Chelle Summer

Where the Past Meets the Future

Michelle Rusk

It would be easy to look at what I create with Chelle Summer and to think it’s not much more (if you know my age) than a reflection of the colors and prints of my childhood.

But it’s much more than that.

While my sister Denise died by suicide nearly 30 years ago and I have spent a large chunk of the time since then writing and speaking about suicide and suicide grief, the road has taken a turn into another sort of motivation.

Chelle summer is an outgrowth of our childhood together. The photo above was inspired by the Coppertone suntan lotion (as we called it then) bottles. That color combination with the stripes brings back the smell (how ever that’s possible!) in my mind. We loved our time in Holiday Inn and other motel swimming pools; my fibrella lounge chairs take me back to those motels, too.

But it also was about home and Mom who not only shopped carefully for the items to brighten up the house. There wasn’t much money but she made sure we had colors that weren’t dead (her word as in, “The colors in that store were dead.”). My childhood was filled with lots of yellow and green, my Barbies had an ample supply of colors with bright patterns and colors. And this means that Denise had all those things, too.

I surround myself with those colors and prints, plus the versions that stay in my head, ready to be recreated. And having Chelle Summer as a place to put them has brought much joy to my life. It keeps me connected to my parents and my sister in a way I know I wouldn’t have otherwise.