Something for everyone in September

The kids are heading back to school. Summer is over and life will become a blur of packing lunches, getting to work and finding a way to keep everyone's schedule straight. So, how are you planning to keep yourself inspired?

Maybe you are young, crafty and unattached. As the fall approaches and you are looking forward to celebrating the beautiful fall season, what are your plans for the next few weeks. Want to collect a few friends for a night of art, wine and laughter?

Thursday Night from 6-9pm, September 4th, is our first ANO (Art Night Out) offerings for September. Libby Barrett will be teaching a two week class on painted floor cloths and Diane Brakeley will be in the metals studio working with the Silver Spoon Necklace class. Tempted? How about making your very own collaged night light for a kid's room or bath? Maggie Bokor will be introducing this new ANO program on Saturday, the 6th, from 2-6pm. Now we got your attention....

Monday the 8th, you have an opportunity to make hammered metal jewelry with Betina Clark or felted flower pin with one of our talented teachers. New teacher, Melissa, Knowles, will be teaching a linked beaded bracelet class on Thursday, the 11th, while Libby winds up her Painted Floor Cloth class upstairs. Lynne Holland will assist you in making a beautiful Autumn Wreath during our 2-6pm ANO class offerings on Saturday the 13th. Or you can try your hand at cutting glass with Gayle Raposa's Stained Glass Votives.

So...how about it. Signing up is easy. Follow this link to the schedule and you can even sign up on line. http://www.artascope.com/sept2008.htm Feel free to call us anytime if you have any questions. 207-799-5154. Can't wait to see you and meet some new friends!

New Metals Classes-Spiral Link Bracelet and Etched Copper Penant

New Metals Offerings
Betina, one of our talented artist and Art Night Out teachers, has expanded her metal class offerings at Artascope Studios. We've been working with her to develop fun new classes that are always a crowd pleaser. So, the Spiral Link Bracelet class was held on the12th of August. Betina taught the students how to use copper brass and silver plated metal wire to create these whismical jewelry pieces. The students learned to twist, turn and hammer their spiraled wire into a stunning bracelet! Be sure to look for it in our fall listings. I am sure we will be hosting this class again soon.

Kate Osler introduced her new Etched Copper Pendant class on Monday. Students designed their own intricate etched copper pendants. Kate walked them through the process needed to resist etch, saw, and even dap their piece to create some dramatic results. This Etched class will be coming back around twice in the fall....so see if you can make it. Monday October 13th and then again on Monday December 29th. Both classes are held from 6-9pm for $65 each. Think you may be interested? Check out our monthly schedule for more details. http://www.artnightout.com/schedule.htm#october

Artascope Home Improvements

Artascope's New Look
Have you stopped by the studio lately? We have been working hard at making Artascope Studios pretty spiffy lately. With some amazing help from stewards, teachers, staff and family, renovations went smoothly. Thank you everyone!!!

Where to begin! Suzanne designed and built a brand new kiosk for the gallery packed with space of new work and an easy place to purchase gifts for everyone. With new inventory on the shelves, our art supply store has something for everyone.

And how about the fresh coat of paint? The studio looks a lot brighter these days inside and out! Our purple porch coordinates with our famous Artascope color scheme. Our community board is now on the porch, so that you can view it day and night. The gardens have grown outside to accent our colorful entrance. We have added a beautiful white picket fence. After a successful day out in the gardens yesterday, next years blooms are sure to delight.

End of Summer Art Night Out Classes

The summer is coming to a close and Artascope Studios is gearing up for a fantastic fall. So what are your end of summer plans?

Monday August 25th from 6-9pm, come join us for Etched Copper Earrings with Kate Osler. You will design your own intricate etched copper pendants or pair of earrings! Learn the steps needed to resist etch, saw, and even dap your pieces. $55 per person. Or come get your sea glass fix in Lynne Holland's Sea Glass Earring Class for $35. Create these fun, summer-inspired earrings from our vast collection of sea glass! Learn how to wrap and connect sea glass with beads to make these eye-catching earrings in copper, brass, or silver. Makes one pair of earrings in either class.

Need a birthday gift for friend? Diane Brakeley will be hosting the Lavish Fiber Scarf this Thursday the 28th from 6-9 PM for $65 per person. Combine luscious ribbons, yarns and fibers with our magical materials to design your scarf. With a basic machine stitch to secure your dynamic array of fibers, add a little water to make your scarf come to life. Makes one scarf.

We end another busy month with the ANO class, The Accordian Book with Libby Barrett on Saturday August 30th from 2-6pm. The cost is $45 per person. You will learn about this unique, simple, and versatile book binding technique. Create this fun bound book that can hold treasured family photos, shared memories or even be a work of art itself! Makes one book. So are you game?

We have made it easy for you and you can sign up online. Just click on the class and follow the prompts. http://www.artnightout.com/aug2008.htm You are more than welcome to sign up the old fashion way and gives us a ring at 207-799-5154. We are always ready for you.

Mosaic Garden Stone Class Review

Mosaic Garden Stone
Summer is definitely the time to be taking this class. Taught by the talented ceramist, Laurie Spugnardi, this class always draws a crowd. The students work with beautiful glass tiles, shells and other ceramic goodies to create very personal garden stones for their homes. We are always excited to see what students come up with. Laurie works with each student on sketching out a design and creating with with the right colors and shapes before laying the final design in their mold. Once they are satisfied with their image, the cement is poured and they wait.....students will return the next day to pick up their garden stones. It's always exciting to see the final product. Lots of smiling faces for sure!

Laurie returns in September to teach the two week Mosaic Table/Mirror Class on Monday nights, Sept 22nd & 29th. The class is from 6-9pm both nights and the total cost for the class is $125. Please preregister online or call the studio at 207-799-5154 for details. http://www.artnightout.com/sept2008.htm

Sue Drown Trout-Batik Artist Spotlight

Sue Drown-Trout, our resident Batiking teacher, has been creating her own beautiful batiked creations for over 16 years. Sue is a very talented artist with a very interesting story: She began her career as an Art Therapist, working with developmentally disabled adults at the Laconia State School in New Hampshire. After receiving a Masters in Art Therapy from Pratt Institute, she worked as the Child & Family Therapist at the Nassau County Coalition against Domestic Violence in Long Island, New York. Upon the birth of their first child, Suzanne moved to Maine with her husband and baby son, where she began working with batik in earnest. Suzanne split her time between working as a part-time school-based substance abuse counselor and launching a line of batik clothing called Alexander’s Rags. After a few years, she began to create framed work, hangings and other original and reproduced work and Alexander’s Rags became Sunfire Batiks. Best known for both the whimsy and beauty of her work, Suzanne focuses on themes that celebrate children, nature and the journey we all share. We are grateful to have her on our team at Artascope Studios and hope you take the time to check her out. Here is her latest show schedule for 2008. You can also find her at the Artascope Studios Gallery 7 days a week 9-7.

Show Schedule 2008

http://www.sunfirebatiks.com/

207-409-4897

Audubon Fine Craft and Art Show at Gilsland Farm

Saturday, Sunday August 16, 17 10-5

Falmouth, Maine

WCSH 6 Sidewalk Art Festival

Sat. August 23 9-4

Downtown Portland, ME

Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival

Sept. 6 & 7 10-4

Wells Reserve at the historic Laudholm Farm

Wells, ME

Designing Women Show & SaleSaturday

October 4th 9-4

Consolidated School Gym

Kennebunkport, Maine

The Gifted Hand Fine Art,Craft & Gift Show

Nov 14 12-6 Nov 15 10-4
Holiday Inn, 215 High Street

Ellsworth, ME

Zaz ‘n Moe Studio Show
Friday, Saturday November 21, 22

South Portland, Maine

Summer Artist Series Highlights and Fall Artist Series Line Up

Metalsmithing
Artascope Studio's Summer Metalsmithing Artist Series with Christina Taylor wrapped up this week with students finishing a polishing their treasures. First time metals student, Kelly Manahan, said she was "very satisfied with what she created adding that she spent a little extra time in the studio practicing what she had learned". Kelly made several pieces including the three stone ring pictured here. Deb Freedman made the copper beads shown texturing, dapping, and then soldering copper disks together. Anytime you decide to take on any of our 6 week Artist Series, you have access to the studio and equipment 7 days a week. This added bonus makes the classes pretty tempting to try out.

Acrylic Painting
Liz Prescott finished off another successful Summer Artist Series in Acrylic Painting. The classes expanded this semester with new students including a mother/daughter team. There was a great community energy in the class. Weekly discussions on students work and painting demos by Liz make this class truly stellar. Some of the students tried their hand at painting outside in our gardens while other students focused on still life images in our painting studio upstairs.

Those are just a few highlights from our Summer Artist Series at Artascope. We also had wonderful classes in Stained Glass and Decorative Painting. Stained Glass and Acrylic Painting will return for a fall Artist Series. We will also be adding Batiking and Sewn Beaded Jewelry to the offerings. The Fall Artist Series will begin the week of September 15th. All series are held from 10am-1pm for 6 weeks. Please check out the link to see what may perk your artistic interest. http://www.artnightout.com/artistseries.htm

Batik Pillow Talk and Private Party Round Up

Batik Pillow Talk
Sue Drown-Trout, our resident batik teacher recently taught a very exciting Batik Pillow Cover class as a part of our ANO Series. The students were working with the batiking process of sketching, waxing and emerging in dye to bring their designs to life on their pillow covers. Sue told us that one of the students was wearing a white t-shirt that ended up getting splashed during the dye process. She decided to dye the t-shirt all together and pulled it right over her head and added it to the dye bath. Sounds like a pretty silly night at Artascope. I sure she will share that story anytime she wears her new batiked t-shirt out on the town! It was definitely a first at Artascope for sure. If you would like to try your hand at batiking and missed this class, Sue will be hosting our Fall 6 week Artist Series in Batiking and Dye on Thursday mornings from 10am-1pm. First class is on Sept 18th. Please check out the link for more info.http://www.artnightout.com/artistseries.htm

Private Parties: Sea Glass
We are always happy to accomodate private parties at Artascope Studios and have few picks from our latest events. Lynne Holland led a fantastic Wrapped Sea Glass Pendant party of local coworkers just a few weeks ago. Each party goer learned to wrap their hand selected sea glass pieces with silver wire and beads. They all went home with two pendants a piece and were looking forward to wearing them off at the office "fashion show" the next day. Lynne will be gearing up for her next jewelry making class, Intro to Earrings, on Monday, August 25th from 6-9pm. Check out the August Schedule to find out more details. http://www.artnightout.com/aug2008.htm

WigJig Earrings
Marcia Wigjig of the Wigjig family was our guest teacher for a fun Wigjig Earring Private Party last month. Students had a blast working with this amazing product that helps you create the most amazing earring designs. The best part is that the Wigjig family has already done all the hard work of creating the patterns. Students just have to follow their directions and they end up with professionally styled earrings. We are always excited to have Marcia here to teach and she adds so much to this class.

Wedding Bells and Baby News from Artascope Studios

Emily Leonard, one of our talented acrylic painting teachers at Artascope Studios is getting married this fall. Not only is she a talented painter, but a fantastic metalsmith. She has been diligently working on matching white gold wedding bands for her fiance and herself. She did a wonderful job and I am sure they will add such a personal touch on their day. Emily will be relocating to the Bangor area after the wedding. We wish her all the best. We will miss her here at Artascope, but know she will be a great addition to her new community and husband. Congratulations Emily!

She not the only one with special news to share from the studio....our August highlighted Artist, Steward and Teacher, Judy Babin is expecting her first baby next month! We are all very excited to see the new addition to the Babin family and know that Judy will be switching gears from working with silver jewelry to baby bottles and bath time for a while. Many of the our Artascope community was able to share in some of the excitement with Judy at her baby shower. Here are a few photos from the event. We all had a ball. We will all be ready to meet little baby Babin when she arrives! Featured in the photos are Maggie and Pat with Judy and Ann, Sue DT, Deb and Lynne. Our support and prayers go out to Pat and Lynne right now....sending lots of kind thoughts your way.

Art in the Park-Millcreek South Portland

Art in the Park

Show & Sale

Mill Creek Park South Portland, ME

Saturday August 9th 9am-5pm

Rain date: Sunday August 10th

Featuring one of our favorite Artascope Steward andTeacher:

Sue Drown Trout-Sunfire Batiks

http://www.sunfirebatiks.com/

Collage, Stained Glass and Tin People Class Review and Teacher Request

Basic Collage Techniques Our studio manager and talent teacher, Suzanne Kiertianis, taught the Basic Collage as part of our Art Night Out Classes last week. She worked with the students to play with color, design, composition and style to create paper collage masterpieces. The class was very successful and Suzanne reported that everyone enjoyed themselves and felt good about the new techniques they had acquired in class.

For all those experienced Collage Experts out there....we are currently looking for a new Basic Collage teacher and would love to hear from you. Please contact Suzanne at 207-799-5154 if you think you would like to join our talented team!

Tin People
Sue Hellier has a knack for getting students excited about making family and friends into fantastic tin creations. We make sure to offer this Art Night Out class every season to make sure everyone gets a chance for this playful event.

The students bring in photos or copies of their loved ones heads and create costumes or completely outrageous new tin bodies to apply them onto. They sketch out ideas before cutting the tine parts. Using enamel paints and grommets, each element is brought together and properly decorated for some fun effects. Lots of laughs and creativity coming out of this classroom and they are always different!

Stained Glass Panel
Gayle Raposa can usually be found in our stained glass studio when she isn't working on her latest metalsmithing masterpiece. Multi-talented artist and teacher, she has made quite a name for herself as our stained glass guru.

She recently taught the Stained Glass Panel class and the results were fabulous. Students worked with large colored sheets of glass that they cut down to the desired size. Personal photographs added a nice touch. So many options to consider. Gayle is wonderful at helping students refine designs and feel confident with their new found talents. Gayle is currently teaching Stained Glass on Thursday mornings as part of our Artist Series. This fall, Stained Glass Artist Series will be moved to Tuesday mornings 10am-1pm. Please check out the link for more information: http://www.artnightout.com/

Judy Babin-August Featured Artist

Judy Babin-
Featured Artist
Judy Babin, one of our very talented metalsmiths, is our featured artist for the month of August in our Artascope Gallery. Judy had a very unique style-working with fine silver wire to create bold and intricate designs. Multiple, layered elements and hammered links create organic designs and eye catching patterns. All of her works are for sale in our Gallery. You can also find her work on her website: http://www.judybdesigns.org/ and at JudyB's shop on http://www.etsy.com/.

Call for local Artists, Artascope Members, Stewards and Teachers

Artascope Studios
End of Summer Sale Announcement
Artascope Studios is starting a new tradition for all our talented craftspeople and artists alike.....

WE WANT YOU... Artists, Teachers, Members, and Friends of Artascope Studios. Join us to connect with other artists and sell your handmade goods.

WHO:
A call to Artists! Students! Teachers! Members! Stewards! All are encouraged to participate and share, show and sell their handmade works!

WHAT:
An end of summer sale celebrating everyone who has participated in the Studios! This is your opportunity to sell some of your work and mingle with other Artits.

WHERE:
On the lawn at Artascope Studios, 352 Cottage Rd, South Portland, ME 04106

WHEN:
Saturday Sept 13th from 10am to 4pm. Weather permitting.
Set up is at 9am. Your items will need to be present until 4pm.

RAINDATE: Sunday September 14th
SPACE IS LIMITED PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST 15th.

Details:
There is no booth fee!

There will be a centralized check out location so you will not have to man your booth all day. Plan to set up and merchandise your own items. All participants must have their items clearly labelled with their name and price. Any other information is up to the participant. The studio will keep a 30% total sale commission for each participant. The Studio will collect sale tax. Patricipants will be responsible for claiming their earnings, however the sales tax has already been collected. All participatants must fill out and complete a W-9 tax form. The studio will provide bags & boxes for checkout. Accepted forms of payment for patrons of this sale: cash, check, mastercard and visa. Payments will be disbursed by October 18th.

Please RSVP your space at the studio today!
207-799-5154