Two week Spotlight from July 1st to July 14th featuring artists Luella Hartwell, Solveig Leslie, and wood turner John Williams
In a two week Spotlight Show from July 1st to July 14th, the Yaquina Art Association will be featuring artists Luella Hartwell, Solveig Leslie, and wood turner John Williams. The Yaquina Art Association Gallery is located in Nye Beach at 789 NW Beach Drive. Hours of operation are 11 am to 5 pm every day.
On the East Spotlight Wall: Come see the colorful, imaginative paintings that have been such fun to create. Luella has been a resident of Seal Rock for the past 20 years and has been teaching art through Yaquina Art Association in Newport and Artists Studio Association in Lincoln City. Besides experimentation with new art processes, she also works in pastel, acrylic and watercolor working from her own photography, and has been working with some newer, unconventional art materials.
On the West Spotlight Wall: Solveig Leslie is still making beautiful art, despite losing her sight. She is a young at heart, 97 years old and still attending art classes. She is our resident muse at Yaquina Art Association classes. Her art is vibrant and comes from her many years of study and teaching. Please come and be inspired by her beautiful works.
On the Artisan Spotlight Pedestals: Wood turning by local artist John Williams. John has been turning spectacular artwork on his lathes for over 36 years. He uses mainly local hardwood that he gets from sources in Oregon and as far away as the Southwest and Texas. He likes to use salvaged wood whenever possible. The process of creating a piece can take up to a year to complete a turning. John starts with a chainsaw to fell and cut up a tree. He then uses it to make the green wood blanks for the first phase of turning the wood blank to a rough shape of the final bowl. Then the roughed bowl is put into a drying process that takes four months to a year to lower the moisture in the wood down to where it is stable and no longer prone to warping and cracking. Once the drying stage is complete Mr. Williams remounts the piece on his lathe, turns it to the final shape and applies a durable, food safe, finish.
Besides bowls, platters, vases and boxes, Mr. Williams turns tool handles, Salt & Pepper grinders and some special items by request. His S&P grinders use the top rated ceramic stones from the Crush-Grind which carries a 25 year guarantee. They are simply the best grinder mechanism available. John is a retired Electrical Engineer who can be found in his workshop in Seal Rock most every day. If he isn’t working on a wood project he is creating photographs of the local coastal area which he also exhibits in the YAA Gallery.
Floral by Luella Hartwell
Solveig Leslie
by John Williams
