Blog

On March 31 and the morning of April 1, I had the great honor of hosting the team from Chronicle5 in my studio.   It all began with a humble “form” that the producer filled out on my website and found its way into my email in early March.  I was a bit suspicious that this was just too good to be true – but it was the real deal.  Lucky for me, they decided to focus on Gloucester and I was the first person with whom they spoke.  I did my best to recommend a wide variety of Gloucester’s interesting places and people with interesting stories.   But they had done their research and to their credit, they are fabulous as digging up the great stuff.

And so, how to prepare for this?  Honestly, they really did not give me any guidance.  I just knew they wanted me to do a demonstration of making work.  That in itself was a challenge as nothing happens in a 5-minute period – but usually takes a week or more.    So, I set about to make all types of hair accessories and jewelry in various stages.    The next challenge was doing a low tide sea glass walk.  So, just as mother nature would have it, that had to be on APRIL 1st  at 8AM.    In case you don’t remember this cruel April Fool’s joke, it was 34 degrees with 30MPH winds that day.  Putting the microphone under my jacket to hide it from the wind really didn’t make a difference.  Kendyl, Richard, and I were frozen on Niles Beach!   I didn’t find too much sea glass that day – but they were great about letting it be as it is – a diminishing resource.

Erika Tarantal was a delight.  With her family background in the arts, she was a perfect companion to work with me on a piece.  Honestly, we really had fun – and I did everything possible to make their visit easy and be responsive to their questions and helped with any introductions.  I was thrilled they visited Rocky Neck Cultural Center and the Salted Cod for the art-focused segment.   It’s not easy to create the off-season picture for Gloucester – yet truly, this is the most prescious time of year for many of us.   Equally, the incredible focus on GMGI, Backyard Growers, the Bowling Alley,  the Beauport, and Joey of GMG’s tour of downtown show the diversity of our community.  Key word here is COMMUNITY –  a place we love calling home.    Following are links to the art-focused video and the other videos for all to share!

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, Things I Like by Catherine.  The Gardens and the gallery are both part of the Bayshore Arts District.  During my recent visit, I attended an event to raise money to create even more space for artists in that area.  Wishing them the best of success!

Closer to home, I enjoyed being part of the Rocky Neck “now” show where for the first time I entered a piece from my 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 Cedar Rock Gardens!  See the various sizes and shapes available here on my website.

As for Wearable Art on Cape Ann, in Gloucester, you can find it at the Cape Ann Museum.  NEW LOCATION in Rockport is Gallery Number One!  The work will be there as of April 22nd.   The Grand “Re-opening” will take place on Friday, May 17th. 

And speaking of the Cape Ann Museum – along with fellow Cape Ann Artisans, I am honored to be presenting a piece at the upcoming Cape Ann Blossoms show the weekend of May 3-5th.  I am partnering with encaustic and mixed media artist, Deb Gonet to create a sea glass sculpture based on my steppingstone concept while Deb is focused on the floral-like part of the sculpture.  The Museum gave us a choice of Fitz Henry Lane paintings and ours is “A Rough Sea” painted in 1854.

When I first saw this painting, all I could think about was what was going on below the surface of the sea!  There had to have been a tumultuous mixing up of old bottles down there.  The combination of this thinking and the intense colors resulted in a selection of glass and bottlenecks to tell the story in an exciting new sculptural piece.   Here’s how it began!  Click on the FHL Painting to run through the slides.

My studio on Thurston Pt.  is open by appointment, and I plan to have several one-day Open Studios.   The first one will be Friday, April 26th. Look for special promotions on Fabulous Fridays!  The studio is refreshed and there are plenty of choices of hair accessories and jewelry!   Hope to see you here or at the opening in Rockport at Gallery One!

Finally, be sure to “save the date” July 6th for the Generous Gardeners Garden Tour & it will take you right to my front steps here on Wheeler’s Point!

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 new home on the Cape Ann Museum website’s Vault.   Our panelists included: Shelly Bradbury, Sculptor;  Nella Lush, painter,  Adin Murray, painter,  and Dana Woulfe, visual artist and muralist.

Following are my introductory remarks.

In 2020, as the impact of the Pandemic set in, Cape Ann responded in the way it often does, looking to the 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.

The goal of ARTWaves was to have an informed conversation with a wide range of artists across various media who lived and/or worked on Cape Ann. 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.

As a 100% volunteer team, Kristine and I individually made lists of people and organizations we felt would demonstrate a cross section of the arts community using the vast network of arts organizations as a resource along with our individual relationships.  We kicked off the interviews as the reality of the Pandemic set in   with the heads of seARTS and Rocky Neck as they were in the thick of trying to navigate a new twist on the art scene heavily dependent on openings and events.

We learned quickly that the effect of the Pandemic on the arts was intense and individual.  As we began our outreach to individual artists it became clear that not everyone was comfortable telling their story for many different reasons.  For some, art-making came to a halt.  For others, it became even more intense.   There was huge loss in so many parts of our lives and unforeseen physical and psychological challenges.    As for the future of ARTWaves, other than initial launch of the interviews on local cable access and social media, we did not know what the future held for these video interviews.    In the end, artists had to trust that we would be stewards of their stories.

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.

From having to cajole artists to do interviews in 2020, in 2023 we were fielding requests from many who wanted to be interviewed.   It would have been 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.

I found a wonderful quote in the Coming Home book published by Wilber and Janet James.  In the introduction to the book, John Driscoll, the art advisor who helped build the collection wrote this about “Collecting as a Creative Act,”

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.

Truly, the CAM team – Oliver Barker, Miranda Aisling, and Trenton Carls is doing exactly this for Cape Ann ARTWaves and the stories inside it’s virtual walls.    The program was livestreamed and recorded and can now be found here.    All CAM Talks also appear here in the CAM Video Vault.

We are also indebted to our behind-the-scenes ARTWaves partners and champions– 1623, seARTS, our graphic designer, Linda Stockman, videographer Anders Johnson, musicians Steve Lacy and Pat Verga.  On a personal note, many thanks to Kristine Fisher for co-hosting, co-producing, and also being one of the sponsors of this program.   We are greatly indebted to all the sponsors for supporting this effort – Prince Insurance Agency, M. Kristine Fisher, Visual Artist, The McDermott Group of Gibson-Sotheby International Realty, Common Crow Natural Market, Protective Packaging, and Martha Anger Real-Estate Advisor, Compass Realty, and the Cape Ann Savings Bank.    Please click through the slide show below to see all the photos from the event.