Acrylic paints on canvas and wood~ painted to hopefully inspire joy, peace and an overall feeling of well being. All of these things being what I feel as I create. It is a true joy in my heart and I am thrilled to have discovered this relatively new love. I am a “young artist” learning new things every day. I enjoy discovering new techniques through trial and error and picking dog hairs out of my paintings…they make them more special I find painting very therapeutic and love getting lost in the colors…using TONS of brushes and knives and getting paint from head to toe. I consider it a good day when I take a shower at night and have to scrub paint off and watch the colors go down the drain. Life is definitely better when the artistic soul is uncovered.

Website: www.GylTurnerArt.com 

Look for Gyl Turner Art on Facebook.

As an avid hiker since his early teens, Bill Palmer has developed a keen appreciation for natural forms and materials.  He began studying art at Notre Dame high school in New Jersey. He minored in art at the University of Northern Colorado, where a painting instructor told him he had a “semi-rare ability to switch back and forth between abstract and realism”.  There he experimented with different art media, but was most interested in sculpture and design.

After moving to Alabama in 1979, he began a design/build landscape firm, where he was able to put his art education and appreciation for nature to good use designing and installing new landscapes.  In his late 30’s, he discovered woodworking.  Through self-study and practice, he progressed, in his spare time, to designing and building one-of-a-kind studio furniture.  His constant observations of ‘random patterns’ in nature are reflected in his use of clean, curving lines in his furniture, sculptures and wall art.

After nine years learning his craft, he began exhibiting at juried art shows throughout Alabama and neighboring states.  His work was awarded 2nd Place at the Montgomery Museum of Art, his first show.  After three years exhibiting and selling his art part-time, he closed his landscape business in 2007 to became a full-time exhibiting artist.  He was awarded the 2009 Artist Fellowship Award by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  In January, 2011, his work was accepted for exhibit and sale on ArtfulHome.com by Michael Monroe, the former curator for The Smithsonian Institute’s Renwick Gallery. His work was also included in the 2011 exhibit, “Celebrating Contemporary Arts in Alabama” at the Johnson Center for the Arts in Troy, followed by a two month exhibit at the Alabama State Council on the Arts’ gallery in the state capital of Montgomery.  Bill’s work is now recognized throughout the south and Midwest as well as Texas, Florida and the Chicago area.  He participates in 15-20 juried art shows a year.

Bill is currently developing a new series of display tables and sculptural wall art.  He also welcomes commissions for one-of-a-kind pieces.  He can be reached at  205-621-0727 or   BillPalmerCustoms@gmail.com

Though the lens of the camera and beyond, I am an arranger and composer of images. A single image that engages me may become a springboard for playful manipulation or whimsical juxtaposition. Multiple images and multiple layers merge into a unified composition.

Primarily a Colorist, and always appreciative of the abstract qualities of texture, I am drawn to the ever-inviting nuances of nature expressed through a contemporary lens with a not to surrealism.

— Laura Brookhart —

“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”  –  Wassily Kandinsky

Painting is my joy! It is the happiness I find in living each day.  Although I have worked with and been inspired by many talented artists I am mostly self taught.  I continue to experiment with texture, color, and mixing mediums aspiring to develop my own unique  style.  I hope to create art that catches the eye and brings forth a smile.

I have always been captivated by light and its impact on our surroundings.  The way the same scene can vary from moment to moment with just the slightest fluctuation of light transforms a setting over and over again, keeping it fresh, renewed and alive.

From this fascination, my love of glass was born.  For me, glass is the perfect medium as it plays with light, capturing, reflecting and transmitting its radiance, and in the process, creating change.

Nature, with its never ending pallet of subtle variances to brilliant color, provides my main source of inspiration, and plays an important role in my creative expression.   I like combining smooth glass with texture; transparent with opaque; mimicking the way light plays upon a landscape.  Often, to achieve this goal takes many kiln firings at different temperatures, adding successive layers to achieve the final results.

With the art of kiln formed glass expanding daily, and new techniques keeping it vibrant and exciting, there is no end to possibilities, which allows me to approach each new idea with eyes open to experimentation. I work with each piece until it begins to breathe and develop a spirit of its own, which in turn will be subject to each individual’s unique interpretation, once again, creating change.

~ Toni Palmer

Gloria Adams is a jewelry artist in Springville, Alabama.  She has always been a lover of jewelry and decided to begin crafting her own back in 2004.  Gloria attended the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts in Young Harris, Georgia, where she learned wire wrapping techniques for her own jewelry.  In 2005, she returned for an advanced class.  William Holland offers classes in a myriad of jewelry crafts.  It didn’t take long for Gloria to realize there was so much “out there” to add to her skill sets!  She has returned to William Holland every year since then to study chain making, enameling, cold connections, advanced silversmithing, stone intarsia, and most recently, channel inlay.

Wire jewelry gets about half of Gloria’s attention.  She says, “Semi-precious stones are among the most spectacular of God’s creations.  As found, many look like plain old rocks.  But cut and polished, they demand attention!  The stones in my pendants are the focus of the jewelry.  I wrap my cabochons in such a manner as to enhance the beauty of each stone.  Wire does not ‘make’ the jewelry: it’s the natural beauty of the stone that makes a pendant stunning.”

Gloria’s copper creations are her most recent.  She sees copper both as a real challenge to her creative skills and also as an opportunity for experimentation and growth.  She says, “With copper, you can beat it.  Fold it.  Drill holes in it.  Crush it.  Anneal it.  And beat it again!  Working with Copper is a real joy.  Copper allows me license to let my imagination flow freely.  My copper creations give you the opportunity to be close to me through the details in the copper.  You are wearing something into which I invested the entirety of my skills in order to transform a hunk of metal into something beautiful.”

Look to see stone intarsia (jewelry created with small pieces of stone) and channel inlay (stones set into intricate channels made from heavy Sterling Silver wire) in Gloria’s future!

Hank is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and a retired Department of Defense official who now makes his home in Hoover, Alabama.  He has lived in the Birmingham area since 1992 and rediscovered his photographic interest upon retiring from the Defense Department in 2003.

He initially developed his interest in photography in the early 60s’ while in the Armed Services and has been using his camera to capture the light in the forms, colors, and textures of the visual world from the south central Pennsylvania mountains to the Sierra Nevada Range of Northern California and the California Coastal Range; and now in the rural and urban areas throughout Alabama and the southeast.

Being trained as a certified Army Instructor in Behavioral and Organizational Dynamics, he has since parlayed those skills into developing and teaching classes in Digital Photography for all levels of skill. He is the sole instructor for photography for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and also teaches classes through the Shelby County Arts Council in teaching venues throughout the county.

He also lectures on photography covering such topics as Capturing Light to Create Memorable Images, The Photographer as Artist and The History of Photography as an Art Form.

His works have been displayed in venues throughout the southeast including the Light Box Gallery at Pepper Place, The Dempsey Art Center in Auburn, the Soon-Bok Lee Sellers Gallery in Bluff Park, the Gadsden Museum of Art,  the gallery at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the Blue Ridge Mountain Art Center in Blue Ridge, GA.

His images have won awards at annual photography exhibitions throughout Alabama.

Jean McKee will attend the Riverchase Loves Artists Art Show and display her gallery wrapped art. Please come and see her –  you won’t be disappointed!

Mark your calendars for February 7, 10:00am to 4:00pm!

The 8th Annual Riverchase Loves Artists Art Show was an amazing success!

Our thanks go out to our patrons, artists, Riverchase Country Club, and volunteers who all contributed to a great show! Even Mother Nature contributed a pleasant day to get out and about!

We hope to see you all again next year!

Sincerely,
Riverchase Women’s Club