Featured Artist | Michael Ezzell- Spring 2008

 Bringing more to his art than talent and training, Michael Ezzell taps into secrets of the past to sculpt art that is ahead of his time.  Armed with a rare knowledge of ceramic history, Michael Ezzell has produced works that span from whimsical to Indian earthenware to oriental sculptures.  He began painting at twelve, but this Laguna Beach native didn’t turn his passion for art into a career until he began working in clay during rehabilitation from a knee injury incurred while playing for the Orange Coast College football team. That’s when he transitioned from athlete to artist.

His fascination with clay began before his injury, with a trip to England where he saw a potter throw on his wheel.  During his rehabilitation Ezzell learned how to throw on a wheel and eventually studied every aspect of ceramic creation, culture, and history.  His studies included traveling to the remote island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea to discover the secrets of creating the finest porcelain and stoneware at the Yacht Pottery Studio, which introduced him to the old fashioned way of creating ceramics with kick-wheels and wood burning kilns.  After Bornholm, Ezzell studied at   Exeter in England, then traveled through Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East studying indigenous pottery. He’s traveled to every continent except Antarctica searching for local ceramicist secrets forgotten by modern teachers.

Now, after nearly 40 years as an artist, Ezzell draws from all of the different processes that he had studied to create his own style of ceramic sculpture using a metal patina, which gives his thrown pieces individual characteristics, including steel, bronze, and copper metal finishes, with an acid wash to age them. 

Ezzell’s Apocalyptic Fish is the 2008 Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts inspiration for all marketing and promotional materials.  We include his Redemption Fish in our permanent Featured Artist Gallery in the Mill Avenue District offices. It is on display Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Featured Artist | Rin Colabucci  - Fall 2007

Self-taught artist. Born in Hiroshima as a daughter of a Japanese master craftsman, Rin can’t remember a time when she was not surrounded by art. She began backpacking early on and visited or lived in Micronesia, South Asia, USA, Central and South America, Europe, Middle East. Now she lives in San Diego, California.

“Her oils focus on the human form dealing with the human condition. Penetrating eyes and vivid colors highlight the symbolism in her work. Her style is not modeled on any particular artist or genre. She gets inspiration from life experiences and feelings. Originality and creativity are the two fundamental essence of her art.

“My work begin with creating the totally chaos on canvas. I let any themes or accidents happen and go. As I continue this process, osmotically imagery begins to emerge. My painting is a result of many layers of thoughts and feelings.

 For me, painting process is like ‘tuning’ to voices to be heard. I take inspiration from everyday life, things, relationships, beings around me. I observe it and pass it on in my form.”

Rin has created poster designs for theater troupes, card designs for Charities (M.S.F., Rashid Paediatric Therapy Center, Dubai Eco etc.), magazine illustrations, mural paintings. Her paintings have been published and bought by numerous collectors in UK, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, France, Germany, Canada, the UAE and the US.

Website:www.rincolabucci.com

Featured Artist | Marna Schindler - Spring 2007

Marna Schindler of San Diego, California, is the Featured Artist for the 2007 Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts. Marna's art is at once both a journey of introspection and a bold, determined declaration. Her work isn't about time, place or theme. It is a projected mood, a playful bout of doing...the act of attempting to create something beautiful, true to its source, yet slightly askew---irreverent almost in its slightly sentimental depiction.

Settling on concrete forms that delight and inspire, Marna meditates on these and exploits them for their intrinsic harmonies in colors, lines, and shapes. She works from an instinctive place within, taking pleasure in the process as she creates. Drawing upon memories of places traveled and moments of note, she gathers her muse. She also pays homage to various 20th century masters, and uses their guidance as a departure in uncovering her own style and flourish as she develops as an artist.

In viewing her finished work, a certain honesty is revealed in the visible brush strokes, vivid color, and improvised line. Her work is a record of its own process, and a clue to its sometimes very quick execution. It is this directness that makes the work authentic. It’s this whimsical, yet honest, juxtaposition for which we chose “Funky Chicken.”

Marna Schindler works primarily in oils and acrylics. She lives in San Diego, California.

Featured Artist | Chelsea Stone - Fall 2006

Chelsea Stone of Prescott is the Featured Artist for the 2006 Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts. Her cast glass pendant was chosen for its unique technique and imaginative combination of materials. It’s being used to represent the Festival in promotion, marketing, and signage.

A native Arizonian, Chelsea Stone has been making jewelry for twelve years. Her creative palate includes silver, gold, copper, cast glass, handmade glass beads, colorful gemstones, and brightly colored enamels. Her one-of-a-kind creations have been featured in the books 1000 Rings, and 1000 Glass Beads, both Lark Books publications.

Chelsea is a full-time studio artist who sells her jewelry in more than 50 galleries throughout the United States. She teaches classes in her studio on glass bead techniques, and also teaches metalsmithing at Yavapai College in Prescott and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Chelsea received her BFA from Northern Arizona University and her MFA in metalsmithing from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

The original pendant, from which this year’s imagery has been taken, has been installed in the Mill Avenue District’s gallery, located in the Downtown Tempe Community, Inc. offices at 310 South Mill, Suite A-201, Tempe, AZ. The gallery exhibits several years of the most recent featured artists’ works from the fall and spring festivals. Gallery hours: M-F 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Featured Artist | Bobbie Stern - Spring 2006

Bobbie Stearn was the Featured Artist for the 2006 Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts. Bobbie’s arts career is multi-faceted. She has been a ballet dancer, a well-known interior designer and is now a visual artist and published writer. She started painting in 1964 in Orange County, California, studying with local artists and teachers. Now retired and living in Sedona, with her husband Harvey, Bobbie devotes her time to writing and painting. Her style is impressionistic with a vibrant pallet. She works in oils, watercolors, and pastels. Her subjects are the figure both nude and draped, still life compositions and Sedona’s magnificent landscapes, from which we chose her oil painting “Reflections at Red Rock Crossing.”

Featured Artist | Carolyn Dubuque - Fall 2005

Carolyn Dubuque was the Featured Artist for the 2005 Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts. The subject matter of Carolyn’s paintings comes from two main sources. Each day, she sees striking natural forms and tries to portray what she sees and feels in her work. Frequently, her imagination takes control and a painting is created from her inside world.

In all cases, she uses a strong sense of design and hard edges to abstract subjects. She usually paints in a two dimensional format using vivid colors to portray her feelings. Her abstract paintings reflect concepts of an organized but fluid world. Carolyn’s paintings are striking and frequently amusing. She likes viewers to respond to the beauty she finds in the world, sometimes with a smile.

Carolyn feels a strong response to the paintings of Arthur Dove and Paul Gauguin. The simplicity of shapes in Dove's work is instinctively attractive to her. In her work, she tries to integrate this simplicity with the flat, complex, vibrant style of Gauguin. For many years, Carolyn studied the culture and painting of Japan and believes that some of this influence is also evident in her work.

Carolyn experiments with many media, but the majority of her work is in watercolor and acrylic. These media give her the best means of achieving spectacular color combinations. Her application of paint is usually with full intensity. This strength of color projects Carolyn’s feelings about the subjects. In her mixed media work, she uses pencil, crayon, printing inks and collage, depending upon her vision for the painting. Our mixed-media featured choice is Carolyn’s “Tucson Mountain Pass.”