Gallery 49 News

As we get nearer our opening day the gallery is all a buzz in preparation! Walls are being built and floors are getting painted and excitement is building! We have a nice array of artwork that will fill the gallery by August 1st. Paintings in a variety of mediums and styles, stained glass creations, hand carved wood sculptures, fiber art, polymer clay sculptures, paper cutting, photography and student art will be on display for show and sale. Our opening weekend coincides with Reading Festival Days so if you are in our area be sure to stop in to meet the artists and enjoy all the great fun and food of the festival! This picture is the layout for our gallery, gift shop and classroom. Come see what we are all doing! Hope to see you there!

Art Guild Picnic

I attended the Hillsdale County Art Guild picnic last Monday night. What an enjoyable evening that was! We met at a members home on Middle Sand Lake and we couldn't have asked for a better view and finer weather. We had a great time talking about art and sharing our experiences. Our county as well as most of Michigan has suffered from several closings of manufacturing plants. Gudi Gilbert, one of our artists, said it best when she said, "Companies move out and art moves in". How true it is! There has been a real surge of artistic events happening in our county and we are beginning to see that arts and culture play a huge part in income as tourists leave their mark in our towns. Besides as my friend, Kathy Falls, says, "When you watch the History Channel the thing that is left behind and lives on when cultures die is the artwork". So I guess we artists need to be highly appreciated and paid much better for our efforts!

Gallery 49

Well, it's been a while since I posted anything and Gallery 49 is to blame! I am so excited to be a part of such a great adventure! Gallery 49 is a project that I have been working on for two years with other members of our arts council, ArtWorks of Hillsdale, Inc. It is finally coming to fruition! The gallery is owned and operated by an artists co-op and will be filled with several area artists whose work consists of paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolor, photgraphy, wood carving, polymer clay, glass, fiber and paper cutting. Not only will we have a fine arts gallery but there will be a gift shop, classroom and artists garden as well. We plan to have many artsy events with art walks, musicians and much, much more. Don't miss our opening gala on August 1st, 2nd and 3rd during Reading Festival Days. Meet the artists and see what we envision. Come to Reading, Michigan where art is expanding the small town culture!
Gallery 49
119 S. Main St. (M-49)
Reading, MI 49274

PolymerCafe Magazine

If you love to play with polymer clay you will love the PolymerCafe magazine. I found this magazine on the National Polymer Clay Guild website. It's a great magazine for teaching techniques and finding new places to purchase tools and different clays from. The greatest thing for me is the inspiration I get by seeing what other clay artists are creating!
I wore out the first copy I received! I think I read every article and every advertisement from top to bottom at least three or four times! Over the past year I have taken my artwork to a higher level because I have been inspired by other artists and organizations to achieve something better than the standard craft show pieces. I came to the realization that I wanted more than the local craft shows could provide. I want to take my artwork to new heights and push my artistic abilities to new levels. PolymerCafe Magazine helps me to explore new possibilities. Although I will probably never become a beader, it amazes me what some jewelry artists are doing. The exquisite beads they create are really fabulous. I have a real appreciation for those who do caning too. To me it is tedious work and I have no patience for it but I love the affect it has on the pieces they create. You know, I just love things made of clay

and PolymerCafe has the best of the best!

Wonderful Festival

The Osseo Heritage Day and Great Mushroom Hunt was last Saturday. My involvement with hosting this festival with the rest of the Osseo Heritage Society members is my reason for not publishing anything on my blog for a few days. There just doesn't seem to be as many hours in the day as there used to be! Maybe I'm just getting older and slower! At any rate, the festival was wonderful! We were honored to have the Reg Pettibone family share their traditional Native American program with our community. They enlightened the crowd with their dance and Indian heritage and enticed some from the audience to participate in dance with them. The mushroom registration booth was filled with morel seekers vying for the Champion trophy and award. We were honored to have Oh Yunmi, from Japan, with us to teach youngsters the art of origami. I was lucky enough to have her sign a miniature crane for me! She is teaching at the Reading Elementary School. The mushrooms were tough to find this year but our contestants seemed to have faired quite well! The morel auction averaged about $38 per pound. Not bad! To check out more pictures of the festival visit www.osseomorelfest.com. I haven't had time to post them yet but they will be on there soon! (I needed to do a little blogging first!)

Honored Artist

I am a member of the Hillsdale County Art Guild and president of ArtWorks of Hillsdale, Inc., the arts council for Hillsdale County. A few weeks ago ArtWorks honored long time artist and teacher, Adabelle Hill with the Artist of the Year award. Adabelle is also a long term member of the Hillsdale County Art Guild. Last night at our guild meeting Representative Bruce Caswell presented her with a special tribute award from the State of Michigan. It was signed by Bruce, Senator Cameron Brown and Gov. Jennifer Granholm. She has taught many classes in watercolor in the Hillsdale area as well as in Italy. She chairs the guild's artist workshop committee yearly to raise scholarship monies for the guild to give to local art students. She has dedicated her life to the arts and sharing her knowledge with others. The next workshop will be held September 8-12, 2008 with California watercolor artist, Carol Maddox. For more information, contact Adabelle at 517-439-9050 or find details at www.artworkshillsdale.org.

Country Junction

I am a co-owner of a little country style home decor and crafts shop in a little town in southern Michigan known as the antique capitol. Yep, that would be Allen, MI. My business partner, Kay and I have the best smelling shop in town! Kay makes all of our pot pourri and soy tarts so the place smells really yummy all the time. I create my clay sculptures and make floral arrangements that have fluttering butterflies and dragonflies in them. I call them Flutterby Gardens. We both make a lot of country craftsy items like decorated old windows and doors. We also have several other artisans in our shop. My husband, Larry makes barnwood items, birdhouses and walking sticks. We have

two Amish brothers that make furniture, a candle maker,

two sisters who quilt, a jewelry maker, a lady who does papercutting (also known as Scherinschnitt) and a gentleman who makes garden stakes from old dishes.

We have a nice representation of area crafters and have

a beautiful store filled with items that accent antiques.

So if you get into Allen be sure to look us up at Country Junction. We're next door to the Outpost Grille at the

Allen Antique Mall right behind the tipi!

Great antiques, great food and great handmade decor!

Osseo Heritage Day and Great Mushroom Hunt

The 12th annual Osseo Heritage Day and Great Mushroom Hunt is coming up on May 10th. This is a fun family event that I have been involved with for the past 11 years. This year we are hosting the Reg Pettibone Native American Program. Did you guess our theme for this year? Yep, it's Native American! There will be tipis and Indian dance and song and Indian artifacts. Of course we have our traditional mushroom contest and Osseo pictorial history, good food and lots of fun! Find out more about this great festival at www.osseomorelfest.com

Circle of Time

Well, this weekend was my second experience at a juried art show competition. I can now say that I am an award winning artist! My sculpture, Circle of Time, was awarded first place. I was honored to have won but must add that there were only two artists entered in this category! It was not what I call stiff competition! Nevertheless, I can add it to my artist resume! I actually sold this piece at the art show, too, so that was a double boost to my ego! To see more of my work I invite you to visit my website, http://www.featherdancegallery.com/ The Lost Nations Commemorative Art Show is sponsored by ArtWorks of Hillsdale, Inc. and held yearly in April. This year's show had very fine artists and represented many categories. Look out world - the artists of Hillsdale County are about to become well known! Check out their work at http://www.artworkshillsdale.org/