GALLERY
HAPPENINGS June 2007
Art From the West
of Now
Cat’s
Lair Collection, located in McStiff’s Plaza, is an
art gallery and unique gift shop in Moab, Utah featuring
local, regional, and international artists.You will find
here beautiful and unique works of original art: jewelry,
pottery, wood and metal work, paintings, drawings, photographs,
sculptures, fused & blown glass, azurite crystal roses,
hand-spun wool & silk, beads, light & color...
Moab is a small, isolated town located in the red rock desert
of southeastern Utah. There are few collections like this
one for over a hundred miles in any direction. Utah is world-famous
for its spectacular natural beauty. Many talented and devoted
artists live and work here, quietly interpreting the natural
beauty around them into stunning works of contemporary art.
The gallery is the realization of a longtime vision by Olga
Martinova: to create a place to show the works of isolated,
talented artists - to present to the world this new art from
the West of Now.
Olga Martinova is a canyon country artist who designs and
creates fine art jewelry using many of the metals, semiprecious
stones, and minerals found in the desert, including the rare
and wonderful Azurite crystals that come from a mine in Lisbon
Valley south of the La Sal mountains. Her strong designs
are naturalistic, resembling leaves and vines and desert
thunderstorms, but her materials and techniques result in
pieces that are sleek and modern - even technical.
A native of Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia once
more), a vibrant city with a rich artistic tradition, Olga
grew up surrounded by art and artists: her mother was Valentina
Perozchkova, a well-known sculptor in Leningrad; her father
was the poet and writer Alexei A. Martinov.
Gallery Artists
This month we would
like to invite you to see our new addition to our collection.
This month’s theme is “ IT’S ALL ABOUT
POTTERY!....” Seven wonderful clay artists of Utah
will be represented in our Gallery.
If you have not yet had a chance to stop by and see any of
our wonderful artists that we represent, don’t worry...we
still have them on display, so please stop in and enjoy them
all.
Kevin Frazier
Kevin
Frazier was born in an artistic family. His mother was
a painter. He experimented with various media from an early
age. By the end of high school he already started taking
pottery classes. Ever since he has been working with clay.
Kevin received his MFA and secondary teaching certificate
from the University of Utah. Shortly after graduating he
began teaching at Salt Lake Community College. Then he had
the opportunity to set up and run the craft center at the
college. He began teaching pottery, stained glass, lapidary,
small metals and anything else someone wanted to try.
Most of his current work is raku. Raku is a low temperature
firing technique that requires the pieces to be taken out
of the kiln while they are still very hot. In most cases
the glaze on the piece is still fluid. The fast rate of cooling,
from the hot kiln to air temperature,causes the glaze to
crackle. Post reduction, placing the hot piece in a combustible
material, fills these crackles and any unglazed surface with
black carbon.
Although he uses a stoneware clay body for his work, it never
reaches vitrification temperature. This means that raku is
inherently more fragile than stoneware and should be handled
with care.
Edwin Hymas and Diana Lea
As
a trained observer and teacher Edwin Hymas feels that creating
is what we are here for, and just can’t stop. Whether
it is wood, clay, plaster or metal these ideas keep taking
form.
Born up north in Tremonton Utah in 1948, Ed has been working
in clay since 1972, and was a two dimensional artist before
that for several years. His work is known throughout Utah
and the Western U.S. He resides in North Ogden with his artist
wife Diana Lea.
Diana began her pottery career in 1977 as a production potter
in Boulder Colorado. As her work evolved from stoneware to
majolica she moved to Park City Utah where she met Ed in
1994. Together they produce some of the highest quality intricately
carved stoneware pottery.
Betina Cerling
Betina
grew up in Oregon, studied languages and literature, and
ended up with BA in romance languages and an MS in geology.
Later she and her husband left for Tennessee, where she first
started to take ceramic classes. She said; “Clay appeals
to me. I am fascinated by its properties in all its phases.Wet
clay is limp and moldable; as it dries it becomes less malleable,
but can still be carved. Once dry, clay resembles rock in
many ways. It’s brittle, but becomes like stone in
the kiln. Each stage of this wonderful stuff must be treated
differently.
I seem to need to hold the clay and feel it before I am comfortable
actually making something. Functional ware that demands knowledge
of and facility working with all phases of this medium catches
my attention. Even seemingly totally non-functional pieces
begin as vessels some are interactive. I use the wheel as
one of many tools, and I enjoy encouraging clays with different
properties to bind and work together.”
A few years later they moved to Utah. Even with the demands
of her family and children, she never lost her desire to
keep her hands in clay and her enjoyment of her creations.
Vicki Acoba
Nothing
can be said better then what the Artist said herself.
“I create ceramic teapots from porcelain. I throw and
pull a series so shapes on the potter’s wheel. At the
appropriate time, I trim the thrown objects, wrap them I
individually in plastic to retain the moisture. In my studio,
I select and work on one thrown object at a time. I sit and
look at the shape, add the appropriate spout and than decide
on the surface decoration. I use a variety of methods to
change the surface. I carve directly on the body of the teapot,
or I apply bits and pieces of clay that I have textured using
stamps or pieces of found objects that have texture to their
surfaces, I might apply coils to the surface. I change the
surface in order to get changes in the glazes that I use.
The surface distortions cause the glazes to break differently,
reflect light in unusual manners or cause running patterns.
In some instances, I leave the surfaces untouched and let
the glazes create a beautiful teapot by themselves. Sometimes
I layer the glazes to create unique patterns.The handles
and lids are as varied as the thrown bodies of the teapots.
I never reproduce an exact duplicate of any teapot. This
also means I don’t make sets of anything. I don’t
have that discipline in me.
I love what I do. I do it to please me. And I have found
that there are people outside of my circle who also like
what I do. It pleasured me to see smiles on faces as they
approach my display. They may not buy a teapot, but they
have smiled and to me, that’s what it is all about.”
Wendy Wood
Wendy is fascinated by the use of ceramic items throughout
human history and has a strong interest in the culture and
human values associated with pottery. Although she took her
first pottery class purely by chance, it was her university
program in history and archaeology which kept her sprit working
in clay. She has been producing pottery for sale in the western
market since 1989. Her work is strongly influenced by historic
pottery forms, including prehistoric and historic Mediterranean
functional ware, American Indian traditions, and Asian pottery
form and design. She is currently focusing on producing small
pots.These intimate pots are intended to be held in the hand
and reflect an effort to visually define volume by enclosing
space. Although these pieces strive to be decorative and
aesthetically pleasing, they always maintain their underlying
function.
She has also recently explored masks as an artistic image,
inspired by the use of masks and storytelling by cultures
around the world.
“I received pottery training at Brigham Young University
and the University of Utah. I then spent a number of years
at the Salt Lake Art Center, first as a student and then
as an instructor and studio manager. In 1994, a number of
these potters and I created Utah Potters, Incorporated, a
pottery cooperative which has been blessedly successful for
us all. It is a privilege to try to pass on the wonder of
working in clay and the joy that clay continues to bring
to me.”
Charles Parsons
Charles
Parsons, a Salt Lake City resident, has been working in ceramics
for twenty years. He studied for several years under Lee
Dillon and Gordon Moore in the ceramics studio at the Salt
Lake Art Center. He currently works out of the Red Kiln pottery
studio, where he also teaches wheel thrown pottery classes.
He has shown work at different galleries in Salt Lake City.
Until the past few years, most of his work has been functional
high-fired glazed porcelain ware. Although he continues to
do this kind of work, He has become more interested in “alternative” firing
techniques that forsake the use of glazes. Specifically,
he has been experimenting with various low fire techniques
where the pieces are made with a porcelain clay body and
then pit fired, saggar fired or horse hair fired without
the use of glazes.
Suzanne Storer
Suzanne
born and raised in Oregon. She received BFA in California
College of Arts and Crafts. She has done many workshops with
Paul Soldner, Akio Takamori, Robert Peipenburg and Jim Romberg.
Suzanne’s ceramic art centers around life itself. Animals,
birds, water life and the human form inspire her pottery
and sculpture. Her southwestern style bowls and platters
evolve from the spirited imagery painted and pecked into
the rock walls and boulders in the desert canyons of southern
Utah. Her sculpture focuses on the relationship between the
female human form and rock land forms inspired by the desert
canyons of Southern Utah. This Oregon native has made her
home in Utah for the last 20 years and makes her living as
a professional potter. Her work is currently available in
Santa Fe, at shops and galleries throughout the west, and
locally at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and at Utah Artists
Hands in Salt Lake City.
Hand-spun Wool & Silk
for Lovers of Fiber Art
Olga began spinning
years ago, and keeps her spinning wheel in the shop, where
she often gives demonstrations to customers who have never
seen this ancient art practiced in real life. She sells skeins
of yarns in beautiful warm colors that she dyes herself or
buys from local producers, in luxurious blends of Merino,
alpaca, camel, and silk.
The Cat’s Lair Collection a nice selection of stone
beads for all the people who like to express their creativity
in jewelry making.
If you’re passing through Moab, we’d like to
invite you to take a few minutes to stop in and say hello,
and enjoy the refreshing experience of original art!
In Eddie McStiff’s Plaza, where you see the big yellow
cat above its rocky lair, you know you’re in the right
place! The big cat was sculpted by local artist Ekaterina
Harrison, and the rock entrance to its cave was created by
local artist Sandi Snead.
Cat’s Lair Collection
59 South Main St.
Moab, UT 84532
(435) 259-2458
www.catslaircollection.com |