Benefit Yard Sale for Local Crisis Ministries Fund & Betina Clark's Opening

The Art Studios at Cottage Road's Benefit Yard Sale for the Local Crisis Ministries Fund was a huge success and started our Second Saturday festivities with a real bang. We transformed our lawn into a treasure chest of household goodies, art and craft supplies and fun items donated from our generous group of stewards, teachers, members and staff. Here's a cute pic of one of our lucky customers showing off her new books.

This was our second annual benefit yard sale for the Local Crisis Ministries Fund. We are very excited to report that we were able to raise a nice amount of money from all our local shoppers. We even had some donations made from folks just wondering by. For all our community support, we are grateful. Check out Pat relaxing in the sun with her favorite martini glasses.....hope she didn't sell those.....they are keepers for sure!

Betina Clark's Art Opening
Each month, The Art Studios at Cottage Road honor one of our stewards, teachers and members as our featured artist. Betina Clark, a very popular silver metalsmith, was our featured artist for the month of June. Her opening coincided with our busy Saturday morning yard sale. Needless to say, things were hoping all day. Betina was there to meet with guests and talk about her work. We had a busy night of traffic coming to check out Betina's new creations and spend some time one on one with the artist. You can see more about Betina by clicking on her link under "links we love" to the right of this blog.

Resin Jewelry Class Review

Resin Jewelry-
What a fun new class we added to our abundant jewelry offerings! Deb Freedman, has been working with resin as part of her jewelry line here at the Artascope Gallery. After lots of talk and interest about her unique work, we decided to put in on the schedule!

Deb led her class in designing their own mini 3-dimensional collages. They used craft papers, photos and small found objects the create their images. Then she taught them how to cast their jewelry pieces into molds and fill them with clear resin to add extra dimension. It doesn't take long for the resin to set and then you have an exciting multi-dimension collage jewelry item. Students worked with idol images, dried flowers and glitter. One student even played with a Maine map encrusted with seashells and sea glass.

Deb will take this class up a notch when we offer the Resin Coaster class this summer on July 17th! After checking out the creativity in these small jewelry pendants, the size of a coaster will be prime design space! http://www.artascope.com/jul2008.htm

Simple Photo Album Class Review

Simple Photo Album-
Suzanne taught a simple photo album class as part of our June Art Night Out Series to a creative mother and daughter team, Karen and Kristina. They learned how to structure a hinged photo album with fun artisan papers and sew the book together with gorgeous ribbons. The pages inside are sleeves, so they are ready to hold the photos of their choice!

This was the first time book binding for both of Suzanne's students and they did a fantastic job. The three hour workshop started with choosing paper, cutting out shapes from a template and gluing and covering their book board w archival glue. Karen and Kristina learned how to use a bone folder to create a professional folded edge on paper. They pressed their books for secure glue and chose coordinating ribbons to accentuate their designs. After practicing different manners of stab binding with 2 holes, they applied their lesson to the book and sew together their final product. Smiles all around! We will be playing with paper on Thursday June 26th with our Mini Folded Book class. Check out our June schedule and get inspired! http://www.artascope.com/june08.htm

PMC ArtEscape Weekend Review

PMC ArtEscape Weekend with Ann Liller-
Every third weekend at Artascope Studios, we run a weekend intensive. It's our ArtEscape Series. In May, our PMC guru, Ann Liller, taught a very packed PMC, Precious Metal Clay, ArtEscape intensive to 8 students. Friday night is the kick off from 6-9pm. It just happened to be Ann's birthday....not a bad way to spend your day. I am sure there were a few wine glasses used and treats to celebrate the beginning of the weekend adventures!

Students learned about the properties of Precious Metal Clay and started experimenting immediately. The three day format allows them time to work out designs, investigate and invent new ways to play.

Ann had just returned from her PMC certification weekend and had lots of new and exciting techniques to share with her eager audience. Saturday is a full day from 9am-6pm. Lunch is on us as students work through their longest day. The weekend is finished off with a half day on Sunday 10am-2pm. Students are welcome to stay until 7pm Sunday to finish up their projects and have time to share their experience of the weekend class. Many times, members and stewards will stop by over the bustling weekend to check out the progress and see the dramatic results.

Here are a few pics to show the process of this amazing material. As you see, many students use nature not only as their inspiration, but for their actual piece. PMC can be rolled out and stamped, squeezed out for more delicate applications or even painted on the surface of objects. The possibilities are endless and inspiring! Once this porcelain like substance is finished and dried, it is loaded into our jewelry kiln. After only a few hours of firing, these fantastic creations are now solid 99.9% silver works of art. The PMC companies work with silver, gold and looks like there will soon be copper and brass versions to add to the mix. Metalsmiths take note!