Good fortune has snowballed for Su Limbert, an artist whose love of vintage plates and jewelry-making has led her, in a very short time, to becoming the featured artist in Contemporary Arts Center’s window display this month. There, her storybook-style installation, All Is Full of Love, plays out to passersby on Charleston Boulevard through bold, colorful patterns, vintage imagery and clashing symbolism.

Using wood, house paint and dinner plates, Limbert delivers a colorful allegory of childhood wonderment and complexity—a young girl deciding her course in life and grappling with past and present expectations of gender roles.

Like childhood itself, the installation is as fun and playful as it is dark and thorny. You have Limbert’s beautiful hand-cut wall hangings of butterflies and a young girl’s silhouette made from the dinner plates—china and ceramic—that are arranged on the backdrop, while smashed plates, broken and jagged, cover the floor. Wood-cut characters guide you through the storyline.

All this from a jewelry maker, middle-school art teacher and collector of vintage children’s books, who walked into Blackbird Studios not long ago looking to create an installation. Gallery director Gina Quaranto gave Limbert her first exhibit last November, and she returns to Blackbird in October for a main-gallery show. Be sure to see her installation in CAC’s East Side Projects window, on display through the end of February.

Examples of Limbert’s jewelry made from vintage plates are at etsy.com/shop/prettyville.