Welcome to the first edition of Artful Friends Gallery News. The last few months have been very exciting for us as we settled in and made this space our own. Led by our "Partner in Charge of Interior Design", Holly Flowers, we hope that we have created a welcoming and interesting place for you to browse and find that special gift for someone or that unique treasure for yourself.

We are a partnership of six artists and longtime friends (including two sisters). In alphabetical order, we are: Holly Flowers, Mary Berk Gidzinski, Nancy Kline, Patricia Reid, Beth Schmaltz and Jacque Towner. Every item for sale in our gallery is hand made by one of us. We are an eclectic bunch--there are fine art mosaics, creative and original textile pieces, watercolors, wearable art, jewelry, repurposed and unique functional items, and much more. We are always adding new items, as the six of us are busy creating away!

In future issues of Gallery News we will include partner spotlights -- and as you get to know us, we hope to get to know you. Our goal for this newsletter is to keep you informed of upcoming events and classes, give you a peek at new items as they arrive in the gallery, and also to provide updates on what's new in the Marketplace.

We agree...men are tough to buy for! We've been racking our brains for gift ideas, and here are a few suggestions.

If your dad wears a tie, these tie clips by Nancy Kline provide a nice pop of color and interest.

For the dad who just happens to be a math nerd, Nancy's Pi might appeal! Digits 0 - 9 were randomly assigned colors which follow the Pi sequence and are repeated in each partial circle. The gold smalti represents the decimal point.

Beth Shmaltz's very cool marriage of photo and textile seems to captivate the men who visit the Gallery -- we've been paying attention to that!

If you'd like to splurge on a dad who loves old trucks, there's Out to Pasture, an

art glass mosaic by Jacque Towner.