Times-Standard
Eureka, California
May 24, 2013

SAMOA — Showing work together for the first time, five local female artists will join forces and demonstrate their tools and techniques at the historic Samoa Women’s Club, 115 Rideout Ave., during the first weekend of North Coast Open Studios on June 1 and 2.

The Samoa event will run for one weekend only, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Participating artists include silk painter Tina Gleave, beeswax collage artist Gigi Floyd, fiber artist Cindy Shaw, ceramic artist Marty Flora and Japanese-ink painter Annette Makino.

During this free, family-friendly event, Makino will grind a sumi ink stick in a traditional Japanese ink stone and show how to paint with bamboo brushes on rice paper.

”I’m very excited to be sharing a space with four other dynamic and talented women artists,” said Makino. “We each have such different creative approaches, but we all love to share our work with visitors, and I think it will be fun and stimulating for people to see how each of us makes her art.”

Floyd will have the tools and supplies that she uses to create both her collages and block prints, and said she will be happy to explain each process. She will also debut something new: beeswaxed versions of her bird-themed block prints and monotypes.

”There’s much I love about working with beeswax — the rich tones and luscious texture, the intoxicating scent and, most especially, the wonderful way that the beeswax can lend a translucency to each collage element, allowing glimpses of previous layers,” Floyd said.

Gleave will demonstrate silk painting without resist lines.

”I found my true art passion when I discovered silk painting,” she said. “I continue to find inspiration studying color and light while on garden walks, during trips to the nursery, in botany classes and while reading.”

Shaw will share her deconstructed silkscreen process of placing textures under the screen, such as leaves, and transferring them onto paper.

”I am living back in Northern California permanently now after spending the past 10 years in Thailand,” Shaw said. “It’s great to be back and I’m getting more ideas for my books and boxes and designing new pieces all the time.”

Based in Shelter Cove, Flora makes ceramic pieces, as well as gyotako, Japanese fish prints made from fish her husband catches.

Of her pottery, she said, “Most of my work is oxidation-fired, with some glazes I make and some commercial. I have also been drawn towards pots with little glaze and flashings left by wood and smoke. It’s a nice way to achieve a surface of depth and richness and create a soft quality.”

Free refreshments will be served. In addition to original art, haiku greeting cards, prints, handmade books, fabric-covered boxes and T-shirts will be offered for sale.

The historic Samoa Women’s Club, which looks out onto the dunes, is rarely open to the public. The house is located between Arcata and Eureka at 115 Rideout Ave. in Samoa, a four-minute drive from the Samoa Bridge.

Directions are as follows: From Samoa Boulevard, turn left onto Cookhouse Road. Turn right onto Vance Avenue, and then take the first right onto Rideout Avenue.

For more information, call 834-6460.