Bears-Direct - Teddy Bear Artist Spotlight

Artist Spotlight
Janelle Bruchu & Michelle Mitchell
Bearfoot Elegance

by Jackie Morris

Michelle Mitchell and Janelle Bruchu are a sister team who make some wonderfully creative and appealing bears under the name "Bearfoot Elegance".

One of their simple pleasures that they enjoy doing together as sisters is walking barefoot on the beach. Sometimes even when they are dressed for elegant occasions, you can find them sneaking around barefoot. That's how they got their unusual company name.

These two come from a family of seven children and their mother taught them both to sew when they were growing up. Janelle made

an Easter Bunny Costume for church in 1984, and her daughter asked for a bear made out of the left over fur. She bought a book on teddy bear making, and was hooked!

She made lots of bears and rabbits as gifts for friends and family. Soon the hobby became a small business. She worked in Real Estate for a while after she first moved to Florida, but missed having the time to make her bears. When her children grew up, she left real estate to join her husband in his Aircraft Parts business, hoping she would have more time for her real love...creating bears. In her spare time she began designing her own teddy bear patterns and refining her creations.

Meanwhile, Michelle was traveling the world as a flight attendant, first with National Airlines, and then Pan Am. Her hobby at the time was cross stitch. She did this on her many lay-overs.

Later, she went back to school and learned to be a licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. She enjoyed that career, but yearned for something more creative. She approached her sister, Janelle about making a business together with both of their creative talents, and Janelle's teddy bears. Janelle taught Michelle how to make bears, and Bearfoot Elegance was born.

As with all good artists, the style of their bears is constantly evolving and growing in personality. Basically, the bears are traditional style jointed patterns, but they love to use long mohair giving them a disheveled look. They also both like big feet on bears, so that is a part of their designs.

They like to make different bears with different personalities, so their bears are all different, not just the same bear in different fur or different costumes.

They both work on each bear together. Janelle likes designing the patterns, then seeing the personality come out as the new face is completed. Michelle loves to cut out the fur. They both dislike stuffing, but all bears must be stuffed, so of course they both do that!

They are finding, that with experience, they are spending more time on getting the details right, like stuffing, ear and eye placement, and most of all making the perfect nose.

Janelle says, "A picture pops into my head when someone mentions something, it could be just a word, or they could describe something they just did, later I might sketch it, then make the pattern."

Sometimes, something in their lives becomes an inspiration for a bear. They have a lot of common history being 2 of 7 children, and so often pull ideas from their childhood memories. They both also have grown children, and sometimes ideas can come from experiences with the children. Sometimes it is the name of a town they pass through or something they see on the way to a bear show.

Life's experiences combined with the imaginations they were blessed with all go into the design of their bears. Each bear also comes with a quote that helps describe their personalities. This is kind of a trademark of Bearfoot Elegance bears.

Right now Janelle is working on a few aviator bears. These stem from the Aircraft parts

business that she and her husband Bruce
are in. They deal with WWII through early jet era parts and instruments. She is designing a bear that will fit into original cans from theWWII era for display and shipping. These will be a special design for both of them because Janelle's daughter, and Michelle's son are also in the Air Force, and Michelle also has an aviation history as a flight attendant.

This is a great example of how artists put a part of their own lives into their teddy bear creations. Artist bears are more than just cute teddies. They are often an expression of who the artist is, and what they like and value. Can't wait to see these aviator bears!

You can visit Michelle & Janelle's wonderful creations at:

http://www.bearfootelegance.com