June 2018

Dear Clients, Supporters, Colleagues and Friends, Happy Summer! On the first day of the season, we'll be loaded up and heading north for the 42nd Annual Roycroft Summer Festival. We've been preparing for the show while also keeping busy with exterior color consultations, 2 kitchen designs, bathroom design for an Arts & Crafts 4-square, and some fun projects involving design of window coverings and furniture restoration/reupholstery! A few weeks ago, we ended our 6 week long solo art exhibit in Oil City. We were blown away by the reception the show got in our new little community. Below, we express our gratitude for the support we received and share some details about the show for those of you who couldn't see it. Some of you have projects that are either in process in our studios or still coming up on our schedules. We want to say a huge thank you for your patience as we have worked through completion of some ongoing projects and a somewhat unexpected schedule change. Being awarded the grant for our local show put a major project on our plates that impacted our spring studio schedule significantly. Now that this project is wrapped up, we are getting back on track and are excited to get started on the new projects awaiting our creative attention. If you haven't heard from us already, please know that your project is on our radar, likely in process, and we will be in touch soon! As always, we thank you for following our work and for supporting our efforts to create beautiful and meaningful living environments! Sincerely, Barbara and CJ

Roycroft Summer Festival

This weekend is the 42nd Annual Roycroft Summer Festival , and the Roycrofters at Large will be gathered in downtown East Aurora, NY exhibiting and selling the best in handcrafted paintings, prints, furniture, textiles, metalwork, ceramics & other goods. We are excited to be there too, offering my latest paintings – including “ Trumpet Vine Along the Abandoned Road " which I just finished and am framing today!

The whole village of East Aurora – home of the Roycroft Arts & Crafts Community Campus – will be a bustle of activity in celebration of America’s handcraft tradition. We invite you to join us, and come enjoy this special town, rich in American history! June 23-24th; 10am-5pm both days Healthy Zone Rink; East Aurora, NY

On Saturday Barbara will be presenting: “ Exterior Painting for Vintage Homes: Understanding Your Architecture, Color and Color Placement ”   Home is the spiritual heart of our society, our refuge, our place of contentment. Colors are innately emotive and the colors of a home evoke moods that inspire emotional responses in people. The colors of a home’s exterior make a statement to others about who lives there and how they relate to the history of the architecture and the neighborhood.  Barbara will be giving a well-illustrated presentation on the importance of understanding architecture and proper placement of color for exterior painting, goals to consider when choosing color, and concluding with a summary of information home and building owners need to know when interviewing painters and reviewing bids.

Special Show Price!

My India Ink & Watercolor painting, “ Field of Flowers ” will be offered at a special price at this weekend’s show! The painting is being offered at $900.00 – a $300.00 savings. Last fall we sold the painting’s companion piece – a rendition of the same painting in Acrylic. The buyer fell in love with it at our show in Morrison, NJ and called two days later regretting that she left the show without buying! We think it’s time for the watercolor to find its forever home – so be sure to take advantage of this opportunity! If you can’t come to the East Aurora, NY show, and want this painting, call us, and we’ll hold it for you! Both the Acrylic rendition, and the India Ink &Watercolor of “Field of Flowers” are a part of my series, “ Houses, Landscapes, Flowers & Dreams . " A facet of this series has been for me to execute some of the images in different mediums in an attempt at demonstrating how vastly different the mood of a work of art can be just by changing its medium.

Consultations: Buffalo, East Aurora, & Rochester, NY

Now is the time to schedule!

We will be working in NY the week after the Roycroft Summer Festival and have appointments available for color and design consultations. If you cannot make Barbara’s presentation on painting your exterior at the Festival, or if you are interested in more personalized assistance, you can take advantage of the opportunity to schedule a consultation at your home. We will be working in the vicinity of Buffalo, East Aurora, and Rochester between June 25 th and July 2 nd . If you’d like to schedule an appointment, you can visit us at the show, email or call us at, 503-234-4167.

If you reside in another area of the country and need exterior color help for painting this summer, please let us know asap so we can get you on our schedule! We provide consultation and design services to home and building owners around the country!  Often our show, conference and travel schedules allow for us to meet onsite with homeowners throughout the country. However, we have an established track record providing remote consultations in a manner that our clients find comfortable, efficient and effective. Don't hesitate to contact us for help no matter where you live. Barbara will be happy to talk to you about our process and how we can work to meet your project goals.

We offer a flexible approach to color consultation that allows us to provide a range of services to meet your needs and budget . Our basic and affordable color consultation package addresses the architectural style and the setting of the home while meeting homeowner goals. For those needing more in-depth assistance, or for homes that require many colors and elaborate painting schemes, we offer a reasonable rate and exceptional personalized service.

Exhibition Recap Houses, Landscapes, Flowers & Dreams

Thanks to an Artist Project Grant from the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts and Erie Arts and Culture Council , we were honored to present an exhibition of paintings from my series, “ Houses, Landscapes, Flowers & Dreams ” at the Graffiti Gallery in downtown Oil City, PA April 20 th -May 26th! This was our first solo exhibition in our new hometown, following last year’s Roycroft group exhibition, “ By Our Own Hands: The Roycrofters Continue the Handcraft Tradition of the Arts & Crafts Movement ” – dedicated to the history of the Arts & Crafts Movement, its origins in England & Europe, the History of the Roycroft, and how artisans are carrying out the tradition today. We want to thank everyone who came to the show, thank those who purchased paintings, prints, and greeting cards, and also give our appreciation for all of the positive feedback to the exhibition, to those who shared their concerns about nature and the health of our environment! Your participation exceeded our wishes and expectations and we are grateful.

For those who missed it, the exhibition consisted of 31 drawings and paintings, including India Ink on Handmade Paper, India Ink & Watercolor on Handmade Paper, Acrylic on Canvas & Mixed Media Paintings. I began the series in 2010 with the first solo exhibit happening in Portland OR in August 2011. Since then, pieces from the collection have been accepted into juried shows around the country and I’ve now had the privilege of exhibiting the series as a solo show in 6 states.

The Oil City exhibition featured a sampling of all 8 years of work, – illustrating the series’ 4 primary phases, including many new pieces that had not yet hung as part of the collection. The early work was primarily composed of India Ink and India Ink & Wash drawings, as well as Acrylic paintings on Canvas. The next phase introduced limited watercolors into the drawings that had been restricted to India Ink & Wash. Later I began fully exploring some of the images in India Ink & Watercolor next to renditions of Acrylic on Canvas. The most recent phase in the series saw movement away from Acrylics on Canvas to a deeper exploration of India Ink & Watercolor on Handmade paper. These newer pieces featured a lot of highly rendered detail in the ink work.

In addition to the support offered by the Artist Grant, a few local small business owners stepped up to support a series of community engagement and education programs.  Of course, we couldn’t have put on as strong of an exhibition without the help of these people. Thank you!  We were able to host an art education lecture, a screening of my documentary, and engage with high school kids who have taken on their own project in response to the work!  Next month, we will be showcasing the students’ work at the local hot spot, Karma Coffee .

Cards and Fine Art Prints

Packages of our fine art notecards and matted prints are available on our website. Order Prints here

Cards available as packages of 5, 12, 25, and 40. Custom size packages available upon request. Order Cards here

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