Featured VentureMom – Michelle Rusk – Celle Summer

We’re far from summer but there are warm vacations to be had and these bags from @Chelle_Summer would be perfect for the #PalmBeach feeling. 

For as long as Michelle L. Rusk can remember, her life has been about creating. Currently, she transforms vintage textiles into modern designs for bags, dresses, and home goods with a retro twist. Using everything from fabrics, oilcloth tablecloths, recipes, and Clue cards, she creates whimsical products that have sold out at Palm Springs Modernism Week. But how did she begin this creative journey? 

What began as picture books at six years old in her hometown of Naperville, Illinois, eventually turned into novels. Then there was the constant redecorating of her bedroom growing up, learning to sew by making her Barbie dolls clothes, experimenting in cooking that led to her paper bag pizza, and then challenging herself to set and accomplish goals as a competitive runner.

Whatever she was working on, it was about inspiring herself to keep forging forward while also surrounding herself with objects she treasured and colors that motivated her. 

In 1993, as a college junior, Michelle lost her 17-year-old sister Denise to suicide. As Michelle Linn-Gust, she then made her mark on the world by writing several books on suicide grief; (with the first, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling, published in 2001), speaking around the world about suicide and loss; earning a doctorate in family studies with a dissertation on how people use dogs to help them cope with the loss of a human; and becoming president of the American Association of Suicidology.

Michelle then lost both her parents, her father in 2005 and her mother in 2014 and felt she wanted to return to her creative endeavors. She says, “It was time to inspire the world in a different way.” Her bags are truly inspirational. 

Michelle returned to her fiction and began to sew again and added painting to the mix. She then launched Chelle Summer in late 2015 as a lifestyle brand that encompasses all that she does and believes.

Today she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband Gregory and their three rescue dogs Lilly, Ash, and Goose.