We are delighted that new artists and art organizations continue to list with the Southern Oregon Artists Resource! The more, the merrier, as each new listing brings additional traffic to the sites, and this means more visits to everyone’s listings, blogs and other online presences of the wonderful artists, galleries and organizations that make up the fabulous art community of Southern Oregon – our raison d’être. This month we welcome ceramic/mosaic artist Susan Springer and contemporary artist Cammy Davis to the Visual Artists directory and the Photographer’s Gallery at Ashland Art Center to the Galleries, Art Groups and Organizations and Photography medium directories.
Completed and installed Compass Rose Mosaic
Many familiar with the local arts landscape will know Sue Springer’s name right away. Owner of the respected Illahe Studios and Gallery in Ashland, she creates ceramic tiles, wall art and sculptural mosaics in her on-site studio while representing the work of regional artists, with an emphasis on fine art home decor, artisan wares, furnishings and objets d’art in a variety of mediums. Illahe produces several annual group shows which showcase the work of artists in glass, mosaic and lighting. She also sells her work online at Etsy (find the link in her listing).
This year has been particularly busy for Springer. She was elected President of the Ashland Gallery Association for 2011, recently completed a long-awaited installation of public art, the Compass Rose Mosaic, at North Mountain Park Nature Center and, to round out her list of 2011 accomplishments, created a new website to represent her own work online. We encourage everyone to find the link in her listing, visit her new site, explore her image galleries and give her a boost in the search engines! She’s created her site using WordPress, so you’ll be able to subscribe to her updates. We’ll be sure to ask her if she’d like her posts to appear at Art Matters! as part of our community “Stream of Artistic Consciousness” so you can read her posts here as well. As always, we appreciate comments on all our posts, and we know she’ll appreciate comments which appear on her posts at Art Matters! too. Please leave her a congrat and maybe a happy New Year!
It’s less likely that you will recognize Cammy Davis, as she recently moved to Jacksonville to help her parents care for her aging grandmother. According to her Google profile…
When I was in 2nd grade, my parents “dropped out of society.” They traded our middle class life for an Airstream travel trailer and 3 acres in the woods. We became hippies and lived off the land. My parents did not believe in television so we read books, raised animals and built tree forts and sword fern teepees for entertainment. I learned early on that if there was something I wanted, I needed to find a creative way to get it. My mom still talks about the time I decided I was ready for my first pair of high heels. I didn’t request that we buy a pair, I just went out to my dad’s workshop and tried to carve them out of a 4″ x 4″ piece of lumber. I won’t even pretend that they were pretty. But, if I want something, I still prefer to make it myself. In my creative endeavors, I have jumped from publishing poetry to creating jewelry, landscaping and sewing clothing and accessories. I am currently working towards my bachelors degree in Interior Design. Through it all, painting has remained my first love.
And a recent post on her very engaging blog, “My Search for a Creative Life”…
When I started this blog about two years ago, the idea was to figure out how to live a creative life, rather than returning to my work in escrow. I wanted it to be an honest look at what it takes to build a creative business, if it’s possible, and the growth and learning that goes on during the process. I hoped that other artists would gain some insight and hopefully offer some as well. Mostly I hoped that I would figure out a way to create a life from following my passion.
A wonderful contemporary artist, we welcome Cammy not only to SOAR, but to Southern Oregon, and hope you will do the same with a comment on this or one of her own posts! She has given us permission to syndicate her blog and several of her posts already appear here at Art Matters!, so search Cammy Davis and get to know her through her honestly written musings and experiences, hard knocks and victories. And of course new works and works in progress. She also has a few tutorials posted at YouTube, and we’ll see if we can add the link to her channel to her listing shortly.
Most recently we were honored to receive a request from John Peterson and David Lorenz Winston to list the illustrious group of talented photographer members of the Ashland Art Center at SOAR. AAC’s photography group has its own gallery within the main gallery featuring the works of photographer members of the art center. This group is a great resource for photographers looking for local non-social-media (read: face to face contact) networking and support within their own specialty, as well as gallery space at AAC and possibly at the independent galleries owned and run by members. We highly recommend that area photographers, whether well established or emerging, longtime locals or new to the area, make contact to see how they may benefit from membership. You can learn more about the current members of the Photographer’s Gallery in their niche page at the Ashland Art Center’s website – Find contact information and web links in their listing HERE.
We would like to express our gratitude to these newly listed members of the Southern Oregon Artists Resource for participating in our online “portrait” of the Southern Oregon arts community and wish you all a very creative and prosperous New Year!