Sunday, August 30, 2009

What we've been finding



Michael and I travel looking for new artists to represent and this year we've found some great ones!

Two I'm going to introduce you to today live in Michigan right near my sister Gail.



Trudi and Eric Cooper create beautiful wire wrapped diachroic glass jewelry. We have many pendants and earrings in fall colors, it's very well priced as well.

Both attended Beliot College and studied art, Eric concentrating on photography, later sculpture and Trudi received her teaching certificate with a specialty in art. She also was a College level Teaching Assistant in Bronze Casting and Sculpture. After working in stained glass for some time they began creating dichroic glass jewelry and sculptures with her husband Eric.

"We work with a special type of scientific glass called dichroic glass. Developed by NASA to reflect ultraviolet light from the astronauts' reflective visors, dichroic glass is used by scientists to separate and filter specific colors of visible light. Its ability to reflect color in a beautiful way makes it a perfect material for jewelry.

Over the years, through experimentation and "happy accidents", we have developed techniques that involve layering a complex collage of dichroic and other art glass and firing multiple times in our kilns to 1700°F. In this way we achieve vibrant colors, textures, complexity and depth.

Working together, we build from each other's techniques. Although we have separate tasks within the process, our creative collaboration is constructive and dynamic.

Our studio is in a small converted barn behind our home in rural southeast Michigan.We have won numerous awards and ribbons, but our greatest reward is seeing how beautifully our jewelry harmonizes with those who wear it.

We have been working on reducing our environmental impact from our start 10 years ago.
- The glass we use to make our Jewelry is 80% recycled glass.
- We sell our work on through galleries significantly reducing the amount of driving we do.
- We recycle and compost.
- We've replaced every bulb in our studio with a Compact Flourescent.
- We walk from home to work.
- We pay a little more for our electricity supplier's green generation program receiving 100% green electricity
- Our kilns are not energy hogging. The bill for our studio is about $50/month
- We have purchased carbon offset for 32 tons of carbon a year with a company called NativeEnergy. The offset is through wind power generation at the Greensburg Wind Farm. We have been offsetting for 6 years.

Calculate your footprint and see what it takes to make it smaller: NativeEnergy
NativeEnergy is the company Al Gore recommends.

And our three kids, 18, 20, 22, are studying to save the world. SUSTAINABILITY!

You MUST come see their work!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Slow Blogging - Just back from NYC



Well it's been a hectic month! We spent the last week in NYC at the Gift Show. I was pleased that a gallery owner and an artist came up to me and said that after hearing my talk on blogging in Philadelphia they both started their own blogs!

We found some neat things for the fall and Christmas and met with some of our artist friends and other CRAFT members. CRAFT is a national organization that I am on the board of. We have 200 members of both artists and galleries like ours whose mission is to promote American Craft.

Our hotel was on 53rd and 6th Avenue and from the place that we ate breakfast you could see Central Park. It was beautiful.

I want to remind everyone that our show "Circle of Eight" will close soon.

Our next show will be "The Iconic Lighthouse" which will be hung on the 1st of September with the official opening on September 11 ArtWalk from 5-8 pm.

Friday, August 14, 2009

New Painting


I actually got to paint today!!

Seems like I don't get as much time to paint these days as I'd like. And it probably doesn't help that when I do have time I have to decide "do I do a drawing, a watercolor, an oil or work on clay".

"They" always say, "pick a medium and stick with it". Well I did that for 20 years, I did ink drawings, mostly architectural renderings. I loved working in ink and still do.

However about 20 years ago (how can it be that long, am I that old?) I started adding color to my ink drawings, then add ink to my watercolors, then working with clay, then most recently, probably 5 years ago started doing some oils.

My ink drawings and watercolors are pretty tight and my clay is more whimsical. What I'm working toward in my oils is looser handling with more emphasis on color.

Don't know if it's exactly done yet but it was fun to do.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Don't Miss It


I hope you've gotten the chance to come in and see our current show "Circle of Eight". Pottery and sculpture by eight North & South Carolina potters.

It's a beautiful show!

The potters include Michael Kline, Jennifer Mecca, Adrienne Dillinger, Greg Scott, Ron Philbeck, Amy Sanders, Dina Wilde-Ramsing and Julie Wiggins.

In addition to their work we have pots and tiles by Vicki Grant, garden sculpture by Steve Fabrico, paintings by Sally Anger and Sally Sutton, lots of new pieces by Sticks to name just a few.



Monday, August 10, 2009

Busy Time!


Since my last post Michael and I have been to Philadelphia where I did three presentations on blogging, we were runner up for best website and best customer newsletter, we saw lots of our artists whose work we carry and found some exciting things for the gallery for the fall and holidays.

Our Christmas committee is working on our Dickens of a Christmas promotion, coming up with some great new ideas. Today Carol from the Arts Council and I started working on new story boards to add to the "Christmas Carol" that goes in store windows.

We're planning the next ArtWalk coming up September 11. We'll have new art by Brenda Behr, (her painting of Bald Head Lighthouse is shown here), Bill Lease, John Furches, T Rader and I might have a new piece for it. The title of our show is "The Iconic Lighthouse."

We'll be going to a show in New York soon and I'm going to a meeting tomorrow night about the party planned for our city's 300th anniversary. Yikes!

The only thing I wish is that I had more time to paint.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Painting workshop

Add Color and Light to your still lifes - a one day painting workshop with award winning artist Sally Sutton.

Learn still life painting techniques with award winning painter Sally Sutton using oils or acrylics.

Saturday, October 3 - 9-4 lunch included, at the studio of Jan & Michael Francoeur $70

Loosen up and express yourself
- Learn how to push color in your paintings
- Create a glow by using underpainting
- Smooth and soft effects in oil painting
- Expressive and active brushstrokes
- Capturing the light impression
- Using color to express a mood
- painting from real life
-Setting up a good painting area

To register 252-626-3376 email info@carolinacreations.com for more information

Deadline for registering, September 25.

See more of Sally's work on our website by clicking here.