About Us

The Beginning

   In the beginning was a folk artist. The folk artist was with paint and old tin ware. She could be found at many auctions, hauling home rusty treasures. This was back in the 1970’s when people liked things painted and pretty. The rust flew and the paint was applied with an old Kirby vacuum cleaner in reverse. The speckled look became her trademark background and on flowed her free handed designs of flowers, fruit, and foliage.

   Midwestern craft shows proved to be the outlet of choice for folk artist, Dodie Eisenhauer, until the mid 1980’s. Living in Daisy, Missouri, population 50, with a husband and 5 children, it was time for change. Dodie joined as a charter member, the group of juried artists known as, "Best of Missouri Hands". The group, a project of the University of Missouri to help rural artists, served as an avenue to sell to gift shops and galleries. Dodie named her business, Village Designs, to allow the freedom to go in any direction. Not realizing the big change that was ahead, Dodie joined a small group of other artists and craftsmen to become exhibitors at a large Dallas trade show for the gift industry. Her intention was to sell the proven folk painting.

   Within weeks before going to the big wholesale marketplace, Dodie was trying to think up an eye-catching display of her work, using two old screen doors hinged together as a place to hang items. The new screening was purchased and the old doors were dug out of her Grandma’s old chicken house.

   Upon attempting to install the new screen, and scrape the many layers of chipped paint, the chicken house reclaimed the abandoned project. The new screen wire remained as a leftover temptation. 

One project that never materialized was an idea to make a wooden bow with a slot in the back for dried flowers, and painted of course. Early one Saturday morning, around 6 AM, after sending her husband off on a business trip, Dodie was reflecting about the upcoming show. Suddenly, God, the giver of good ideas, dropped the thought to make a bow out of the leftover screen wire.  Dodie rushed out to the garage and made the first screen wire bow. Pleased with the outcome, Dodie excitedly spent the day working with her newly found medium, creating baskets, fans, and bows. Despite the lack of enthusiasm from the rest of the family, the newly designed products were introduced to the world at the National Gift Show in July 1989, Dallas, Texas.

Dodie came home with a fist full of orders and had to purchase her first 100 foot role of screen wire. A marketing representative, having seen the bows and baskets in Texas, took samples on to New York and California markets, producing many more orders. Village Designs and the new screen wire art, were both off and running.

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