‘Meet the artist’ on Small Business Saturday!
Saturday, November 27
Drop in between 2pm - 4pm
Join us here at the Gallery on the Saturday after Thanksgiving to welcome FIVE new(fish) artists to the Gallery!
Helene Lund Den Boer
Steve Joslyn
Elizabeth Pell
Robert T. Smith
Susan Webb Tregay
Read on for more about each artist...
Helene Lund Den Boer
After years of working in various mediums, including pencils, charcoal, oil paint, acrylic paint and collage, Helene Lund Den Boer started working in fiber, sewing on a machine while exploring combinations of fabric that worked well together.
After the pandemic hit, it had an indirect impact on Helene’s work when, after she and her daughter traveled to Helene’s native country, Denmark, she was without a sewing machine for a few months. “I had to work and think a little differently.”
“That became the beginning of my hand embroidered portraits,” Helene says. “These are a mixture of embroidery, appliqué and color pencils/acrylics and provide plenty room for experimentation with materials and new opportunities.”
Layer on Helene’s desire to act as a storyteller, and the hand stitched portraits truly come to life.
Basically, I see myself as a storyteller. I see each piece as a sequence in a story in which the beginning and ending are unknown. The story belongs to the viewer, only the scenery and sometimes a title are given.
My work mainly focuses on and around the female figure and character. Throughout my life, my idols have always been strong and interesting women.
Helene will be bringing work in stages to show you how she stitches "Stories on a String."
Read the interview in November’s Rapid River Magazine on Helene!
Steve Joslyn
Originally from the Midwest, Steve Joslyn first expressed an interest in blacksmithing at the age of 21. Steve says about the point in his creative career, in 1981, when he received a BFA in Metalwork and Graphic Design from the University of Wisconsin: “I was excited about creating jewelry of gold and silver but the first time I forged iron I knew that I could do great things.”
As a young man, Steve studied under master blacksmiths, from Europe and the US. He apprenticed at a shop for a couple of years before he decided to launch Joslyn Fine Metalwork in 1985. Here in western North Carolina, Steve has continued to run his shop/studio. In his bio, Steve emphasizes how he’s drawn to the beauty of nature. “When you consider the struggle of the plants and animals over the eons of time and have adapted to survive—their beauty and variety, these are things to be celebrated,” he says.
I have no real interest in copying nature directly but to capture its inner significates and the miracle if its existence… I want my work to be a reminder of the beauty that surround us but so often is taken for granted.
Steve will be demonstrating the process of creating one of his beautiful lamps.
Elizabeth Pell
Elizabeth Pell's work career focused on the goal of being a change agent for greater social justice, health equity, and human rights in raising the voices and preferences of individuals and families to be heard across service systems. Alternately, her creative life has been relatively unfocused, as she's regularly zigzagged through mediums, from photography, ceramics, blacksmithing, and quilt making to weaving, wood working, painting, paper making, and collage.
I’m enthralled with the making of things. Making is a constant need I must serve, be it a pie or a welding a torch to cut steel. I am deeply grateful for the freedom I have to explore creative activity.
Robert T. Smith
Robert T. Smith grew up in Henderson County surrounded by handmade quilts and home sewn clothes. He completed his last year of high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Visual Arts High School Program. Robert studied fashion design in New York and after finishing his degree, he's stayed in the city to work in the clothing industry. Since 1988, he's lived in Mexico. Robert has had the opportunity to work with textile artisans and to teach at many different institutions. Toward the end of the 1990s, Robert started to produce his own creative work, and continues to explore his art.
My grandmother taught me to crochet and my mother taught me to sew, for me these activities have become a form of meditation. It is as if the power of past generations flows through my brain and my heart into my hands. When I sew and crochet, I feel surrounded by their power and resilient ability to bounce back from the difficult situations.
Robert will be demonstrating the process of working on a textile piece.
Susan Webb Tregay
Known for developing her paintings in a series theme, Susan Webb Tregay paints about her passions, experiences, and fears. Aside from being a working artist for the past 40 years, Susan is also an author and teacher. She is a member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society.
Her current work series, titled “Where the Rivers Flow West,” explores the unique geographical landscape of western North Carolina, specifically the Eastern Continental Divide. Susan gathers inspiration from watching the landscape change from her living room windows each morning. "The divide coaxes our creeks and rivers to flow to the Mississippi," she says. Her paintings are evocative of an earlier time in history. Susan has formatted these works in the manner of old Polaroid snapshots.
Susan will be bringing more from her series, "Where the Rivers Flow West."