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I have always loved making things with my hands, and after playing with many mediums I finally settled on bookbinding. I studied at the Garage Annex School for Book Arts, where I was able to develop my own style of hand bound books. I love working with recycled, tree free and handmade papers, and I try to use them in all of my books. All of my inspiration comes from outside: the farm I work on, and the woods and rivers I ramble through. I love doing special orders, so please contact me if you are interested. |
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Nancy B. Baker
Greenfield, MA
www.artscoop.com
silks@artscoop.com
413-773-3172 |
Nancy is a practicing artist working in mainly two media: mural painting and silk painting. Since receiving her BFA from Washington University School of Fine Arts in 1965 she has worked in many different media. In 1994 she took a class in painting silk. This began a fascination with the medium. She continues studying and experimenting with different techniques. She also paints murals, does faux painting, trompe l’oeil and re-creates furniture. She states: “I see my art as a journey that pushes me in new ways of seeing and creating and hope that I never stop finding new expressions for my work”.
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Jaynie has been growing and crafting gourds for ten years and teaching for six. She has taught at Smith College and has exhibited at the Smith College Art Museum. She currently teaches at Hill Institute. Her techniques include pyrography, beading, and incorporation of fiber arts. Jaynie’s work reflects her love of nature and her native ancestry. She finds it rewarding to begin the process of planting a seed, nurturing it into a gourd, then transforming the gourd into a piece of aesthetically, functional art. She is passionate about bringing awareness to gourdiculture and gourd art to local communities and to the New England area. Jaynie is known by her friends as “The Gourd Gal”. |
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Since 1992, I’ve been producing tiles, flowerpots and sculpture inspired by the natural world, as well as by mythology and folklore. My love of the ocean and the forest, weaves its way throughout my work in both image and feeling. One of my greatest joys is to create artwork that becomes a lasting part of the history of a house or garden.
My formal education includes a B. F. A. in ceramics from University of Massachusetts-Amherst, as well as an apprenticeship at Moravian Pottery and Tileworks in Pennsylvania and a Master of Education from Antioch New England Graduate School.
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Sally Chaffee is a seed bead artist with over two decades of experience creating and teaching beadwoven jewelry. Before moving to Amherst in 2005, she taught at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and the Art School at Old Church in NJ. She has also taught at the Fiber Art Center in Amherst and Snow Farm in Williamsburg. Sally’s work has been in juried exhibitions with the Bead Society of Greater New York, the Craft Students League in Manhattan and the Fiber Art Center in Amherst.
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Jane has loved art since her first box of Crayolas and ream of manila paper. All her life she has played at re-creating the colors and textures around her. When she discovered the bountiful world of specialty papers, Jane began using them to showcase whatever her environment inspired (paper quilts, decorative boxes, mixed-media collage). Incorporating found objects into her work is a reflection of the artist's respect for the earth. Jane says, "Above all, art should make you smile." |
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A native of western Massachusetts, Nina’s watercolors demonstrate her true love and appreciation of the rural landscape. Often the hardest part of painting for her is having to come in from the woods and gardens that occupy much of her time. Nina paints the countryside as she sees it through every glorious season. |
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Christine Conniff
South Deerfield, MA
CKChoco@hotmail.com
413-397-3161 |
I have been making jewelry using beads since the early 2000s. Bored with the traditional round beads, I look for unusual shapes, vibrant colors, interesting center pieces, vintage, handmade, natural materials, etc. I have found preserved gingko leaves, a sterling silver ‘pea pod’, several antique pieces and even fossilized ammonites! My education and background in color and design has also inspired me to take chances and combine the unusual making each finished piece unique. I accept custom orders.
I also do photography, having learned and worked
in black and white in Cambridge in the 70’s.
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I handform contemporary and classic jewelry using traditional metalsmithing materials and skills as well as utilizing a non-traditional new age material called Precious Metal Clay. Pure silver particles in an organic binder can be formed and textured, like clay, and then fired at 1650 F to create a pure silver product. My jewelry designs incorporate fine silver, sterling silver, beach glass, sea stones, pearls and other semiprecious gems and found items into interesting and unique, yet very wearable shapes.
I do all my own work, from the design of the original piece to fabrication, in which separate parts are hammered, sawed and assembled by soldering. Each piece is completed by extensive polishing and, if warranted, patina.
My designs go from fun to formal!
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A graduate of Mass.College of Art and workshops with well-known artists Sandra Denis has exhibited at galleries thoughout New England and the Southwest. Her paintings are in private and corporate collections and have won awards in juried competitions. Denis's work includes many varieties of wild life, domestic animals and birds as well as land and seascapes. Plein-air painting is a passion, especially to far off places.
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Oil,
Original paintings,
Limited Edition
Giclee prints,
Cards |
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Watercolor
Original paintings,
Limited Editon
Giclee prints,
Cards |
Katy Dieber
toadstonestudio@gmail.com
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Quite honestly, I make jewelry for one simple reason: gemstones and silver are colorful and shiny. When I use gems, I design each piece around the unique stone it features, trying to emphasize the patterns of the mineral without overshadowing its beauty. Some of my other inspirations include plant life (leaves and vines are recurring motifs) and contra dance figures.
While I have a BA in Studio Art, I practiced no metal crafts in college. I learned silversmithing in classes at studios in Chicago, my childhood home. I now create jewelry in my little studio near Millers Falls. |
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Stephen Earp received his BFA in Ceramics from the University of Iowa in 1986. He served a traditional two-year apprenticeship under Richard Bresnahan at St. John's Pottery in Minnesota. Earp lived several years in Nicaragua, Central America, as Ceramic Technician for the craft support organization Potters for Peace. He worked at Old Sturbridge Village as Master Potter for four years. Earp has taught wheel throwing and glaze chemistry classes at Craft Centers throughout the Pioneer Valley. Stephen Earp has been included in the National Directory of Traditional Arts since 2007. |
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Julie Hall Rocke
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For me, the challenge and excitement of photography is the quest to create something new and striking, something that challenges the viewer's ordinary way of seeing and captivates the mind. By seeking new visions, I avoid the photographer's dilemma of "competing with nature". Since nature's wonders are free and open to all, the photographer's unique eye is the only tool one has to truly set his or her work apart. |
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I grew up outside of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Wheaton College with a BA in Philosophy, then moved to New York City in the 70’s where I started photographing seriously while working for National Educational Television. In 1970, I joined the Camera Club of New York where darkrooms were available night and day. In the mid 1990’s I learned about the pinhole camera and worked exclusively in pinhole photography for the next 3 years. I am now working with both pinhole and digital cameras and have basically switched from the wet darkroom to the computer although I still have to develop the various films used in my cameras in the wet darkroom. Hopefully this is better for the environment, but I have never actually researched the trade off. |
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I have been a visual artist since the 1970's.
Currently my work is in black and white photography using medium
format cameras. My most recent exhibits include the Forbes
Library and Alfredo's Photographic Gallery in
Northampton, Mass.
Even before putting an image on film I have already
determined the size of the final print and framing
possibilities. I hand-tint some of my photographs and
most recently have incorporated old salvaged wooden
windows into my work. I place a photograph behind the
window to depict what a viewer might see looking
through an ordinary window in their house.
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Louise Minks never planned to become a professional artist and still finds it to be a surprise. With no art school training, she worked with other art friends, went to exhibits and museums and took some workshops with professional painters. Gradually, her art life became larger and larger, so in 1997, she left her part-time job and opened her gallery and working studio at The Montague Mill, where she works and exhibits today. Her colorful work ranges from expressive landscapes and still lifes to portraits and printmaking. |
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Rachel Popowich
Shelburne Falls, MA
413-625-9863
rpopowich@comcast.net
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I love making art of any kind; a day without doing some kind of art is not too great a day. I've been doing Ukrainian Eggs (Pysanky) since I was fifteen, although I didn't really get going strong on them till I married into a Ukrainian family. One of the things I love best about doing them is that it's always a little surprise how they turn out. The wax covers everything, and you never know exactly how the dyes will take to the shell or how they'll interact with each other. It's like opening a present every time. |
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As a potter and a fiber artist, I'm passionate about color. I've always been most excited by working in ways that yield unpredictable results--an unexpected and thrilling hue that emerges from the dyepot when I've layered colors over each other, or from the kiln as the fire works its magic, or the texture of a nuno scarf as the felted wool gathers up the silk in complex patterns, or the elegant way a flat-in-the-tray marbled design transforms as it slinks around the curves of one of my ceramic weed bottles. |
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Nina Rossi
413-834-8800
naban@verizon.net
www.ninastudio.net
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Nina Rossi is a Turners Falls resident who is inspired by materials, often incorporating unusual objects into her multi-media wall works. A wide range of interests and abilities give her flexibility in combining many media--fabric, clay, metal, wood, and traditional artists materials such as canvas, paper, paint and ink. Nina's art is unique and affordable. |
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Regina St. John has been a full-time professional fabric and paper marbler for the past 22 years. Her work is recognized nationally and she is frequently called upon by bookbinders and book artists to produce a wide range of specific traditional and original marbled papers. She and her husband, Daniel St. John, own and operate Chena River Marblers, a bookbindery and craft business selling marbled paper, silk scarves, ties and a variety of colorful book and stationary products in juried craft shows and shops. The St. Johns teach both marbling and bookbinding. |
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Candace Silver was born in Missouri and raised in the Ozarks and other parts of the South. Today, she resides in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. At a very early age Candace began drawing and knew by the age of three that she wanted to be an artist. Candace’s art would evolve into a variety of expressions. Her sensual watercolor paintings and digital photography celebrate her love of flowers, and her highly detailed art doll sculptures honor the needlework skills learned from her grandmother. “My goal is to reveal the inherent beauty of nature – that beauty that moves you.”
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A quilter since 1999, Sandy has long been fascinated by the interplay of shapes and textures in fabric. Her real joy lies in bringing together fun, interesting and whimsical fabrics that play well together. Her “Heirloom Gifts Collection,” includes aprons, table runners/wall hangings and hot pads. These beautiful fabric creations are made to be used and handed down from generation to generation. |
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