Betsy Roberts and Elaine Y Shore will be showing new work as the featured artists at Arcata Artisans Gallery through the month of October. Since her first sewing project at five years old, Roberts has never stopped making things. She brings an eclectic upbringing and education in the humanities with a love for the universe (and Humboldt County in particular) to her multimedia pieces of art. Mixing metals, wood, fabric, paper and finishes, she creates anything from jewelry to lamps to votive icons.
For her current series, Garden To Gallery, Roberts grew and foraged materials. She says, “When bringing nature directly into my pieces, like harvesting bark from her wisteria to make paper, the process is as exciting as the product.”
Art was also a part of Shore’s life from childhood on — but family and career kept it on the back burner for a long time. Raised in the Bronx, graduating from UC Berkeley in mathematics, she spent an entire career creating financial models for big ticket financing projects. After retiring she took a community ceramics class and fell in love. For ten years now she has been perfecting her skills on the potters wheel.
“I create functional pieces almost exclusively in porcelain,” Shore says. “My work focuses heavily on surface decoration, including painting with underglazes and carving in a technique called sgraffito. I enjoy adding texture and complexity to my pieces, making them interesting. I focus on both the visual and tactile experience of my customers.”
Roberts and Shore are just two of the 22 local fine artists who make up the Arcata Artisans Cooperative. The Gallery is open every day from 10 am until 6 pm, on the west side of the Arcata Plaza. The Roberts/Shore exhibit will run from Sept. 5 until Nov. 8.