideally, she wants to continue branching out artistically while merging everything under one umbrella.

Her love of junk started at a young age and she has carried her inner pack rat with her into adulthood by creating her own aesthetic of sentimentality. Using material from bits of shells to swatches of cloth, broken pieces of pottery and 19th-century engravings, D'Ette creates entire three dimensional backdrops for her displays.

D’Ette was in the junk business for 16 years, cutting her teeth as co-owner of Uncommon Objects, a South Austin compendium of antiques and art. “When I left Uncommon Objects, that was a big transition.” On her own, she was commissioned to design weddings, window displays, business cards and cooperative art events.

Some of D’Ette’s styling credits include album and magazine covers for Shawn Colvin, Patty Loveless, and Patty Griffin. She captures a fantastic look with supple fabrics, soft lighting, and an over-arching sense of femininity. The artist remembers her favorite and first styling assignment, Patty Griffin’s Impossible Dreams album cover. She was hired by the photographer and set off for White Sands, New Mexico in January 2004.

The outdoor shoot was cold, dry, and tiring. With her “box of bits” and a hot pink floor length negligee, D'Ette transformed Griffin into a whole new character, revitalizing the project and the weary team until completion. It was, she says, her proudest achievement.

D’Ette’s biggest footprints can be seen in Marfa, where she found a bridge between gallery space and design showroom with her anatomy collection in October 2006. D'Ette displayed a series of scientific diagrams painted in bright red on large white canvases in a run down, old adobe house. With a backdrop of peeling wallpaper and old wooden furniture, she created a palatable gallery space for her patrons; something more accessible and comfortable than your standard white walled contemporary art gallery.

What’s next for the recovered junkie? D’Ette sums up her artistic approach much like one would approach life. “All of this is like a puzzle, figuring out how the pieces fit in there.”

Photos courtesy of D'Ette Cole