Jew­el­er Nell Chan­dler is includ­ing a new process in her cur­rent work. “For the past cou­ple of years I have delved into learn­ing more about torch enam­el. I have most­ly taught myself via tuto­ri­als on You Tube, but last spring I was able to take an enam­el class using a kiln. For this show, I will be explor­ing enam­el­ing in more depth with new tech­niques and an extend­ed palette.”

Fab­ric artist Ali Givens’ work is inspired by her home town. “My focus for this show is Hills­bor­ough, the small North Car­oli­na town that inspires me at every turn. By lay­er­ing and stitch­ing hand-paint­ed fab­rics I aspire to cre­ate col­lages that evoke a sense of place. I have a deep con­nec­tion with Hills­bor­ough and my hope is to cap­ture this emo­tion with col­or­ful cloth and thread.”

A pot­ter, Eve­lyn Ward has made a shift in her new work, “After work­ing for about 15 years in salt fir­ing, I recent­ly made the switch to using low-fire earth­en­ware. I was attract­ed to earth­en­ware because of the col­ors I could achieve in a low­er tem­per­a­ture fir­ing range allow­ing me to bring to life the designs I’ve been think­ing about for a while. The rich brown clay is a per­fect back­drop for bright col­or. The forms are more high­ly-con­struct­ed and are dec­o­rat­ed with bold blocks of col­or. This new work is a depar­ture in a lot of ways but most­ly is just an evo­lu­tion.”

Painter Michele Yellin immers­es her­self in her envi­ron­ment “I fill my well with col­or, light, shape, and space only to pour it all out onto the can­vas and into the world. I paint my life. I put every­thing into my paint­ing, the hap­py, the sad, the angry, the lone­ly, the joy and the grat­i­tude. Every paint­ing is a med­i­ta­tion on the aware­ness that we are all simul­ta­ne­ous­ly iso­lat­ed and con­nect­ed, to each oth­er and all things. I paint to reveal the numi­nous that sur­rounds us all.”