Thursday, October 25, 2012

Inspired Jewelry Artists

Meet Jilaine Anderson from Bead for Life...

I have lived in Columbus Ohio all of my life, and have always included volunteer work as an important part of my life. As a volunteer for BeadforLife, I work on behalf of Ugandan women who lifting themselves out of poverty by making beautiful paper beaded jewelry and luxurious shea products. I have been involved with BeadforLife for about seven years, but just became a community partner last spring. This will be my first Avant-Garde show and I am very excited to be a part of it.
I am inspired every day by the women in Uganda who are weathering through the plagues war, aids, and extreme poverty. Their hard work in the BeadforLife program takes them from surviving on $1.00 a day and teaches them to be entrepreneurs. These empowered Beaders become able to afford education for their children, and food and shelter for their families. When I think I am having a rough day, I think about them singing and smiling and making the beautiful jewelry, or collecting shea nuts, and I am inspired. I am a small business owner myself, so I consider myself a kindred spirit with these women.
After reading the book "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, I was inspired to act. Upon finding information about BeadforLife, it knew this was the perfect fit for my desire to help. Armed with a better understanding of what issues contribute to the oppression of women, I knew that BeadforLife's mission was on target with the concept of giving women a hand up, rather than a hand out. I am so glad to have this opportunity to really make a difference, and I very much enjoy the hours I volunteer every week.

Find more information on the following sites:

   


Meet Jackie Sanfilippo from Catching Dreams...
My name is Jackie Sanfilippo, I'm 23 years old from Cleveland Ohio. I've been living in Columbus for a little over a year now and absolutely love the liveliness of this city. Living around the campus area, there is always something to do. The fact that music and art is everywhere down here: on the street, all over buildings, festivals, stores and on people is what keeps me constantly interested and inspired to keep crafting and being unique.

Even though this is my first Avant-Garde craft show, I've been crafting for years.  Everything from refinishing furniture, building furniture, creating a wide variety of home decor to the jewelry I will be selling at the show. Creativeness and the art of crafting has been in my family for decades; Baking, cooking, drawing, painting, arrangements, interior decorating... I could go on forever.  I would definitely say my family has inspired me first and foremost by seeing how they find such enjoyment out of using their talent to bring joy to others.

Secondly I feel that many other artists have inspired me by seeing them find happiness in doing what they love. Last but not least the beauty of nature and its natural elements. I love uniqueness, style, and beauty and its great to be able to incorporate all of that into a piece.
I've enjoyed crafting my whole life, but started getting into it more about 6 years ago. I started scrap booking, which got my mind going and got me into jewelry making, painting, antiquing and making many unique decorations for all over my home. I eventually found my own style and that led me to using feathers and other unique objects to make jewelry.

Starting off I never intended to sell my work. I did it as a hobby, something that I enjoyed spending time doing and creating. I wore my jewelry quite often because it became a representation of me, and many family and friends recognized it and we're interested in my earrings and bracelets, telling me how I should start selling them or put them on Etsy. I'm new to the craft shows, but am so excited to be a part of such a artistic community of people!
The process of jewelry making for me helps to free my mind.  It's the best feeling to turn on some good music and just go to town for hours making different pieces each so different from the last. I hope my work inspires others to put to test their own ideas like many people have helped me do. No matter what comes from it you'll have a unique piece that YOU created from your own inspiration. Don't ever say no to your mind from going on a creative rant :) My pieces are a representation of me spreading my wings, finding my talent, inspiration and growing as a young adult.


Check out these featured vendors at the 2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show. This eclectic show will feature a large selection of the area's most talented artisans and crafters. A portion of the show's proceeds will be donated to Columbus Ohio's Pet's Without Parents a local non-profit, no-kill, all-breed shelter for dogs and cats.

2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show
Sunday, November 18, 2012, 1:30pm-6:30pm
The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral
555 N. High St 
Columbus, OH 43215
For more information, contact Becki Cooper, Event Coordinator at info@avantgardeshows.com
Visit us on:

Saturday, October 20, 2012

It's all in the Details!

Meet Jamie Mosley..
My name is Jamie Mosley but as an artist I'm better known by my maiden name, Jamie McLeese. I am a proud graduate of The Columbus College of Art & Design (class of '05), and I have been a working artist for over ten years now. I consider myself a mixed media artist because I have experience in, and tend to combine media  ranging from oil paint, watercolor, colored pencil, pen & ink and even digital design and illustration. Styles I am most influenced by are pop surrealism and hyper-realism. I am drawn to images that blend realistic figures with surreal landscapes and imagery with a healthy dose of saturated color!

Ever since I was old enough to hold a crayon, I've been creating images.During my time at CCAD however, I've been taking myself seriously as an artist and have been lucky enough to find freelance work and sell my pieces at local festivals and galleries. This will be my first Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show and I am very excited for this new opportunity!
I strongly believe that my life as a home-body allows me to dive deep into my subconscious/ inner creativity. As a Marine Brat (both Mom and Dad) who moved around a lot growing up, I credit what talent I have today to all the time spent drawing away in my room. I call this (precious) secluded time of mine, "going down the rabbit hole."

Making art is the only thing that set me apart all my life and is what I do better than anything else I've ever tried. So it was no mistake to me and those who know me, that I would pursue a career as an artist.
What made me want to start my own business as a professional artist is that I felt my passion for creating art and sharing it with the public superseded any fear I had as far as starting my business. I don't underestimate the risks and the hard work it takes to put yourself out there, so I appreciate all of the rewards that have come to me as a result of taking it all on.

I would describe my creative process as making the best of my mental disorders, haha! By that I mean, I use the time I spend being anti-social to compulsively obssess over a current up and coming artist I admire. I learn a lot in the time spent dissecting techniques and reading bios on these major talents. I've had this kind of "affair" with artists like James Jean, David Choe, Audrey Kawasaki, Oliver Vernon and more recently Bec Winnel. I absorb as much as I can from these artists, and then I approach my own work with brand new eyes, so to speak.
The best thing about doing what I do, is witnessing the various reactions to my work. For example, my infamous pop art portrait of Snookie as "The Mona Lisa," is the most satisfying. There is no in-between. When someone sees this piece, they either laugh or cringe and I LOVE IT! Of course I am tickled when people appreciate my work and ask questions, but I also welcome honest critiques. I feel I will always have room to improve and for me, all feedback is taken seriously. 
I've always been a fan of pop culture and comedy. I'm not (yet) an artist who hopes to evoke dark emotions from my audience. If anything, I want to draw people in. Art is my way of relating to people so I hope that the message my work delivers is: have a laugh, enjoy some color and lose yourself for a moment in some recognizable figures and high-contrast pattern!

Meet Yolanda Wilson from Timeless Moment Designs...
Hi, I am Yolanda Wilson, a native of Atlanta, GA who now residing in Columbus, OH.  I am a lively woman living every day to the fullest because tomorrow is never promised. I love spending time with my family and traveling to experience different cultures. I am married to my sweetheart and a mom to our four legged Yorkie baby. 

Crafting is relaxing and comforting to me and I love everything about it! Living every day, life inspires my creativity. My creative process is all over the place. Sometimes the end product is totally different from my initial vision. The thing I enjoy most about creating handmade unique items is to see the enjoyment it brings to others.  The message behind my work is that every piece is made with love and to bring joy to those who it was created for.

At a young age, I discovered that I had a creative niche.  From the ages of 5-18 years old I was a majorette, and we traveled for parades and competition shows. To help with travel expenses we had plenty of fundraisers. We made signs, crafts and would come up with exciting fundraising ideas to help us with travel fees for our shows. My love of scrapbooking began at the age of 19 while in the military, which turned into card making and list of crafts just continued to grow. This is my 1st Avant-Garde show and I am extremely excited! I am really looking forward to meeting other crafty people as well as meet and greet with the customers.
Since 1998 I have done all aspects of wedding consulting for family and friends (planning, decorations, and day of coordinator). After planning our wedding in 2009, my husband encouraged me to consider starting a small business. One day while we were on our evening walk he said we have to come up with a name that embodies your entire creative umbrella. That was the birth of Timeless Moment Designs! It is very true that if your job is what you love to do you will never work another day of your life.



Meet Roechelle Adair from Hug a Tree with Me...


I was born in Trinidad and migrated to the U.S when I was 11, presently I live in Northern Kentucky with my husband and our four year old daughter. I am an avid Green worrior, I love to teach, learn, laugh and be happy.
I launched Hug a Tree with Me a little over a year ago. I have been making and selling my handmade pieces ever since. I have always been pretty crafty, making things is a form of therapy for me. This will be my first Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show, I am super excited.

I find creativity in nature and simplicity. I love taking recyced materials and turning it into art. Also, my love of natural living inspires my bath and body line.
By doing this, found a way to combine my two passions; crafting and Eco, to earn an income doing what I love is a dream come true. Also being my own boss (working from home) allows me to be here for my daughter.

I am always crafting things up in my head, it might be a certain color or fabric or something that sparks my creativity. The message behind my work is sustainability, all natural and beautiful.

Meet Stacy Murphy from In Mind 4 U...
I am married to a wonderful and supporting husband. I am also a mom to my only child, Troy.  I am a Radiation Therapist at OSU and have been in the field for 19 years. I enjoy art, painting, photography and traveling abroad.

I have been creating my vintage style signs for just about a year now. The idea came to me when I started purchasing antique furniture and repainting them to look unique and distressed using various colors of paint.

When it comes to my creativity. I would probably have to say that I get it from my Grandmother and mother.
How I got into my hobby… I've always enjoyed crafting. However, it became an outlet to my stressful and often times depressing job. I started my own business because I had my husband, friends and family that encouraged me to. They felt that I created items that others would want and  enjoy having them in their homes.

I start my creative process mostly by creating items that appeal to me. Many of my quote signs are a reflection of my life as an individual and as a wife and mother. What I love most about what I do is knowing that perhaps my signs will be in other people's homes for them to enjoy.

I have many messages behind my work...each quote has its own unique message and can be significant to many people out there. Many are unspoken words that will make them smile every time the see their sign. You can view and order my work also at my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/InMind4U. I also enjoy doing custom work and working one on one with people to  create their own unique individual sign(s).


Check out these featured vendors at the 2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show. This eclectic show will feature a large selection of the area's most talented artisans and crafters. A portion of the show's proceeds will be donated to Columbus Ohio's Pet's Without Parents a local non-profit, no-kill, all-breed shelter for dogs and cats.

2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show
Sunday, November 18, 2012, 1:30pm-6:30pm
The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral
555 N. High St 
Columbus, OH 43215
For more information, contact Becki Cooper, Event Coordinator at info@avantgardeshows.com
Visit us on:

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Introducing the 2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show Vendors!

Meet Whitney Dirks-Schuster from Time & Trilobites...
I don't self-identify as an artist, as my career and overwhelming passion are centered in a weird, biological histories. I wrote my masters thesis on the fascination with hermaphrodites in 17th-century England, and my dissertation is on the spread of knowledge about monstrous births (conjoined twins and the like) in Britain 1450-1750 (the first three centuries of European print culture). I absolutely love it (well the topic and the research, if not the writing!), especially what a great conversation topic it makes over beers at local bars!

I started making steampunk creations in the summer of 2009, when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancers, freaked out about that (it's all good now!), and needed to get as far away from my history PhD as possible. I started by filling my office with thrift store finds, eventually moved them down to my basement (where my husband made me an amazing work bench), and now work down there during my free time with a slew of cats looking on and offering suggestions.
I'm in love with the webcomic Girl Genius (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/), and that was my introduction to steampunk.  I'm working on my history PhD, and some of the things I study are wunderkammern / cabinets of curiosity / the grotesque / bodies / unusual anatomies.  Recently, my art has been moving in this direction, particularly in terms of collections of odd objects.

I started making jewelry as a kid. A friend of my parents was a beader, and whenever we were at her house, I would mess around with her supplies.  Eventually, she gave me a bunch of extras, and I started making jewelry on my own. For me, this is just a hobby. Selling art is a great way to earn a little extra money, which I can turn around and spend on other people's art!
I think of my art as a kind of collage. I put pieces together, take them apart, keep some elements and replace others, until the piece just looks right.

What I enjoy the most about making handmade items is that they really are unique. I love seeing someone else's cobbled-together creations and thinking "I could make that." Then, when I sit down to actually work on it, it turns out completely different. That's one of my favorite things about found-art sculpture; you could hand artists identical piles of materials, and inevitably what they make with them will be entirely unique. 
The message behind my work is to have fun. There's no point to making art if you don't enjoy what you're making. I'm looking forward to my first Avant-Garde show this fall!



Meet Phyllis Chandler from Blue Diamond Glasswork...
My name is Phyllis Chandler. I retired in December 2011 from 30 years as an electrologist in the Grandview/Arlington/Hilliard/West Columbus areas. I have a BS in Math Education and am also a massage therapist. I have been married for 43 years to Bob Chandler and we have one son, Paul Chandler. We resided in Columbus for 35 years, but in 2010 moved to Sugar Grove Ohio. We live in a community that sees more golf carts, deer and birds than actual cars. We love it.  
In the move we renovated a 12X20 room into a studio, where I can sit and torch while looking out at beautiful trees and listening to the birds. We also took over one bay of our garage for a bigger kiln and various finishing equipment and storage for Blue Diamond Glassworks.
I started making jewelry in 2000 and followed that 2 years later with learning flamework techniques. Flamework is a wonderful medium. There are so many techniques and reactions to learn about. My husband used to laugh at me saying I went back to school every 10 years whether I needed to or not. 30 years ago I got my electrolysis licensure, 22 years ago I got my BS from OSU, and 12 years ago I became licensed as a massage therapist. Now I take at least 2 or 3 glass classes a year and glass will surely provide me the learning environment I seem to need.

Where I get my creativity.. How can I not be creative when all I have to do is look out my window to see nature at its finest?! That  is where my scene beads come from, as well as my Quirky Critters. Everywhere I go I notice scenery, colors, animals, and think how that would work in a bead or fused piece.
How I got into my craft.. My husband had taken a fall and was bedridden for several months recuperating. Out of sheer boredom I took up beading. From the beading came the flamework. Since our son lives in Las Vegas, we attended Glass Expo, a national glass conference, and were introduced to the art of flameworking and fusing. I bought everything I needed to start the hobby and then couldn’t talk myself into turning on the torch. Scary thing when you aren’t used to playing with fire. So nine months later I took a class locally and there was no stopping from then on. I probably spend 40 hours a week on my art.
Overall, the general idea all along was to give us something to do when we retire.  We love doing shows, we love working at our art and we love the people we have met and become friends with through glass.  It is very different from what both of us did during our “working” life, so is perfect for retirement.

My creative process is play -- pure and simple play.  Glass is such an interesting medium and it takes you where it wants to go if you let it.  You can sculpt with it, you can go organic and let the glass react as it will, or you can be precise, with all kinds of dots and stringer work.  Which way I go depends on the day and my mood.  Every class you take, every bead you see, every tutorial you mimic gives you new ways to let the glass take you.
Different glasses and different colors react differently.  When you work with glass, it needs to anneal in a kiln overnight.  Since the glass is red hot when you are working with it, you never get a true picture of what you are doing until the work has cooled to room temperature.  So it is always Christmas morning when I get to come downstairs and see what my projects from the day before really look like.

The message behind my work would be that if you work at it, you can do anything you want to do. Flamework has the steepest learning curve of anything I’ve done. Yet I persevered and have found it very rewarding.

You can view more of my work at my etsy shop: Blue Diamond Glass

Meet Susie Stover from Green Chic Shoppe...
I am a mom of three children, a nana of 3 grandsons, a wife, an at-home child care provider. I started making my own laundry soap after attending a class on essential oils, and how to use them in cleaning my home without harsh chemicals. People need to pay attention to all the chemical laden products they are using around themselves and their families.
It felt so wonderful to crawl into a bed washed in natural ingredients, and no harmful chemicals. As a child care providor, I realized the need for using  cleaning products in my home and in my daycare. I began researching on how to make other cleaning products  using only therapeutic grade essential oils. I had so much fun making them and so much fun packaging, that I kept making them and giving them as gifts to my daycare parents and my family.  

Following that, I then asked my daughter Erin if she would be able to help me in my new business. I continued to make and package my products, but didnt have the room to store everything. I then began to sell on Etsy,  put my products in a childrens re-sale shop in a neighboring town, and then began to get into craft shows.  

I feel so good about using my products in my home and in my daycare. The Avant-Garde Craft Show is the first show I have been in. I plan on being in a couple more this year!

Check out these featured vendors at the 2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show. This eclectic show will feature a large selection of the area's most talented artisans and crafters. A portion of the show's proceeds will be donated to Columbus Ohio's Pet's Without Parents a local non-profit, no-kill, all-breed shelter for dogs and cats.

2012 Columbus Fall Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show
Sunday, November 18, 2012, 1:30pm-6:30pm
The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral
555 N. High St 
Columbus, OH 43215
For more information, contact Becki Cooper, Event Coordinator at info@avantgardeshows.com
Visit us on: