September 2014 Gallery Picks Newsletter

From the Department of Things That Are Better Late Than Never, we bring you our monthly Gallery Picks Newsletter.  The semi-bad news is that we are very late posting; the very-good news is that October's edition will follow shortly, so this month will be brimful of beautiful art!

Please enjoy a look at these wonderful new items from our fabulous artists, and don't forget, for more information click on the individual links to visit them in our online shop.

Let's start with some amazing furniture.

FINE WOOD FURNITURE

Walnut Table, "The Impala"

 Quite simply, this is one of the most beautiful tables we have ever seen.

Constructed of claro walnut from Chico, California, from live-edge

slabs that were gently aged over many years here in the Gallery, this is a

product of careful consideration and collaboration by a number

of our wonderful local artists. The table top is made from the burl ends of the

slabs; the legs are black patinaed steel designed and crafted right here

on Bainbridge Island.

Ready to grace your dining room, office or boardroom, and just... Magnificent.

But why, you ask, have we named it The Impala?

 (Can you see it?)

For a closer look, drop into the Gallery.

(It would love to meet you in person!)

Writing Table.  Ted Scherrer

 Lush cherry and ash woods animate this lovely desk.

Perfect for your office (or a very lucky student) it has two drawers and

a sweet retro surprise:  a secret compartment!

How often do we see an added feature like that these days?

Northwest wood artist Ted Scherrer has shown his work with

us for many years, in the form of chairs, settles and tables created with
the traditionally spare yet exquisite quality of Craftsman furniture.  His
hand-crafted designs, with their easy functionality and superior workmanship,
never go out of style.

View one of Ted's gorgeous settles here.

Here's something about the classic Craftsman style that inspires Ted's work:

The Arts and Crafts movement initially developed in England during

the latter half of the 19th century, inspired by social reform concerns together

with the ideals of reformer and designer, William Morris.

This movement was a response to the rise in often shoddy
factory-made goods and furniture seen at the time.  It also challenged
the often extravagant tastes of the Victorian era, and sought to bring
back work for individual craftsmen, put out to pasture rather
precipitously in society's rush to embrace mass-manufacturing.

In the United States, Gustav Stickley also promoted these ideals out

of New York City, and found that by using factory methods to produce
basic components, then utilizing craftsmen to finish and assemble,
he was able to produce sturdy, serviceable and attractive

furniture which was sold in great quantities, and still survives.

The term Mission style is also used to describe Arts and Crafts Furniture

and design in the United States, particularly in the Southwest, and brought

into play the added influence of Native American and Spanish-Mexican artwork.

Mid-Century Modern Chair.  Arne Hovmand Olsen

Our latest mid-century modern  furniture find, this graceful chair

is quite special, with its Danish Modern lightness of style and clean look.
It is created from subtle teak wood with a cane-wrapped back and leather seat.
Notably, it is signed by the artist.

Here's a little about Arne:

Arne Hovmand Olsen (1919-1989) was born and raised in Kirkeby Sogn

in the middle of Denmark. He was the eldest of five children, and though from a

farming family he realized at an early age that he wanted a different career.

He had always liked to draw, and was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker,

P. Olsen Sibast, in 1938. After his apprenticeship, Arne dreamed of being

able to design the furniture which he produced, and therefore enrolled in a

technical school specializing in furniture design at Aarhus, in 1941.

Once qualified, Arne started his own studio creating beautiful furniture,

influenced by Scandinavian design and executed in a simple and light style.

His furniture was sold in Denmark , but was mainly exported to the large

overseas market, with the U. S. market being an avid consumer.

His studio closed in the 1970s.



SCULPTURE
(Ceramic) 

Brink.  Maria Simon

This month we welcome extraordinary sculptor Maria Simon to the gallery

Her sensuous ceramic pieces are a rich feast of form and color,

built to reside on a special wall, some as table pieces, all with great depth,
suggestions of rolling hills or earthy strata, and hints of whimsy.

Here's a little about Maria and her process:

Born and raised in Chicago, Maria Simon began pursuing art as a young child.

With the support of her parents, she attended children’s classes at the

Chicago Art Institute. She attended Washington University’s Steinberg School

of Fine Arts in St. Louis, studying sculpture and printmaking. She also

studied classical sculpture at L’Accademia d’elle Arte in Florence, Italy.

After a fifteen year exploration of colored clays, producing decorative

vessels and tiles, which she considered a marriage of sculpture and printmaking,

Maria returned to her love of sculpture, using clay, her favorite medium.

Maria's work has been selected for numerous private and corporate art

collections and has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally.

She has been the recipient of several grants and awards.

Now living in Portland, Oregon, Maria devotes a significant part of her

time to teaching and workshop activities. She has also been providing

Artist-in-Residency programs to the metro area schools in sculpture, ceramics,

and mural making through the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Young

Audiences of Oregon and SW Washington, and as an independent contractor

since 1991. In addition, she has presented workshops on her process

throughout the country since 1981.

As to Maria's process, all pieces are built with terracotta or porcelain clay.

Most begin with thick-rolled slabs, cut and fit together, puzzle-like.

The clay is left to reach leather-hard stage, then some areas are built up with coils;

at this point the largely subtractive work of carving begins. 

Over a period of four to five weeks, refinement of the sculpture takes place.

Once the fine details are completed, it undergoes a slow bisque-firing,
after which painting with terra sigillata commences and can continue
over a ten-day period.  The piece is burnished, then fired a second time.

Ember.  Maria Simon

 (As a point of interest, terra sigillata in contemporary pottery refers to a clay "slip", 
or liquefied suspension of fine-milled clay particles in water, usually the 
consistency of heavy cream.  Pigments can be added to produce a colored slip.

 Archeologically speaking, the term terra sigillata literally means "sealed earth";

not as in earth made impervious by sealing but, rather, pottery decorated with "seals"
or sigilla, a Latin word referring to small statues or figures in relief.  The term is also applied,

however, to plain-surfaced Roman pots of a certain type or era.)


VISUAL ARTS

Rest Assured.  Esperanza Grundy

Seattle artist Esperanza Grundy has recently brought us several new works.

This one, Rest Assured, is acrylic collage on canvas, notable for its lively

earth colors that are juxtaposed with darker tones amid rambling,

somehow familiar, textures.

(Perhaps desert Southwest, wisps of written communications, hint of mountains...)

This piece and several from her Faces series are currently in the Gallery;

two others can be viewed at our Realogics Sotheby's International Annex,

right here on Bainbridge Island at 271 Madison Avenue S. 

 

A member of the Women Painters of Washington, Esperanza has won numerous awards

for her works in collage and watercolor.  With a BFA in Industrial Design from the

University of Washington, she has lived both in the Southwest and Northwest. 

 As the artist notes, color is the main ingredient in her work, in abstract compositions

which explore the lives of  literary artists (Bedside Table Series), the American Flag,

or the place of women across cultures. 

 

Esperanza comments on her work: 

 

Color is the main ingredient in my work. 

 

The urge to create is irresistible to me. The symbols, images, textures and colors

in my paintings and collages are my pathway to spirit and truth.

My fundamental source of inspiration is my personal heritage: my family is

hispanic and native american and has lived in the Southwestern US for

many generations. Cultural explorations continue from there by

listening to other people's stories, traveling to exotic places,

reading and dreaming. 

 

I love to gather, arrange and layer materials. Everything is a potential

element: paper and fabric scraps, my own handmade papers, paint,

stencils, transfers and photographs. Using cast off "compost" to give

new life to art is richly symbolic to me. Creating physical depth through

layering allows me to more deeply express ideas and feelings. I hope

the layers act as levels to invite emotions, thoughts, memories

and meaning for viewers of my art.

 

 

WEARABLE ART

Necklace Bergamo, Black.  Begona Rentero

 If you've seen our Blog before you already know what we

think of Begona Rentero's work.

And yet this necklace...

WOW!

Just...

WOW!

And here are the earrings, in red:

Earrings Bergamo, Red.  Begona Rentero

 These are huge, long, dangly, lightweight, and available in other colors.

Our first pair was snapped up immediately after we put them
on display, but stay tuned. We'll have more available shortly.

Can you even imagine wearing these to a holiday party?

!!!!!!

Enough said.

"Intermezzo" Silk Swing Jacket.  Roselle Abramowitz

This is yet another gorgeous piece by remarkable artist

Roselle Abramowitz.  Double-layered hand-painted silk

in shades of blue, green and purple make a luscious

statement in a cropped swing jacket that can be

hung on the wall as an art piece or worn to that

extra-special occasion.  The length and drop-shoulder
tapered-sleeve styling makes this a universally becoming garment.

As we have reported elsewhere in this Blog,

Roselle passed away recently in her home of Stowe, Vermont.

To read more about her fascinating life, skip back several posts

or search Roselle Abramowitz to read our homage

to this talented artist.

So much for September, now all nicely wrapped up.  Please come back soon for a bright October harvest version of the newsletter, already in the works!  If you'd like to have our e-card reminder delivered to your mailbox, plus early warning of events, exhibits and sales, please contact sr@theislandgallery.net, leave your e-mail address, and we'll sign you up.

Thanks for visiting, and see you next time!

Roselle Abramowitz: An Artist's Path

Four years ago we here at The Island Gallery moved into our new space on Winslow Way on beautiful Bainbridge Island, Washington.  We had spent eight lively years at our old location down the street a way and around the corner, but were more than ready for the change.  Our newest artist would be featured in our Grand Opening exhibit that September of 2010 - Roselle Abramowitz, a textile artist and designer of sumptuous contemporary kimonos and other wearables from Stowe, Vermont.  In her first shipment she sent us a series of glorious hand-painted, hand-dyed kimonos:  elaborate silk full-length ones, mid-length organzas, beautiful little waist-length floaty ones, all of which could be worn with great pleasure and pomp or hung on the wall as an artwork.  (Or both!  Why waste a good piece of wearable art by permanently sticking it to a wall when, with a little ingenuity and a good hanging system, you can take it down and wear it once in a while, we always say.)

In any event, that first experience with Roselle's exquisite work was a singular WOW moment, and we were hooked.

As the months went on she continued to brighten the Gallery with casual shirts, softly swinging jackets, comfy silk pant sets, fascinating capes and scarves, cuddly warm blankets, all executed in her trademark and seemingly never-ending artistry.

We are, therefore, more than sad to report that this last June 4th, Roselle died after suffering a brain aneurism.

Canadian songwriter Joni Mitchell famously wrote, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," and true to that sentiment, we never knew the fascinating details of Roselle's life until recently.  They revealed her not only as a wonderful artist but as a woman of passion, strength and resilience.  She created art of great beauty and made a beautiful life for herself in Stowe, Vermont, but from her very beginnings had known great personal tragedy. We invite you to read on and join us in a celebration of this artist's path.

Roselle Abramowitz has been described as part fine artist, part textile designer and part seamstress.  Born in Germany in 1937, Roselle lost both of her parents during the Holocaust - her father in Auschwitz and her mother to a fatal illness.  She and her two sisters were supposed to be sent to a concentration camp, but thanks to a paperwork glitch were miraculously saved and hidden in a convent for the duration of the war. The nuns were cruel to the girls, Roselle has said. But they taught her how to sew, a skill that would play a vital role in her future life as an artist. After the war, the three sisters were sent to a camp for displaced Jews. Ruthie, the eldest, had to decide where they would go next. No one would take all three children, so in 1948 they were adopted by separate households in Canada, but managed to stay in touch with one another. Roselle’s adoptive parents were prominent members of Jewish society; her adoptive mother was the sister of Samuel Bronfman, the founder of the Distillers Corporation in Montreal.

As a young woman in Montreal, Roselle studied pattern-making and draping at Cotnoir and Caponi, worked with her husband designing men’s shirts and ties, and then opened her own studio in Old Montreal making original hand-painted quilts.  Roselle and her husband, Lorne, began going to Stowe, Vermont, to ski in the 1960s and owned a second home there, but tragedy struck again when Lorne suffered a heart attack after a day on the mountain. Up until that time, she never talked about her experience during the Holocaust. But after Lorne’s death, possessing no papers nor even a picture of her mother, she traveled back to Europe to try and find out more about her birth parents and, thus, herself; this she managed to do, locating her birth certificate and other family records.

Around this time Roselle decided to make a permanent move to Stowe and became a full-time resident in 2002.  In her new home she blossomed artistically, creating her Roselle Artwear designs in a studio attached to her home where the ever-changing view of woods, pond and mountains offered endless inspiration for gorgeous color palettes and painted designs, ranging from flowers to abstract patterns.  She chose the kimono as the foundation for her art because she liked the sensuality of the T shape, viewing it as an ideal canvas on which to paint.

As to her process, Roselle created her freehand fabric designs in her studio; according to her long-time assistant Ruth Brown, one of the most important aspects of this work was deciding the nature of each fabric, and what it "wanted to be," to complement it and bring out its character.  An artist in Montreal would then hand-paint or dye them onto bolts of luxurious fabric.  Each six-yard bolt of fabric was an original, as Roselle never re-created the same design twice.  She produced a custom kimono pattern from each bolt, based on the weight and color of the fabric and the placement and scale of the hand-painted design. Sometimes she would add beadwork or quilting to highlight a design. The entire process could take up to six months. In a typical year, she might create 10 large pieces and 40 smaller ones.

Her clothing was unique, in that it reflected a blend of influences, from African to French to Japanese, and it could be worn by anyone.  A recent new line, Roselle in the Home, offered decorative throws and quilts that are equally luscious, each a one-of-a-kind design.

Roselle called her artwork “an eclectic mix of past and present, influenced by travel, life, art and the beauty and joy of living in Stowe, Vermont.”

Roselle was an active member of the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, where she was known for her generous spirit.

Contributions in Roselle’s memory may be made to the Roselle Abramowitz Memorial Fund, in care of JCOGS, 1189 Cape Cod Road, P.O. Box 253, Stowe, VT 05672.

- Our thanks to Ruth Brown for helping us know Roselle better.

August 2013 Gallery Picks Newsletter

Summer's on the wane, but here at the Gallery we're revving up for the fall and holiday seasons with more lovely work from our artists.  And let us just say:  Kudos to them.  These remarkable people never fail to disappoint with their art, attention to detail, and constant striving to create ever more beautiful things.  Stop in for a visit in person, or click on the links beneath each photo (and sometimes other links tucked here and there) to go to the Gallery's web shop for more information on the individual items.

Enjoy!

Sentinels.  Kathleen Faulkner

A well-known and long established jeweler, Kathleen Faulkner has

recently turned to oil pastels as a new medium.  Her delightful

work perfectly conveys the misty quality of our Pacific Northwest,

but on close examination the calm, soft look is somewhat deceptive: 

one is impressed by the firmness of her lines and strokes, her command of the

medium, and her obvious respect for her subject matter.

Examples of Kathleen's jewelry can be seen in the permanent collection of the
newly-opened Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

Silk Satin Dress.  Roselle Abramowitz

Oooh, glam!

A silky and slinky bias-cut dress shows off Roselle's usual flair for color.

This luxurious piece is available in other sumptuous colors - like

glowing emerald green, for example - as well as a really wonderful knitted jersey

cotton that we have here in the Gallery in black.  Gorgeous!

(And by the way, many thanks to our wonderful model, Kathy!)

Jenny's Slip.  Hall Table/Desk.  Robert Spangler

This elegant piece of furniture is created from cherrywood with

 a perky, offside drawer of spalted alder and gently curving legs.

Rather narrow, it is ideal when used as a hall table, but we can certainly

imagine it being pressed into service as a narrow desk (especially if

you're in space-saving mode).  It can easily accommodate, say, a laptop

computer, and your other office-oriented needs.

Pendant Necklaces.  Lou Zeldis

As you may know, our wonderful artist Lou Zeldis passed away suddenly

last year, much to the shock of us all.  He has left behind a large collection of

his textile, clothing and jewelry and we are grateful to be able to show

a recently-arrived collection of his here at the Gallery, including ikats,

cotton batiks, shirts, jackets, and woven attar vine jewelry.  We're calling

this selection Lou Zeldis:  The Last Collection, and it is a good

cross-section of his artisty.  We'll carry it until it's gone,

and hope to be able to get more over the years, but now his work is finite;

one never knows what will be available.

But speaking of jewelry...

We are delighted with a selection of pendant necklaces in unmistakable

Lou style.  His tribal-like stone-over-stones criss-crossed with leather or

oxidized sterling, dangling bits and pieces, and adjustable neckpieces are

simply fabulous.  The four shown above include rustic-cut crystals, agate

and a gorgeous double malachite pendant.  The malachite is viewable

in the web shop here; the others - including a number that are not shown 

above - will be posted soon.  Watch this space for more information.

Wall Sconce.  L. Wendy Dunder

Yes, we know, this looks just like a big old harvest moon

peeking through newly-bare branches.  And yes, we understand:  this

glowing tableau makes one want to bay at the moon!  But please

keep your howling to a minimum (save it for October 31st when such

behavior is not necessarily frowned upon), especially if you

trot into the Gallery to meet this fabulous illuminated paper

sculpture in person!

(We have very sensitive ears...)

Dinnerware Sets.  Aaron Filson

It's still a way off, but make no mistake:  Thanksgiving and

the busiest entertaining season of the year is just around the corner.

(Did I actually just say that??  Oh dear... must make lists...)

For a beautiful dining table or a casual gathering, think about

adding Aaron Filson's wonderful ceramic pieces to your

collection.  He has given us a selection of single pieces that can be

mixed and matched, but he will also do custom-order sets.  Just

let us know what you'd like, but don't forget:  Order early

to assure delivery in time for the holidays!

(View his small plate in the online shop here; other items will

be posted soon.)

"Sunset" Necklace.  2 by Lyn&Tony

Brand new to the Gallery:  Bright and bold jewelry from Down Under!

Lyn and Tony of Sydney, Australia employ highest-quality stones, gems, glass

and leather to create dramatic and eye-popping necklaces and earrings.

Big chunks of agate drusy, long amethyst chunky dangle earrings, long

multi-strand waxed cotton necklaces with woven leather accents and tassels...

these are all pretty amazing.

This one, "Sunset", is orange coral and blue Czech glass beads on woven

leather, and is around 34 inches long.  It's currently viewable in the web shop;

we'll have others up shortly, so check back often.  We'll have shorter ones - 

mid-length and "choker" styles - available in a month or so, which

will make great gifts, or brighten up that holiday outfit!

As always, come into the Gallery or head over to our web shop at www.theislandgallery.net/shop/ to see much, much more.  And if you'd like to subscribe to this newsletter please send your e-mail address to sr@theislandgallery.net; we'll sign you right up!  You can also access the RSS feed (go to the bottom of this page) or sign up as a member or to follow us.

See you in September!