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Art at Willow Pond Bed & Breakfast
Local artwork is on display and available for purchase in our common room and lobby area.
Willow Pond Bed & Breakfast
does not charge the artists a commission,
all proceeds go directly to the artists.
Please support our Grand Valley artists and consider purchasing their work
during your visit.
Scroll down to read the artist bio's.
________________
Coming Soon...
The Art and Jewelry of
This month's featured artist:
www.artistsregister.com/artists/CO199
www.newartcollectors.com
Read the recent Daily Sentinel article on Piera
Having
spent the first four years of her life in Aspen, Colorado, when it
was just another small mountain town,
Western Colorado has continuously drawn Piera back to her roots. As a young
girl she was enthralled with the adventures in beauty,
exploring the Rocky Mountains on foot and on horseback. Piera has worked
with clay since childhood:
along with drawing, it is the clearest way for her to express the particular
joy she finds in Southwest nature.
The line of the cave drawings and the ancient Anasazi pottery, evokes a
chorus of melodic forms.
Nature's dance, captured in Anasazi line, is expressed in Piera's pottery
and painting.
Piera has spent time in France,
Spain, England, Scotland, and Italy, has a B.A. in Fine Arts, an
A.A. in Commercial Art,
and was an Art Director in Denver. She began perfecting her pottery designs
in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the 1970's.
She discovered crystalline glazing in Abiquiu, N.M. in 1991. Although the
exploding atoms can be seen in the crystal glazes as modern,
Piera sees them as most truly reflecting the magic of clay and heat that
has always invested Southwest pottery with its strength and mystery.
Piera's Crystal Glaze Process
Crystal glazes are unique. The
crystals in the glaze are formed by exploding
atoms in the glaze, that means that during the firing process, the glaze
is
in the process of becoming a glass that is covering the pot of clay.
How this occurs has a few different
factors. One is the chemical
composition of the glaze ( i.e. glass). Another is the temperature that
the
firing is at the various times of the process, allowing this chemical reaction
to occur.
For all pottery is usually covered
with a glaze then fired, so it is with crystals, but certain details
are varied.
The pot has to be placed on top of a catcher basin to absorb the run-off
of the glaze in firing.
These details involve the make up of the glaze (that becomes glass), what
chemicals go into the glaze,
the rate the temperature rises, and finally the holding temperature (that
creates the exploding atoms in the glass).
And, as important, is the cooling rate.
Crystalline Glazes are a wonderful
combination of art & science, where one
never can plan or guess the actual result. This adds to the mystery of
art and life!
" Blue Vase"
Watercolors by
Betsy McLoughlin
Betsy McLoughlin, a Grand Junction resident, is primarily
a self-taught artist who has been drawing and painting all her life.
Her artwork has often had to be deferred, though, due to her decades-long
profession as a Spanish teacher
and her recent full-time job as a Spanish
professor at Mesa State College. Nevertheless, Betsy has continued to
sketch and paint as much as she can,
and since moving to Grand Junction
in 1986 has sold her artwork and won various awards on the Western Slope.
Her painting had to be deferred in the early 1990's when she returned
to college to obtain her doctorate in Spanish literature.
However, upon
returning to Mesa State, she decorated her office with large watercolors
that she painted of tropical beach scenes mounted in old window frames.
She continued creating these windows for others, featuring them in various
shows and now a number of people in Grand Junction have some of Betsy's
windows.
Since retirement, though, Betsy has been creating smaller watercolor
paintings as well, practicing skills she was taught in workshops in California
and Colorado.
Carrying a sketchbook with her wherever she goes, she is
focusing now on landscapes and everyday scenes.
She has especially enjoyed
painting fall and winter scenery and has also been creating a variety
of "Christmas" paintings,
whether of snowmen, wintery sunsets,
cats looking out of a window, or Southwestern adobe houses decorated
with Christmas luminarias.
Betsy and her husband recently converted a
basement room into her "art/project room," so she is now ready
to spend much more time painting.
You can expect to see her artwork appearing
before long in various places around town, including Willow Pond Bed & Breakfast.
betsymlc@aol.com
Beautiful Batik work by
Having been an artist ever since
I can remember, there is no need to reiterate the place art occupies
in my life.
I remember
drawing on whatever had a blank surface. I wanted to design clothes
so I drew my own paper dolls and designed some “hum-dinger” outfits.
I only wish I still had some of these.
There were no art classes where I attended school, first through
12th grade. When teachers found out I could draw, Whamo!…
I was kept
busy drawing this and that for bulletin boards. I don’t remember
painting anything until my high school science teacher talked my
parents into
buying a set of oil paints and brushes for me. Then she gave me
a colored reprint of a landscape to copy onto a canvas board.
I soon
figured out how to use the oils with linseed oil and turpentine. I matched
the colors exactly without knowing the fundamentals of
color theory by
mixing a tiny bit of this and of that, and comparing my mix to the color
on the print.
College art class 101 was my first exposure to art classes of any
kind. The big learning curve here was to learn that details don’t
always belong in every work of art,
that there is simplicity of design and abstraction.
I attended college at a time I earned a K-12 teaching certificate with
minors in art and music. Then I proceeded to amass enough hours in art,
art history and
studio art to fulfill a doctorate. Of course, I never
used those credits toward an art degree. Yet I have taught art for nearly
four decades, writing curriculums,
starting the high school program at
a high school, giving workshops locally and throughout the state, displaying
my art in various shows and constantly
learning something new every day
about some aspect of the arts. And, yes, I aced the art placement test
required by State government for teachers a few years ago.
Therefore I have tried every genre, technique that I come in contact
with. Because of my tendency to want to explore everything,
I have had
a difficult time settling on only a few mediums. These include clay,
especially hand building; batik, because this process slow me down and
requires planning; watercolor which is the hardest medium of all, leaving
no room for mistakes and of course photography.
With the age of digital,
Adobe and Paint Programs allow even more creativity.
In the years to come, I know there will be new things to learn and to
try.
Inspiration can be found everywhere if you keep your eyes, ears,
and mind open. Creativity is the key.
BATIK
Batik is a technique dating back 2000 some years to the Island of Java
where somehow natives discovered how to decorate cloth made of
plant
fibers through a resist method. One uses some type of resist, which
could have been tree sap back then, applies this to a surface and adds
color over the area.
When all has
dried, the resist is removed and presto, there remains a design in the
color of the original surface.
One may repeat this step as often as he/she has different colors BUT
the key is to go from light to dark, being sure all dries in-between
steps.
Of course, at each step the artist paints resist over the newly
applied and dry color before adding another. He/she must remember as
well,
what happens when certain colors are placed over others, for example,
blue over yellow will create greens.
This art form can be decorative,
used on fibers or used on clay surfaces. It can be an art form creating
portraits, scenes, action or other subject matter.
One’s imagination and creative spin are the only limits to this
exciting art technique.
Willow Pond is pleased to introduce...
Greg Luff, glass artist.
We found
this incredibly talented young artist selling his wares at the Grand
Junction Downtown Farmer's Market.
Palisade High Alumni, Greg's now a freshman
at Mesa State College. We know you'll love his work as much as we do!
Greg Luff
For as long as I can remember I have been an artist.
I have always been fascinate with light, color and shape. I am a senior
at Palisade High School.
For the last seven years I have worked in
clay and two years ago I began working in glass. This year I have combined
the two,
creating mixed media pieces of functional art in addition
to pendants, vortex and floral marbles, and beads.
In addition to glass,
I use only naturally found gems, shells, pearls and silver findings
in my jewelry pieces.
I have named my business Elements of Earth. It
reflects my deep respect and appreciation for nature.
Our surrounding
canyons, mesas, orchards, farmland and desert are the inspiration for
much of my work.
It was not until I took a trip to Great Britian
as a student ambassador for People to People that I became focused
on glass as an artform.
The visit to Waterford Crystal Factory literally
changed my life. I came back determined to learn and create in this
medium.
After acquiring the proper equipment, I had about
six months of experimentation on my own.
After school was out, I was
able to attend classes at Glasscraft in Denver and the Eugene School
of Glass in Oregon.
I was also fortunate to be accepted into Snow Farm in Massachusetts.
Snow Farm is part of the New England Arts and Crafts Program and run
specifically for high school students.
I appreciate your interest in my art and hope you enjoy your purchases!
Read the Free-Press article about Greg Luff
Peg Oswald
From
early childhood on, drawing has always been a love of mine. I was fortunate
to have an excellent art teacher at the public school
I attended in upstate New York from whom I received art instruction from kindergarten
through high school. Even though I had a career
as an elementary classroom teacher, I continued to take art classes to be able
to give instruction to my pupils and always took
a sketch book with me on my travels.
It wasn’t until retirement
that I discovered the joy of working in clay and the fun of creating
paintings with pastels. I continue to take
pottery classes with Terry Shepherd at the Art Center in Grand Junction throwing
on the potter’s wheel and hand building. I love the
whole process of creating a piece then adding slips, stains or glazes to achieve
a certain look. Watching that piece come out of a firing
(whether from a gas, raku or salt kiln) is like Christmas morning. There is
almost always a surprise. I find it quite addictive!
Working with pastels has allowed
me to add wonderful color to my drawing. I love the brilliance of the
colors and textures
you can achieve with them. Now a small box of pastels goes with me on my travels.
Sara Oakley got me started on pastels and
now I am teaching a pastel class for beginners.
I have shown my art work at the
Art Center, Crystal Café, Planet Earth Gallery and downtown
where I have participated in Friday Art Hop
and the Thursday night Farmer’s market. I reside in Grand Junction ,
Colorado with my husband and 4 cats.
-Peg
"Dip"
"Falls"
Andre
Delgalvis is a commercial photographer located in Grand Junction, Co.
specializing in Portrait and Landscape Fine Art Prints.
His landscape work is centered on images of the Colorado Plateau, Lake Powell
and Latvia. Andre has been a professionally involved in photography
since 1970 and has had his work displayed in a number of shows both in the
U.S. and Latvia.
In 2003 he began finding dinosaur
tracks that became exposed due to drought induced falling water levels
at Lake Powell.
Over the course of the next two years the number of tracks he found began to
reach into the thousands.
With last spring's large snow pack, the lake was projected to rise over 50'.
As a result, many of these newly discovered sites would
again be submerged and possibly not visible again in our lifetime.
Andre and Dr. Martin Lockley, a
paleontologist from the University of Colorado, specializing in dinosaur
tracks collaborated in an effort to document
as many of these sites as possible. Between March and July of 2005, they, together
with a number of volunteers, mapped, photographed, took molds,
and made drawings of the threatened sites.
Images from this effort are currently
being produced in an edition entitled "Lake Powell- The Lost Tracks"-
The photographs are in poster form and are
available for purchase through the gift shop and his studio. Signed and numbered
limited edition prints of these images are also available on request.
An article about the tracks is featured in the February 2006 issue of Arizona
Highways Magazine.
Current projections suggest that
the Lake will rise an additional 35'-40' as a result of this year's
runoff. This rise will cover most
of the remaining tracks that he has found in the past 3 years. Between the
end of March and the middle of July, Andre, Dr. Lockley and other
volunteers will continue to search for and document these remaining site.
Information on the Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast website is subject to change without notice.
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