July 2026 Meeting Summay

The past month has been very productive for all of us. Even triple-digit temperatures can’t dull our creative spirits.

I had a great trip to Flat Rock/Hendersonville with Natalie who introduced me to two wonderful galleries and the free Asheville magazine.

By the way, Selene has mentioned several times, hint, hint, that we should make a “gallery hop” road trip to Asheville. Let her know if you are interested and she’ll organize it.

Natalie sparked an interest in making portraits a month or so ago when she told us about a class at the Gallery at Flat Rock with Helene Lund Den Boer.

Cindy Moore jumped in after the June meeting and began creating her own.

Natalie has been making photo transfer prints on her gel plate to use in her artwork.

Linda Neely is tackling a new technique – applying (is that the right word or should it be injecting?) fabric into foam board. She said it was advertised as easy for “any sixth grader” but I’m not so sure that holds true. Wouldn’t it be cool to create a portrait out of fabric scraps using this techique? If you would be interested in spending an hour at one of our meetings playing/learning this, please let Linda know and she'll organize it.

Irene shared a new doll and a “rescued” felted bowl. Thanks mon amie.

Natalie and I took an online class some months back with Mary Pal. Check out her website here:  https://www.marypaldesigns.com/

She creates art using cheesecloth. She did an excellent job in the class and I finally found time to give it a go. My first attempt failed miserably because I couldn’t get the cheesecloth off the plastic. Lesson 1 learned. I’m sure there will be more failures to learn from. But here is the special acetate like plastic and a few pictures from my last session.

And then there was the “help I’m drowning” design challenge I brought. I’m going to write a separate blog entry about this in a few days. I’ll just say one important thing: it was very, very helpful for me and I think it demonstrated the value of the varied talents of our group.