Past Members

Past Members

Barbara Weissler

I have a BFA in Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, MO where I studied design under the late Howard Jones.My background and style were born out of the Bauhaus tradition. I work in sterling, gold and gold fill with a love of simplicity and form. I use traditional fabricating techniques, allowing the materials to express themselves as limited editions or one of a kind pieces.

Lilla Cory Warren

Born and raised on a New England island, I graduated from MassArt in Boston with a BFA in Metalsmithing, and moved to Oakland in 2012 to pursue my intuition’s direction. Trips to Penland, and the beauty of the natural world fuel my art. Using forming tools to bring sheet metal into another dimension is the most satisfying set of methods and materials that I have found. With interests in historical metalsmithing and what's beyond this reality we were taught to live in, the result is this question for me to pursue: Can metal rise to another plane, where latent energies are brought to life?
Artist website

Karen Trown

Karen Trown Jewelry is designed to be modern and edgy, yet also delicate. Industrial shapes, patterns and textures, as well as those that occur in nature, are the predominant inspiration for my work. I follow a very organic design process. Most of my designs are a result of experimentation with materials, shapes and fabrication techniques, which I use to create forms that appeal to me both visually and texturally. I’m committed to sustainable practices and use recycled and natural materials whenever possible. I design and handcraft all of my jewelry in my studio located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Artist Website

Aisling Svennungsen

Except for a few forays to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest, Aisling Svennungsen grew up in New England. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012, she was a resident artist at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon, and then established herself as an independent jeweler in Northern California. She launched Moss Follows, a collection of crocheted jewelry inspired by explorations of landscapes, seascapes, forests, and Earth’s seasonal transitions. Her wearable art pieces invoke a sense of wonder and enchantment.
Artist website

Marilyn Stiles

Marilyn's lizards, toads, frogs, slugs, ravens foxes and pigs speak volumes for the sense of humor and dignity she imparts to her clay friends. A lizard reclining in a rowboat reading a book, a pig wearing a tool belt ready for work, a pair of Ravens in deep conversation or a crafty fox with a tilted cap all anatomically fashioned so their true nature cannot be denied, yet so human in their pose and expression that the viewer can't help but smile and be amused. Excerpts from an article by Tayeko Kaufman
Artist website

Leah Serb

Leah comes from California's culturally rich Bay Area. She grew up with a passion for artistic beauty and completed her formal education with a bachelor's degree in studio art. Leah finds the inspiration to design and create her jewelry in the idea of "wearable art." The notion that one could capture the softness of nouveau, the clean lines of deco, and the primal nature of humanity in her lines of jewelry served as a catalyst in the creation of her unique company, Fossi Baht.
Artist website

Mitchel Rubin

Artist website

NOMAglass

NOMAglass is the collaboration between father and son artists Bill and Michael Spiegelhalter. Our work centers around using glass recycled from old windows and wine and beer bottles, transforming them into distinctive jewelry and housewares that are simple, organic and elegant. Everything we make is individually hand-cut and shaped before being kiln-slumped, creating unique variations in each piece.
Artist website

Katie McCann

I create paper creatures - collage hybrids made up of insects, birds, shells, human bones, plants and fashion couture. These grotesque beauties are on display, often pinned to the canvas to be studied and critiqued. I cut out illustrations from vintage medical, science and natural history books. I also source images from my vast collection of Vogue magazines to create the "dresses" for the specimens. I work with tiny pieces of paper - beetle legs, birds' feet, lobster claws, butterfly wings, leaves and flower petals - to create intricate, strange creatures. Part science fiction, and part fairy story, these collages are like scientific records of my discoveries.
Artist website

Nina Kim MacKenzie

Working in glass gets more interesting every year. I like the daily perils and accept the fragility both in the material and myself; cuts, burns, cracks, blisters and other minor tragedies keep me absorbed in this unforgiving process. Maybe it is the seriousness needed in the approach that can make me a bit giddy at times. Some call my work is whimsical, I see it as cheeky. Cheeky Glass Celebrations and Curiously Useful Products.
Artist website

Edward Lay

I love the dual nature of metal: rigid and unyielding, but with the proper tools and techniques it can be coaxed into fluid forms. Iím particularly drawn to the techniques that emphasize those qualities such as forging. Another method is fold forming in which sheet metal is folded, hammered, and unfolded to generate 3D forms. Fold forming has helped my work to achieve a more spontaneous, improvisational quality. Enameling (fusing glass to metal) is the other major branch of my work. When I'm not making a things out of metal, I teach others to, primarily at the Richmond Art Center.

Mary Hammond

I fell in love with clay 50 years ago. After decades of centering perfectly round functional pots I am now enjoying more sculptural forms and firing raku or pit methods. Sometimes they don't hold water but the fumed surprises are reward enough. I hope you will enjoy.

Carol Goldman

An interest in personal adornment and a strong background in visual arts has led me to jewelry design as a means of personal expression. Weaving offers me both the interesting challenge of developing an eye catching surface design that uses the movement of light and color within a defined area, and a meditative pleasure in the construction of the jewelry. These are definitely pieces for the confident woman who is not afraid to be noticed.

Leslie Carabas

Leslie Carabas is an abstract artist who received her MFA in 1993. She folds, sprays and draws with Procion dyes onto natural fabrics, combining these with commercially produced fabrics. She then quilts the pieces, primarily by machine, adding both texture and line to complete the compositions. Leslie lived for three decades in Berkeley, moving in 1999 to the Sierra foothills, where both the power and serenity of her natural surroundings have influenced her mature work.
Artist website

Susan Brooks

I am interested in texture and pattern. My metal work is fabricated by hand, using the surface techniques of chasing and engraving. These processes, along with a patina application, are an integral part of creating depth and contrast.
Artist website

Carol Bevilacqua

Carol Bevilacqua’s love of tramp, folk and outsider art has inspired her to create art in the medium of clay and mosaic. Her joy in art making is to encourage people to touch, laugh, enjoy and make art. She includes visual puns and surprises; she creates treasure hunts that engage the observer to dig deeper and find more prizes. She specializes in design, illustration, clay, and mosaic installations for fine art, residential, community and public art projects.
Artist website

Shael Barger

Shael Barger is the designer and metal artist creating under the name Dakotah Designs. She continually explores and refines her vision through use of metal, primarily gold and silver, and lapidary, creating texture and images. She combines fabrication and inlay work with elements she has cast directly from nature _ twigs, leaves, pine cones among others. She also etches designs into the metal, introducing movement and dimension- physical and implied- into her work. For Shael, the stones speak _ they tell her how they wish to be combined with other elements -because it is important that each piece tell a story, that they become sagas in stone and metal.
Artist website

Lisa Haderlie Baker

Lisa Haderlie Baker lives and paints in Alameda. Her beautifully framed paintings are of quiet corners of the Bay Area, and detailed studies of animals and nature. She paints in water-soluble gouache on heavy rag paper, and in oil on canvas and museum board. Her favorite subjects are twilight landscapes and streetscapes, old neighborhoods, quiet gardens and shorelines, and of natural scenes, often featuring animals and storybook settings.
Artist website

Sylvi Alli

Inspired by forms and patterns found in nature, Sylvi Alli transforms a variety of materials - sterling silver, gemstones, fossils, copper, leather - into wearable works of art. Her background in visual arts and music informs her creative process and she employs a variety of metal smithing techniques to create her pieces under the name 'LunarMuse'. Exploring the balance between rustic and elegant, and playing with unexpected combinations of organic textures and forms, Sylvi creates handcrafted jewelry that is unique and out of the ordinary.

As a child I loved to watch my grandmother standing at her easel on the back porch of her California home. I remember thinking that I would love to paint just like my grandmother someday. And her creative spirit remains in my heart today. Growing up in the Northern California Redwoods, I developed a love for nature where I always find the inspiration for my paintings. Using oil pigment on canvas, nature provides the inspiration, the colors and the harmony. It is such a joy to capture nature’s beauty on canvas just as my grandmother did so many years ago.

Katie Swan

Katie Swan is from Southern California and a UCLA graduate. She moved up to the bay area to pursue her art where she now teaches Yoga and Art during the day and sculpts by night. Katie finds joy and inspiration in her teaching and the healing arts.
All of Katie Swan’s work is handmade without the use of any sculpting tools. She forms the texture as she individually builds up each piece. The amount of clay that she starts with is the same as she finishes. The work of Katie Swan shows the dance between handmade and fully natural.
Artist website

Susan Adamé

Susan Adamé collages consist of contemporary abstract compositions suspended in rich pools of color and texture. From a distance you can see the strong abstract composition and up close you are engaged by the added depth from the underlying layers and textures. The collage is created on a watercolor painting on 300 lb. French Arches watercolor paper. The watercolor painting creates a feeling of movement that gives the art depth and dimension. Susan intends her work to have a positive influence in its environment. She uses elements that gives the work a feeling of grounding, unity and strength.
Artist website

Diane Blacker

The first time I saw someone throw a pot, I was hooked. Wide-eyed, I watched Glenn Spangler, a master potter, center a lump of clay, bore down into the center with two steady fingers, pull the wall, and give it shape. I couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel myself. That was the end of my career as an English teacher. For the next thirty years, I was “in the clay moving business.” I learned a lot from clay. I learned to stay focused, stay in the moment, learn from accidents, persevere—and make beautiful things to use and enjoy.

Celeste Jewel Howell

Fabricating primarily in sterling silver, recycled gold, wood, enamel and resin, I combine materials to emphasize accent in form and color. I approach my artwork with an eye for minimalism inviting the wearer to define the mood and allowing the viewer to look just a little bit closer.
Artist website

Lisa Jacobs

A Holey Dome is a one one-of-a-kind hand built ceramic light vessel. It is a "dome of many holes" that radiates light patterns and vibrates positive energy. This body of work gets its inspiration from my attraction to ocean life, mandala forms and luminaries.
Artist website