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SHOPPING/GALLERY HAPPENINGS August 2007

Enjoy the Refreshing Experience of Original Art

Cat’s Lair Collection, located in McStiff’s Plaza, is a new art gallery in Moab, Utah featuring local, regional, and international artists. Here you’ll find 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, light & color. What follows is a list of some of their 25 talented aritsts.

Mike and Penny Stevens
Husband & wife, Penny and Mike Stevens take turns working as the “gaffer” in their Salt Lake City Glass Studio.The gaffer creates the design with chalk on the studio floor. The gaffer also gathers the hot molten glass (2000 degrees Fahrenheit) from the crucible inside the furnace onto a blowpipe.
They use wooden blocks (molds) and a marver (steel plate) to shape, form and cool the glass. The blowpipe is continually returned to the heat of the glory hole to reheat the glass so the gaffer can continue to blow and shape the art. Once shaped, it is transferred to another pipe called a punty. This allows the gaffer to use a tool called jacks to open the shape into the desired final form. The art is then put into the annealing oven for cooling and tempering. Each piece is signed by the gaffer, numbered and dated and is a unique individual piece of art glass.
Their glass works display beautiful and vibrant colors of free flowing glass forms and colorful balls.

Terry Horton (fused glass studio)
“As an apprentice in a glass studio, I discovered my passion for the art of fusing. It was not long before I purchased my first kiln and started to let my imagination and creativity shape the future of my designs. I have committed myself to the study of hot glass art. One of the things I enjoy the most is my classroom experience teaching others the art of fusing glass.
Several of my fused glass art projects are accented by a bold splash of color, a whimsical charm or a unique accent. I love the challenge of incorporating various mediums and findings with my own original glass shapes, styles and patters. This collaboration of elements has helped me create a festive collection of personalized works. I’m always looking for and inventing new ways to display the works of my craft.”

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 Bolder 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.

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.

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.

Wendy Wood
She is one of organizers of UTAH Potters inc. (a pottery cooperative). She make functional pieces and teaching pottery classes. She said: “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.”
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.

Betina Cerling
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 nonfunctional pieces begin as vessels some are interactive.”

Alan Yarmark
Pottery has been my passion for over thirty years. Developing original designs and glaze combinations continually challenges me. Improving my line of dinnerware and art for the home is an ongoing process. I am known for the deep blue glaze that show enthusiasts enjoy, however, I love experimenting with many colors together for a depth and landscape feeling that can be interpreted by the customer. I live in the San Luis Valley where the view
of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range and the San Juan mountains inspire a desire to recreate the outrageous sunsets and brilliant color combinations provided by nature each
day. Much of my wall work is done on the slab roller, with the focus being the blend of color.
I throw many large bowls that feature glaze combinations unique to my work. I feel very fortunate to work as a potter in such a beautiful valley.”

David Wolfgram(wood work)
David’s love for nature is expressed in his statement: “During a day where ‘we’ as a society consume natural resources at such a rapid pace and then cast aside or waste, what in some parts of the world would be deemed bountiful. I turn the remains of what thirst for expansion and ‘more’ leave behind into beautiful functional heirloom quality works of art. My hope is that the discarded trees in our community will live on in vibration and history as designed by my heart and hands.”

Hand-spun Wool & Silk for Lovers of Fiber Art
And of course we have something special for people who love to play and create with fibers - hand-spun wool and silk!

Cindy Werner
Cindy is a local spinner who displays her wool/silk shawls. Cindy learned to spin later in her life and in short time she become a spinner and a teacher. She taught hundreds of people her art of spinning and the art of natural dyes. For many years she has made many people happy with her wonderful netted clothes and now she start weaving too. Her work has a vary earthy and comfortable feeling that people like so much and makes it hard for us to keep her wonderful fiber work in stock!...

Olga Martinova
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/silk, alpaca/silk, camel/silk, and silk.
We also have 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

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