Formations: Paving the Way for 2025!
I love sculpture. So, it’s natural that sculptural elements enter into my sea glass art. Over the past year, I have leaned into working with highly unusual sea glass formations – pieces that are so interestingly molded by the environment, it’s almost hard to see what they were before. Then, working with these pieces on their own or in conjunction with other oddly shaped pieces, something truly wonderful emerges!
This focus on using the most unusual pieces in my collection applies to both wearable art and my newfound direction of garden steppingstones and sculptures. In the realm of wearable art, I made about half dozen new pieces that look significantly different from the existing collections. In the garden décor realm, I have the opportunity to work with the rarest finds in my collection – bottlenecks. Many were too big or heavy to use in jewelry, but are perfect to form sculptural pieces. Now my sea glass treasure hunt begins anew! This gives me an incentive for digging back into my forgotten pieces to see which ones have been neglected in previous design intervals.
Some of the wearable art pieces that evolved out of this new direction include:
Formations also makes me think of other concepts. Formations of new ideas. Formations of opinions. Formations of a point of view. Evolution into a place that has been formed over time. Re-formation. Formulas. Forming new relationships. All of these forms of formations are what I will look forward to in 2025!
Sculptural pieces are emerging as fabulous formations in their own rite!
When I looked back at when I last wrote a blog, I was shocked to see if was in the early Spring! Clearly, I was completely immersed in preparing for the July 6th Garden Tour. The local tour, put on by the Generous Gardeners is not your average Garden Tour. It aims high in both purpose and results. The funds raised from this tour (tickets and sponsorships) plus special events put on several times a year (Dahlia sales, plant sales, etc.) are to raise money to beautify many of the public spaces in Gloucester from the traffic “islands” to the grand swath of land along Stacy Boulevard home to our precious fisherman and fisherman’s wives statues. The group has nearly 100 volunteers that actually do all the work.
My studio was open during the tour. I had steppingstones downstairs with two lovely friends who volunteered and sent people upstairs where I shared my work and space. I so enjoyed meeting new people from all over and also seeing community friends who had never been to my studio. I can’t wait to see some of these faces back again when they have more time. I was truly grateful to those who left with a piece from my collection, and I donated 20% of my sales to the Generous Gardeners.
It’s been a busy winter to prepare for an even busier Spring! My theme for 2024 is Wearable Art for All Seasons. We don’t have to wait for the sun to enjoy wearing our sea glass. In fact, it’s a great way to celebrate the joys of summer year round! Speaking of the sun, admittedly, I did make a quick trip down south and am pleased to announce an expanded presence in Naples, Florida at a gallery just across from the Naples Botanical Gardens, 
new collection, “Stepping Out.” My sea glass garden steppingstone sold during the last week of the show! They are now available locally at my studio and also at 
As for Wearable Art on Cape Ann, in Gloucester, you can find it at the 
On Saturday, March 30th, Kristine Fisher and I had the privilege of leading a discussion entitled “Why I Create” with a distinguished panel of artists who were part of our video series, Cape Ann ARTWaves. The event was a celebration of the videos 
community for support. Out of a relatively simple request from the director of 1623 Studios, Cape Ann ARTWaves was born. But simple it wasn’t. The new high-tech video and podcast studios were shut down. Businesses were re-tooling, residents were effectively quarantined, and in person events were canceled. We all learned how to “Zoom.” And truly, no one knew what the artists were thinking and how they were creating during this time.
There were thousands to choose from. I quickly invited my fellow “hybrid” artist and arts advocate and dear friend Kristine to join me on this journey – knowing that her professional approach and unique perspective on art would make this a success.
We started out with a list of questions that we hoped would guide the conversation. As the program progressed, we realized the importance of researching each artist and customizing our questions. We talked about how each found their path to becoming an artist, process, techniques, mentors, inspiration, challenges, reaction to the Pandemic, and looking to the future. But the key moment in every interview often came deep into the conversation – how the artists’ work truly distinguishes them in the vast art universe. My biggest takeaway from this experience was that I could never anticipate where this would show up in the conversation or what it would unveil. Somewhere deep into the editing process, we were able to hone in on this critical part of the interview. These “moments” became the inspiration for the highlight’s videos.
impossible to fulfill the requests. But we hope that the cross section of artists we interviewed is a strong representative sample of the incredible creative talent on Cape Ann. We are grateful to the artists for entrusting us with their stories and very proud to have found a permanent home for them here at the Cape Ann Museum.
Every work of art in every museum, every book in every library, every piece of music that is played, is there to be appreciated because someone created it. Someone also protected it and made sure it had life beyond the creator.
All the pieces are one-of-a-kind so I am thrilled to have more selection in one of my favorite cities! Keep an eye out for Catherine’s events and support the arts in this lovely part of town! Enjoy these photos from the Botanical Gardens and inside Catherine’s gallery!
