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ARIANNA BARA: When a new piece begins to take shape in my mind, some­times the idea dri­ves before the stones. Oth­er times I enter my stu­dio with no plan what­so­ev­er. These are the most exhil­a­rat­ing times. I pull out trays of stones and fos­sils acquired over the years at gem shows around the coun­try, shaped by stone arti­sans from around the world. I lay them out on my design table and begin the process of mix­ing and match­ing col­ors, shapes, tex­tures and sizes. I am invari­ably drawn towards fig­u­ra­tive com­bi­na­tions. As the sun­light falls across them, flash­es of col­or and move­ment spark my atten­tion as I shift them around again and again.
In my mind’s eye heads and bod­ies come togeth­er in com­bi­na­tions that evoke an ancient pri­mal female form. When the right stones find each oth­er, it is as sat­is­fy­ing as fit­ting togeth­er pieces of a puzzle. 

RYANN CAREY: I strive to paint the rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al world con­verged with the emo­tion­al response that it elic­its.  I don’t seek out places to paint but instead I let my love of obser­va­tion be my inspi­ra­tion to cap­ture a moment on cam­era. Pho­tog­ra­phy was my first love in art.  With my paint­ings, I then rely heav­i­ly on my sense mem­o­ry to por­tray not only what the eye has seen but also the feel­ing that a space and time evoked. As humans, we are unit­ed by our com­mon expe­ri­ences and our emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to our envi­ron­ment.  My hope is to cre­ate work that con­jures up this com­mon thread among us.

I was intro­duced to water­col­or (and paint­ing in gen­er­al) in 2018.  I imme­di­ate­ly fell in love with the chal­lenge of the medi­um.  In the last year I have been explor­ing  water­col­ors trans­par­ent prop­er­ties along with the use of a resist to explore my inter­ests in neg­a­tive space. Last Novem­ber I had my first soloish (only 2D artist) at the Eno Mill Gallery in HIlls­bor­ough where I am a stu­dio artist. My piece Cul–de-sac was select­ed for the WSNC ( Water­col­or Soci­ety of North Car­oli­na) per­ma­nent col­lec­tion dur­ing their annu­al juried exhibition. 

My most recent accom­plish­ment was the selec­tion of By the Seashore No. 4  for the upcom­ing Art­fields 2023 (art com­pe­ti­tion and exhi­bi­tion) This piece will also be at my upcom­ing HGA Fea­tured show.

IAN HERDELL: As a wood­work­er, I am fas­ci­nat­ed by the sto­ries that trees can tell. Each piece of wood has a unique his­to­ry, shaped by the nat­ur­al world over its life­time and then reori­ent­ed to a new pur­pose by the hands that work with it. Through my art, I strive to forge a con­nec­tion between nature and human inten­tion, mak­ing some­thing new and beau­ti­ful to share. 

Through my eyes, trees tell me of soil, wind and water – of storms, insects and fun­gus – of pass­ing sea­sons – of time on a slow scale. My work is inspired by the organ­ic shapes and tex­tures of trees and the sto­ries they hold with­in. Each piece is hand made and rep­re­sents a con­ver­sa­tion, a back and forth I have with the tree’s tale and our shared human sto­ry. Both are old sagas and I feel priv­i­leged to add a few lines of my own.