Shine + ReDesign
- Invitation
- Apr 11
- 3 min read
A Tupelo business and a local nonprofit experiment in creative community-building to make the world more beautiful.
Written by Eugene Stockstill | Photos by Joe Worthem
Ten years ago, Julie West of Tupelo started a business called ReDesigns in her garage after she and two of her daughters witnessed women learning to sew at an African orphanage. That experience provoked her to start up ReDesigns, which turns leftover bits and scraps into art.
It’s a process sometimes referred to as upcycling. As the old proverb goes, “one man’s trash in another man’s treasure.”
West opened ReDesigns for two reasons. She wanted to make sure her daughter with special needs, Haley, who is now 27, had a steady job and a safe place to work. But she also did it because she wanted to own a shop where nobody and nothing gets wasted.
“Everybody has a place,” she said. “We try to find a niche for everybody.”
Since 2023, ReDesigns has teamed up with the Shine Foundation, a nonprofit that works with around 200 special-needs individuals and their families. The partnership has produced a place that is an art gallery, a grassroots business and a social service agency, all rolled into one.
Shine and ReDesigns partner to host workshops for special-needs folks twice a month. The workshops are often sponsored by other local businesses. Last holiday season, everybody involved made Christmas cookies with the help of Cori Taylor and CoCo’s Cookies in Tupelo. A month later, it was flowers with Seven Acres in Mooreville.
Caron Gallery in Tupelo hosts an annual exhibit of their artwork, too. This year’s event will be on Aug. 20.
“It’s just a menagerie of stuff,” West said.
Most of that “stuff” is created in the welcoming location shared by Shine and ReDesigns, at 1447 North Coley Road in Tupelo.
Homey knickknacks and groovy art of all kinds fill the front of the space. There’s a functional, totally cool red Galanz fridge-freezer that looks old-timey, as well as a set of authentic 7-Up bottles on a shelf. Several prints by Tupelo artist William Heard adorn walls (those prints are not for sale). A hodgepodge mosaic of the Bible’s list of fruit of the Spirit decorates another wall.
Everywhere you turn, there’s something to catch the eye of a struggling artist, a seasoned decorator, an inveterate pack rat. Here, you find a self-portrait by Haley West that would make Picasso quite proud. There, a vase filled with flowers made of old yarn and beads. Way over yonder, there are some finished Mississippi patchwork pieces.
ReDesigns’ biggest selling items? T-shirt quilts, priced at around $200 each, the only pattern in those quilts being the immediate inspiration of those who made them. They take orders for these, turning peoples’ old T-shirts into memory quilts.
“That’s our bread and butter,” West said.
In the huge workroom out back, scissors click, sewing machines whir, conversation buzzes and the sweet little front doorbell chimes with a steady stream of traffic on an otherwise quiet morning.
Visitors can peruse the art that’s for sale and visit with working artists or people like West or Susan Dudley, a retired special education teacher from Tupelo. “I told (West) I wanted to work here when I retired,” Dudley said. And now she does.
It is clear lots of things are happening around ReDesigns to make sure that at least some of those who need a fair shake at life are getting it.
On a recent day, Catherine Rogers, 27, was there working on a piece of original artwork. She started with a piece of base fabric into which she had sewn squares of materials of all patterns, colors and textures, with a layer of interfacing on top.
Singing softly to herself, Rogers washed off the interfacing in a nearby sink, then left the piece hanging by a coat hanger to air dry, after which it would be fashioned into the shape of Mississippi, a lovely piece of home decor.
Rogers was diagnosed at a young age with autism. These days she spends at least part of her time as a patchwork artist. Yes, she knows that Mozart may have been autistic, too. She smiles at the thought that her creativity could fetch big dollars in a gift shop. She talks quite freely about her artistic hobby.
“When I’m around new people, I’m shy,” she confessed, acting anything but shy, demonstrating one of the tangible benefits of ReDesigns for its artists.
“She has bloomed,” West said. “She’s a very accomplished seamstress.”
The Whole Picture
Learn more about ReDesigns and the Shine Foundation:
Visit 1447 North Coley Road in Tupelo (open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday)
Contact Julie West at 662-790-4985
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