Changes are adrift. My old gallery, Adrift Assemblages, will change its name to Expressions Artist Gallery. A new website is almost ready to launch. As my art matures, my vision for art gets more focussed, and my skills with ceramics more honed, I find it is time to move up.
Open Studios, last month, was relatively slow for me. Not as many visitors as I would have liked. But, as is generally the case, one visitor, Russell Colton, did come, saw my potential as an artist, and has, since then, jumped in to help me in so many ways. He raved at one of my pieces after another. And, he asked a big question: “Why do you display driftwood outside? I have driven by here hundreds of times, going to the library, the rec center, the post office, and never realized you had art in here.” Over the next hour he offered suggestion after suggestion for changing my image. “Where outside does it say, ‘Art’ Why do you have none of your art in the window? How do you plan to market this? I thought you only sold driftwood in here!” This started an ongoing consultation and collaboration. Russell has jumped in to help me upgrade my gallery. Working with his suggestions, I have moved all the driftwood to the back of my studio. I have decided to rename my gallery. We are working together to design my new look—a website, a business card, a new sign outside. And, as these changes have begun to take shape, my art has begun to find new forums for exposure. Down in Camp Verde my exhibit “To Restore their Dreams”, expressing my anger and pain over human trafficking, is on display. Joining “my ladies”, I have 30 pieces of my art upstairs. As of June 1 I will be in the Muse Gallery in Old Town Cottonwood. Also in June, I will have three pieces, Hebrew words, with poems, in the Old Town Center for the Arts. In July I will have art in the Clark Memorial Library. And more ideas are bubbling! I have always been a poet. My art, as it has developed, has carried my poetic voice. Poetry always flowed through me. One of my goals, as my art continues to develop, is to find more ways to incorporate poetry with my pieces of art. I have made a dozen wall hangings with Hebrew words. These come with an interpretive poem. Also, the blog on my website continues to be important to me. I strive to write at least two blogs a month, one of them being poetry, memoir, short story or some other form of literary expression. As I continue to develop my art, this I will hold this focus. As I have worked with Russell I have come to see I create more than ceramic sculptures and assemblages. My art, is sculpture, with words, with creating and re-creating myself over and over, I am Expressions. In September I will do a grand opening and ribbon cutting for my studio. In the meantime, join me on my continuing adventure as I re-invent my art, as I find many new Expressions.
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![]() Dedicated to Helen Zimmerle, My Friend with Delightful Imagination I am currently putting the finishing touches on an installation of my art at the Camp Verde library. In the main lobby, “To Preserve Their Dreams" , my display of seven women and children remind people of the horrors of human trafficking. Upstairs we have hung over thirty masks and other pieces representing my current work. I walk in, look around, and am in awe. Where did this come from? How did I get into from writing memoir and poetry into this space with these ceramic sculptures? Many times as I cross the threshold into some totally new venture, I dig into my memory to pull out a mentor who led me here. How appropriate that this time, the mentor who started me on this part of my journey once lived across the street from this library! Helen Zimmerle. The magic times we spent behind electrified fences, the times we wiled away the hottest summer afternoons, those times started me on the path to here! I dedicate this exhibit to you. Here is your story: I walked into the marshal’s office in Camp Verde. The library was being rebuilt, so they used a large meeting room in the front of the Marshal’s office for library classes. I was scheduled to teach “writing memoir there.” I saw Helen sprawled across several seats in the front row. Although not large a physically large person, her assorted papers, flying out of books and bags, the beautiful stone she had picked up in the parking lot and books from her childhood she had been reading and wanted to share, meant Helen occupied a substantial piece of space in any room where she sat. I inwardly groaned. Although delightful, Helen was not the ideal student in any memoir class. “Keep your writing to only three paragraphs,” I admonished. I wanted to be sure I fit in time for everyone who had written to share. Keeping Helen on topic, and within the stated time limits presented a challenge for my teaching. “I wrote my three paragraphs, “ she announced. When I called on her, she explained her intention to write succinctly. But this paragraph here was continued on another paper, and when mentioned the tree house in the maple tree in New Jersey, she needed just this one article in the Verde Bugle about tree houses to illustrate her inspiration.. I have never met anyone else more creative than Helen. She turned rocks into princess dwellings. She gathered up a bit of moss, found a few smooth pebbles, grabbed a shell she had found at the shore in New Jersey, and with a twist of wire she produced an enchanting miniature palace. Her garden was lined with these fantastical creations. That garden, sitting smack in the center of the hottest spot in the entire Verde Valley, was unforgettable. She set up stepping stones in such a way I felt transported to a shady pond. Shade-loving flowers in deep purple imbued the shade with gentle breezes, although they actually crouched under the slim, weak shade of a mesquite tree. In the back corner her husband, carrying fantasy even further, was constructing model train tracks through an old English countryside. And her pool! Bob had set up an above-ground three-foot deep pool for her. Steps up and into it draped over one side. It was awkward to climb in. She placed red, green and blue floating inner tubes in and they clustered into one area of the pool. And, should you have forgotten your swimsuit, she had three or four suits waiting for you, all over-sized and stretched out of shape. I never took my swimsuit down to her place, but always ended up in the holey purple one. I went down and floated in her pool the day my brother died. The coolness of the water, and Helen’s genuine interest in my favorite stories of Jim’s puns pushed my tears of grief back for a few hours. Helen was the person who shepherded me from being a creative writer to moving into visual arts. She and I picked up all kinds of wood around her property. We marveled over the termited section of wood that had killed the cottonwood tree in her goat pen. The pieces of wood we collected were filled with small, blackened tiny holes. Such promise! We mounted them on pieces of tree stumps, using papier mache. She took out her dremel and showed me how to use it to smooth and shape the wood. No matter what I saw in a piece of wood I was playing with, Helen saw it too, and encouraged me to move further with my creation. Helen passed two years ago. Since then I have moved beyond the papier mache and wood assemblages she helped construct into these ceramics. I know Helen has sat in my passenger seat frequently as I have driven out to my ceramic studio in Sycamore Canyon. And as I hung the 15 different abstract faces across the mantle of the Camp Verde Library’s fireplace, I heard Helen’s stage whisper reminding me to give each of them a bit of extra space to “talk.” ![]() Moving Beyond Adrift An Update on Open Studios and Adrift Gallery For those of you who follow me, you know last week-end was Open Studios for Sedona Visual Arts. It sounded like the number of visitors all over the area were fewer than usual. For me, it meant I had several periods of three or four hours with nobody coming in at all. Those who did come visit, however, were quite impressed with the level of my art. More than one visitor remarked, “Wow! This is art in here!” At the same time nobody was coming to view my art, I had four people stop in to see if the wood in front of my studio was for sale. It dawned on me! Adrift and desert woods is the old Ann, the one who began awkwardly attaching lovely woods to Alabaster with paper mache about four years ago. Just before Open Studios I made the difficult decision to give up with keeping cats in my studio. Now I am going to drag the wood which decorates my storefront to the back yard. I am searching for a new name to reflect the fact that my gallery is a true art gallery. I am installing more light so people can see my art from the outside. I am placing some of my favorite pieces in my front window so passers-by will be enticed to enter my studio. My art will be in two libraries this summer. Beginning next week my pieces “To Restore Their Dreams” and some of my wall hangings will be in the Camp Verde Library. Within a month or so I will have pieces in the Clark Memorial Library. And I am looking for more locations in the local area as well. I began my Adrift phase with the promise of a poem for each piece. that did not work out. I had a hard time trying to figure out what to say about each piece of wood, and it became easier to skip the spontaneous gesture of writing a poem for each customer at the time my pieces were purchased. Now, as I move onto more serious art, and there is a story/poem in each large piece I make, I will be attaching poems to many of them. And anyone who purchases one without a poem can, by merely asking, get an original, one-time, short poem. I appreciate each of you, and your support. Keep watching and supporting me. Changes are coming! At the moment I am working on my Hebrew word wall hangings and on larger stand-alone pieces. Each Hebrew word hanging does not hang on my wall until I have a poem for it. As I move on with my “re-branding” I am looking for a name, or for second line with my name, that will reflect my word-art with my visual art! |
Ann Metlay"With all the beauty surrounding me here above the Verde Valley, how could I not create more beauty?" Archives
October 2020
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