About
Cheri
CHERI TANNENBAUM
My Story
My name is Cheri Tannenbaum
I am a soldier of Gd
I am a wife
I am a mother of 3 beautiful Children
I am the grandmother of 10
I am an author
I am an artist
I am a fashion and jewelry designer
I have been afflicted for 54 years with a neurological movement disorder called Dystonia Musculorum Deformance
For forty of those years I couldn’t talk
Now I can thank Gd
I am left with an abnormal gait and very poor balance
My second home is the floor
Communication and mobility are the way of the world and when you are impaired in both it is tough to make your mark… but … I tried. I thought to become a special education teacher but ( I had worked with young special children and I found that children between the ages of 1 – 5 could understand my grunts, probably because they didn’t have an established language pattern yet) I was 3/4 through my coursework and they told me that one of the degree requirements required me to teach in a regular classroom. Could I teach a bunch of rowdy children when I couldn’t talk… no. Then I thought I love clothes, I have style, why not go to fashion design school and learn how to dress windows? I tried but 3/4 through the course they told me it would be to dangerous for me, in my condition, to climb ladders and carry mannequins… so ..: that was the end of that.
Then, one day, while perusing a catalog I came across a jewelry designer class and he rest is history. I went into a wholesale beading store not knowing that protocol was to buy beads and leave. I didn’t. I stayed to make necklaces. I did this for a whole year in that store ( luckily the owners loved me and allowed it ) I made big bombastic necklaces out of beads ( trying probably to express the big bombastic me hiding under my illness ) I would walk around and look at everything to see how I could put a wire and beads through it. I couldn’t sell them because they were all one of a kind and stores wanted orders of repeats.
There is a bible prohibition against wearing wool and linen together called shatnez. When things go wrong “ bad “ in your life amongst a few other things you should check your clothes for shatnez. I had moved to Israel and it was the second intifada so I thought to myself how many people are going to risk their lives on the road to take their clothes to a shatnez checker. I decided to take a course to check for shatnez. One day there was a skirt made of men’s neck ties brought into the lab and my creative juices flowed. I started making tie skirts but I would add accoutrements to it for example an underneath ruffle etc. ( I never did finish the course the rabbi let me go very gently by saying to check for shatnez you need a scientific mind and you have a creative mind )’ My other 2 lines, the patchwork skirts and the random tops with scarves and ties to make into dresses, just came to me… I guess you could say by divine inspiration.
My creative mind works 24/7 just seeing things and then trying to incorporate them into my work.
I love what I do and I will continue doing it till I run out of ideas ( which I doubt will ever happen ).
I consider one of my purposes in this world is to bring beauty through fashion to women all over the world.
More about Cheri
Her Designs
Her Book
Her Clippings
Design by Cheri
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