Guest Artist - Jnet Stevenson
CLAY WORKSHOPS
When it comes to her art Jnet has always had the desire to create something of beauty made from her hands. Her love of clay focuses on two main properties: the contrasts of transforming a soft malleable material into a rock hard object that retains the appearance of softness, and the ability to create unpredictable colors and designs on pottery and sculptures with fire. She strives to create sculpturally functional handbuilt and wheel thrown forms inspired by joyful colors and nature. Her artwork does not attempt to address any issues facing us, but is a simple exploration of the expressive qualities of color and the sculptural qualities of a leaf, especially Hostas. To her, every piece she creates is a way to add an element of beauty and joy to someone’s day-to-day life.
Jeannette (Jnet) Stevenson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education with a concentration in Ceramics at ECU. She embraced her love of teaching and creating ceramics and art and taught Visual Art and Ceramics & Sculpture courses, primarily at the high school level, for 22.5 years. In 1999 she began to sell her own work by having a booth at the inaugural Holly Days craft market at Sanderson High School and was an annual idea contributor and participant until 2016. She has done pottery demos during the Medieval and Renaissance family festivals at the NC Museum of Art and during the annual Pottery Fest at Under the Oaks in Wake Forest. When she moved to Rolesville High School in 2016 she displayed her artwork and helped the students run the Red Gallery in collaboration with the town of Rolesville. She has used her art to raise awareness and money for social causes such as clean water with the Water Partners organization and in collaboration with other artist educators and WCPSS students by hosting several Empty Bowls dinners for the Food Bank of Central NC.
To learn more about Jnet, please visit her website at www.potsbyjnet.com
CLICK HERE to return to all of Jnet’s workshops at Soulful heART Studio
Guest Artist - Marcia Streithorst
ENCAUSTIC PAINTING WORKSHOP
Guest artist, Marcia Streithorst, will teach the basics of creating with encaustic in this workshop . She will instruct how to safely setup an encaustic studio, learn about image transfers, imbedding papers and other natural objects into wax, and adding marks with tools and oil sticks. She provides a variety of substrates to paint on and numerous mixed media materials to use. If you have any special papers, shells, feathers, or other materials from home feel free to bring them. You will learn how to get a smooth or textured surface, how to utilize art supplies you already own with encaustic as well as how to utilize photography. All supplies are included, and you will carry home a completed (5×7) mixed media encaustic painting of your very own!
What is “Encaustic”?
Encaustic is a beeswax-based paint that is kept molten on a heated palette. It is applied to a surface and reheated to fuse the paint into a uniform enamel-like finish. The term “Encaustic” is derived from the Greek word “enkaien” which means “to burn into”. This procedure of applying molten colored wax to various surfaces was used by the Egyptians more that 2,000 years ago – the resulting paintings of the mummy portraits are there for us to admire in museums all over the world.
About the Artist – Marcia Streithorst
“Art has always been an exercise in escapism for me. A way to capture the magic and excitement of life in a more permanent form. From a young age I spent hours making up stories and different worlds for my friends and I to get lost in. After winning a handful of local art competitions I started to take my love for art seriously. It was in college that my love for lines and textures began thanks to a wonderfully entertaining printmaking teacher. Being the first in my family to graduate from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, I worked on the corporate side of the art world until my move to North Carolina. Thanks to the move I was given the chance to be an artist full time and since then I have never looked back. It is here in North Carolina that I saw encaustic painting for the first time. I have been smitten with this amazingly versatile media ever since. I am also very involved in the art community in Raleigh. I am a member of the North Carolina Mixed Media Artist Guild, the Visual Art Exchange, and help with the Wake Forest Arts as well. I have had my work featured in galleries in Virigina, Ohio, and throughout North Carolina. I also love teaching and helping people learn about encaustic art. My studio is a sanctuary full of color, light, and magic…..just like my paintings. “
To learn more about Marcia, please visit her website at www.mjsworks.com
CLICK HERE to return to Marcia’s workshops with Soulful heART