Michelle Berg Radford has been sewing and making things since she was small. “My dad used to pay me to throw things away”,she said. I wanted to keep everything because I was sure I could make something out of it. “Not much has changed. Most of the materials she uses in her fibers and three-dimensional pieces are vintage or rescued. There’s something redemptive about making items that people will love out of what was once considered worthless.rnrnRadford’s realistic landscape paintings are carefully planned ahead of time. When she sews, however, the pieces grow in a much more open-ended way. These two ways of working feed each other, she says. Both her paintings and fibers pieces are studies in design, color and texture. She graduated from SCAD in 2008 with an M.F.A. in painting. She teaches painting and fiber arts at a liberal arts university in South Carolina.