The Art 4 Art's Sake Auction

is being held at Arrowmont tomorrow evening, June 24, 2010. You'll find the particulars on the Arrowmont website and if you live within driving distance of Gatlinburg you should go there for the fun, excellent food and the opportunity to acquire a wonderful piece of art. And oh, yes, the purchases benefit the scholarship fund and allow even more students to learn skills at the school.

Here's a little preview of the artists who have very generously donated works to be included in the auction:

April Flanders makes monotypes and collographs; you can see her work at her website.

Frank Saliani, who is a former Arrowmont resident artist, works in colored cast porcelain which can be see at his website here.

Mary Todd Beam, a mixed media artist, teaches to quickly-filled classes at Arrowmont and has a following eager for her latest pieces. See her work and get a link to her blog here.

Jeweler Deb Karash's necklace is seen in the graphic at the top of the post and other pieces on her blog and her website.

Another former Arrowmont resident artist, Damon McIntyre, is a woodworker; see his gallery on his website.

Make your dinner reservations today and by all means, for a good time, show up at Arrowmont for the Art 4 Art's Sake Auction tomorrow evening!

You will see Elaine and Stan Fronczek

on the Arrowmont campus attending meetings, helping to count inventory at the end of the fiscal year, manning the Arrowmont booth at east Tennessee fine craft fairs, bidding (and winning) during the Art 4 Art's Sake auctions and showing up for action any time there's a volunteer opportunity. Elaine is a fiber artist who professionally creates felted pieces for wearing and for interiors.

She frequently uses a garden theme and her color sense includes many palettes; while this scarf blends subtle shades, her sixteen inch tall vessel uses bold contrast for a strong statement.

Elaine teaches workshops in felting at Arrowmont and expands her skills by taking courses as well. Her scientific background keeps her on the move researching dye reactions and tool sources and both her students and her classmates benefit from her enthusiasm. Elaine's felted pieces can be seen at the Art Market Gallery in Knoxville.
Stan Fronczek is an accomplished woodworker with an eye for elegant design and a flawless surface. His "Urban Forest" contrasts with his table (with its top of bloodwood and legs of mirapixum) to enhance the simplicity of the sculpture and the sophistication of the polished furniture.

Stan makes smaller sculptures as well as furniture, such as his current project, a rocker.

Elaine and Stan will be attending the June 24 Art 4 Art's Sake Auction and Elaine will have a piece in the September 23 auction. They are good examples of the many generous artists who give art, cash, time and energy to Arrowmont to benefit its students and the school's community.

Steppin' out with Bonnie Allen

I met Bonnie last summer in Elizabeth Barton's dyeing/art quilt class early in July. Bonnie had taken a course in dyeing with Elizabeth before and knew what to expect from the class. We had no idea, though, how creative Bonnie could be with low-water immersion dyeing techniques and what visions she could capture in planning her quilt.


Over the fall and winter she and I kept in touch; in Georgia, I was making a large quilt for a friend from hand dyed fabrics and in Indiana she was dyeing with ice, and using the photographs she had taken at Arrowmont to make wonderful notecards and constructing one of a kind purses with the hand dyed scraps we just can't discard. This spring she sent me some photographs of her garden stepping stones made with stained glass and concrete. She tumbles and grinds the glass so that the mosaics are not only beautiful but also safe to step on without cutting feet.


She's developed several techniques to enhance the appearance and longevity of the stones and she's building a market in Evansville for her one of a kind designs. She donated a group of her stones to a fundraising auction at her church and was astonished and pleased to find that they sold for nearly a thousand dollars.


Bonnie will be returning to Arrowmont this year and when she does, she'll be bringing a stone or two for the Art for Art's Sake Auction in September. If you can attend the event in Gatlinburg, you might just be fortunate enough to have the winning bid on one of her artworks for your garden!

The Arrowmont Art for Art's Sake Auction

is scheduled for Thursday, June 24. Today I packaged and mailed two silver bracelets to donate to the school to be auctioned either in June or in the September event. If they'd sell them both in June, I'd make more for the fall auction. Proceeds from the auctions benefit the Arrowmont scholarship fund and allow students that might otherwise not be able to afford the expense, to take courses during the year.

Now, here's the deal. I live on a very tight budget and I really cannot contribute as much cash as I would like to Arrowmont's fundraising efforts. Even with the price of silver as high as it is, however, I can afford to purchase several ounces of silver wire and a solid sterling clasp - and that's what I did. I combined the new silver wire with a couple of ounces that I had on hand and made the two bracelets in the photograph above. I have invested a total of about one hundred thirty dollars in the two pieces, and I expect that they will bring around two hundred dollars apiece or a total of four hundred dollars. I think donating a high-quality piece of fine craft or art is an excellent way to magnify your charitable gift to Arrowmont.

Last summer in Elizabeth Barton's dyeing for art quilts class lots of the students gave a piece of hand-dyed fabric for the auction held at the end of the week. So many students were generous that we made two packets of maybe six quarter yards of beautifully colored cotton, tied them with raffia and took them to Karen Green's office. Whoever won the bid on that fabric got a wonderful addition to a quilt and much more than she might have expected.

I encourage every instructor to share a small or large piece of work with Arrowmont, and I think the students should consider a gift from their classes as well. A collection of polymer clay or ceramic beads could be strung as a necklace; watercolorists can turn a tiny sketch into a greeting card; woodworkers' miniatures can be hung as holiday ornaments. Every piece counts, and every piece is grander when laid out on the evening of the auction. Finally the joy of giving may be the best part of all; for each item won at auction there are three winners: Arrowmont wins the proceeds, the purchaser wins a piece of art and the artist gets the marketing value and the happiness and pride of having contributed to our worthy cause.

Keep watching the Arrowmont website, where some of the auction items will be displayed in the next week or so. And bid generously for a piece that you'd like to have!