Summer Splash

The ‘Summer Splash’ Exhibit features 3 guest artists and 40 member artists. Artwork by guest artists include glass art by Josh Fradis, sculptures by Elinor Herford, and mixed media and pastels drawings by Jill Tishman. Members’ artworks include paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, photographs, and wearable art.

The exhibit is curated by by ADAS Blackhawk Gallery Show Committee, Pete DeFao, Debby Koonce, and Kerima Swain.

Exhibit Dates: July 18 through September 21, 2014 Monday-Saturday 10AM-8 PM and Sunday 11AM-6 PM

Reception: Saturday, July 19, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM. Wine, Hors d’oeuvre and jazz music by Soulafide, composed of students from Dougherty Valley High School. Free to the public.

Our Guest Artists:

Elinor Herford

Elinor Herford, Hanna the Mermaid, Steel

Award winning artist Elinor Herford has worked as a commercial welder for much of her career before finding new expression in metal sculptures. Elinor’s sculpturess can be found in several galleries and stores in many California cities including Mill Valley, Fairfield, Yountville, and Vacaville. Elinor currently lives in Fairfield, California.

“I weld new and recycled metals using MIG, as my main source for welding. Though I have lived in various states, I have called the Northwest ‘home’ for most of my life.

I have been creating art in various forms for as long as I can recall, though I didn’t devote my energy full time to metal arts until 2011. As a professional welder, I am very interested in the way from materials which are so often employed as matrices and grids. Each piece comes from my heart.”

Josh Fradis

Josh Fradis has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art with an emphasis in Studio Glass. Josh participates in many Arts and Crafts Festivals in Northern California, including Oakland, Menlo Park, Homewood and Tahoe City. Josh currently lives in San Jose, California and works out a hot shop glass studio in Oakland.

“In my life, I have always loved art. So, it was only appropriate that I fell in love at first sight when I stepped into the glassblowing studio in college. The fluidity, motion, movement, and outcome of

transforming something clear and liquid into something beautiful and solid, all attributed to my immediate fondness of the art form. When I drew my first gather, dipping the cold steel rod into the molten, red-hot, honey-like, 2000°F blazing hot furnace, it was a beautiful experience. To create something beautiful from my bare hands, metal tools, blazing fire, and notebook drawings or an image in my mind, out of clear, formless, melted sand is incredible to me.

Each piece that I make is the evolution of the process and my personal journey in glass. All of my artwork signifies and represents the dedicated effort that I’ve put into my skills as a glass artist over the past 15 years. I learn something new about the glass every time that I work with it. I absorb the world around me and take the bits and pieces that I want to take and put it into my artwork.

What is beautiful and captivating is the way the glass and light interact with each other. This harmonious interaction is something that you cannot achieve in any other medium. This process is such a personal interaction between medium and artist that no two glass artists can create anything in the same way, shape, or feeling of expression.

What I love most about blowing glass is the fleeting commitment and instant gratification. I make a commitment to my creation, to see it through from being a glowing, clear glob to its bright, beautiful, aesthetic completion whether it takes 20 minutes or a few hours, or whether I get it on the first try or the 100th try. There isn’t time to stop, take a break, and come back later to finish it. I have to do it, and I have to do it now. I have to persist until I succeed at creating a complete work of art and love. “

Jill Tishman

Jill Tishman earned her degrees in English and Philosophy before taking part-time studies at San Francisco Art Institute and Santa Fe Institute of Art. Jill has participated in many solo and group exhibits in galleries and museums since 1990. A selection of Jill’s exhibitions include Ambassadorial residence in Baghdad, office of New Mexico’s First Lady Barbara Richardson, Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art & Photography in Scottsdale, Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, Hudson River Museum of Westchester in New York, Stanford University Solo Exhibit, and U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas. Selected collectors of Jill’s artworks include McGraw-Hill Company in New York and Nissan Corporation in California, Zaporozhye Museum in Ukraine, Ohio, Gallery at UC Davis, U.S. State Department Georgetown University Medical Center, Bank of Albuquerque, and Santa Fe Institute.

“My original pastel work is pastel on pastel cloth. I use several brands of pastel so I can build up layers. My fine art prints have several layers and hours of pastel applied over the print. I am an artist who paints landscapes because the earth is my first love. When I’m in nature, I never feel alone—I always feel the presence of a spiritual force.

I want the viewer to experience the passion and energy of a storm, or the threat of a natural disaster. I see myself as a fragile, rather insignificant being surrounded by the forces of nature. Rather than paint what my eyes see, I paint what I feel as I view nature: the sun shining on a dirt path in a forest becomes a safe, comforting haven; the dense fog moving through a Redwood forest becomes a blanket of solitude and introspection; the dark, thundering clouds of a storm become violent energy, threatening destruction.”

Member artists:

Nagui Achamallah, Dana Beebe, Claudia Bossert, Barbara Davies, Peter DeFao, Elena Doronkina, Bobbi Garrop, Lynn Glenn, Beryl Glen-Reiland , Gene Gracey, Greg Gutbezahl, Kathie Hackler, Douglas Heine, Debby Koonce, Roseann Krane, Walter Krane, Tom Lemmer, Jim Luhmann, Andrea Markus, Claudette McDermott, Elena Morris, Trent Nahas, Wendy Oliver, Julia O’Reilly, Harika Piccone, Srisha Radhakrishnan, George Rammell, Michael Rizza, Joanne Robinson, Diane Rodriguez, Stanley Satchell, Goldie Schnitzer, Pat Smith, Greg Starnes, Doug Stout, Kerima Swain, Rabia Syed, Lin Teichman, Tony Michael Vecchio, Norma Webb.

IMAGE GALLERY