Julia Gardner creates her mixed media pieces with resin; an extremely tricky, often unpredictable medium.  She works on wood panels with “windows” in which she layers images and multiple layers of resin.  Each layer has to be created with precise temperature and humidity conditions to create artwork that results in the almost glass-like final piece.  Julia also embeds found objects such as feathers, bird eggs and organic matter into the resin, capturing the items as if in amber.

Gabriel Fernandez paints with oil on canvas. Fernandez continues to explore interior spaces.  His initial interest in a painting is to merge still life and landscape imagery into an interior space.  His next level of interest is how the reality of the space relates to the abstract.  Many of his compositions suggest a minimalist framework of abstract expressionism; though they don’t depart from the traditional methods he has been trained in.  He explores the relationships between mood and light, realism and the narrative with the abstract, and paint with the process. 

Kim Murton’s ceramic sculptures blur the line between abstract and figurative.  Color and pattern and the surface of the clay are all important aspects of her work. And of course, humor and wit are ever present.  Murton is interested in repetition and the subtle differences that can happen.  Murton coils and pinches terra cotta clay, working from the bottom up and in profile. The pieces are painted with colored slip and clear glazed.

Laurie and Dan Hennig let the clay process reflect their experiences and ideas to create ceramic objects. They have been affected by the discovery of pottery shards along the beaches of the Mediterranean, on the mesas of the Southwest U.S, and in caves of Central America. They returned to the studio to incorporate these impressions.  Soon new rocky forms attracted creatures. The appearance of Iguanas, desert rats, turtles and other creatures signals the fresh respect that Laurie and Dan feel for the other beings that inhabit this planet, even if ever so precariously.  

Iver & Jennifer Hennig continually work to transform clay beyond its boundaries. Their stoneware pieces are created individually to have both the functionality of pottery and the artistic expression of sculpture. The collaborative body of work has a representational element as it plays with natural forms. A respect for clay and a sense of enjoyment and humor can be found with their one-of-a-kind pieces. 

Mark Perry’s textured and abstracted prints are a combination of different printmaking processes: collagraphs, etching, or woodcuts/reliefs. The combination of techniques results in layering, multi-colors, sequences and variation. Each print is a one of a kind and the result of printing several plates holding different colors, one on top of another.  Perry started out with an 6" by 6" printing plate and has now created over 200 blocks.

Nicole Rawlins medium is intaglio printmaking.  Using a variety of techniques, including:  etching, mezzotints, spit bite, drypoint, roulette, soft ground and ink lift she achieves a rich and lush result.  Her prints are small and intimate, but pack a powerful punch.  We’ve included several series here.  Some offered framed and some unframed.

Sara Swink's ceramic sculpture are personal narratives that reflect the inner workings of her psyche and it's preoccupations.  The Fashion Plate series started in the Spring of 2008 with a sudden and unexpected obsession with the TV show, Project Runway, in which fashion designers are given a short time to design and execute solutions to various challenges.  These are some of the results of her latest series.   Colorful and imaginative, her figures inhabit their own world.  Sara also has a number of smaller works on display.

Tabor Porter shows both jewelry and wall art.  His jewelry uses a combination of materials (silver, gold, bronze, brass, gemstones and mixed media). He creates his own distinctive style.  Also on display are wall hung mixed media assemblages. Tabor brings together scraps, broken antiques, bits of metal and wood from the past to create his assemblages.  He manipulates new life into them to create a unique object in the present.  "We use and discard,” Tabor explains “I am trying to attend to that need by creating found mix media art.”

Kim Hamblin creates very distinctive artwork.   Kim's process involves the time consuming task of cutting paper, painting and building up layers. She then presses, glues and nails the painted paper onto wooden panels.  In fact, nails seems to be an ever present component of her work. 

Margaret van Patten is an printmaker who combines various intaglio techniques to create uniquely personal prints. Her technique includes drypoint, etching, and aquatint and mezzotint.  Making prints is very much a process oriented art form for her, and she uses this to her advantage by working directly on the surface of the plate and letting each mark respond to the previous mark. Using a wealth of diverse symbolism and metaphors (such as birds, insects, clothing, body parts, letters and numbers) van Patten creates multiple layers of meaning.

Ingrid Hendrix creates ceramic sculptures with a combination of human and animal elements.  She uses the female figure along with religious, mythical, and animal imagery to explore female stereotypes and to reveal those complexities. Her pieces transform from human to animal and from conscious to unconscious. “For instance, we contain both good and evil, male and female, and spiritual and material.  We are not one or the other, we are both; we are a dichotomy.  We are not stereotypes, to quote Hendrix.”  (Work is delicate and probably not shippable)

Jill Torberson creates steel-based mixed media sculpture.  She has turned a lifelong fascination with “garbage” and surplus materials into a unique form of expression. Deconstruction plays a large role in her design concepts. She transforms these objects into smaller pieces, and reconstructs the pieces into objects that focus on form over function.  Her "Steel Heart" Valentines are a mixture of cut steel and mixed media, some with applied paint. There is a larger selection in the Giftshop.

Alisa Looney shapes and fabricates metal into open, energetic human forms.  The flow of energy is depicted by using curving forms with spiraling cutouts, creating a dynamic movement within the human body.  The open shapes create lightness in the metal.  Pieces are cut and shaped from sheets of steel, bronze or stainless, and welded together like a puzzle.   She usually creates large outdoor public sculptures, but for our gallery she has created small scale affordable sculptures.

Bruce Fontaine works in clay creating pots and sculpture that have one defining characteristic: the study of faces and their various expressions.  He works with a wheel-thrown clay base and then hand sculpts the face onto the form.  Oftentimes, the clay is left unglazed except for the inside of the form or he leaves a touch of glaze for definition. 

Emilio Berwick's clay work is predominantly coil built.  His theme for his larger work concerns food and the growing of food.  To quote Emilio, “I am concerned with the industrialization of our food sources.  Add to that the genetic alteration of food crops and the new move to use food for fuel production and the threat to our food supply increases.  My clay work attempts to bring these concerns to the attention of my audience.”  Emilio is also showing smaller pods with various themes that include some mixed media found objects.

Darlene Schaper's sculptures are created from a mix of found medias and low-fire ceramics.  Her surfaces are a contrast of a skin-like encaustic wax, set against the coarse, aged textures of nostalgic patterns. These are then brought to life with the bright colors of contemporary intensity. Integrated with the clay are other materials such as metal, found objects, and fabric.  Schaper's work is intended to attract the viewer with its playfulness and humor, and recoil, as its dark commentary becomes evident. She creates imagery of the physiological.