Treasures of Art and Metal featuring Ceramic, baskets & jewelry

Opening Reception – Treasures of Art and Metal

The members of CHAC welcome the community to an exciting opening exhibit for featured artists Bea Acosta (Pine needle baskets, masks) and Peter Bailey (Jewelry) on Friday, July 10 from 3pm – 7pm. Join the artists for an evening of art, music and snacks.

Acosta is an accomplished pine needle basket maker and clay mask creator. She has been creating and playing with clay for over 25 years. Taking classes from local artist Kaye Like, Acosta found her creative path. She was also inspired by Gerda Randolph. After Randolph moved from the area, Acosta continued Gerda’s legacy and has taught basket making classes through GAC

She creates masks and hand-built vessels using a variety of finishing techniques from raku, smoulderfire, sagger fire, burnishing, and sigillata slips with horsehair. Her baskets use pine needles in combination with wax linen thread to produce baskets of all sizes, incorporating beads and other small objects to enhance the basket. Using plant fibers such as Watsonia, wild Iris, Juncus, daffodil leaves, or sweetgrass, she then makes cordage. Weaving cordage into the pine needle basket gives the basket a very organic presence.

Acosta has also branched out into making pine needle sculptural pieces, the form does not have a utilitarian function, but the beauty is in the way the piece invites the beholder to roam and move as if in a dance. She says the form does not have a utilitarian function, but the beauty is in the way the piece invites the beholder to roam and move as if in a dance.

“Creating a basket is a very meditative experience -from harvesting pine needles from the ground, washing, drying, sorting, and weaving, Acosta explains. “I rarely know how big the piece will be or the shape but the piece guides me and I feel the muse take over. I am in an ancestral spiritual place when creating a basket or a ceramic piece. Even though I was never taught by my Native ancestors their DNA flows through me.“

Bailey began creating jewelry fresh out of college. Armed with degrees in Psychology, Art and Music, he began to make fabricated jewelry sculptures with heat & imagination. Gold & silver sheet, wire, electricity & rare earth elements are transformed into one of a kind works which capture the artists’ desire to reflect glimpses of nature in his work. He fabricates, pierces and texture his gold and silver and add conflict-free diamonds, pearl, rare and hard to get Persian tourmaline, Sri Lankan sapphire, Australian opal to create one-of-a-kind jewelry and very limited amount of repeat production. He designs all the pieces on paper, then fabricates or wax carves, and finish with a wide range of techniques: piercing, overlay, inlay, forging, anodizing and riveting. He applies electricity to create the colorful metal niobium as a background on the earrings he creates.

“I pride myself on doing unique and timeless designs that are inspired by the natural beauty of our world, Bailey says. “I feel what makes my jewelry unique is the way I combine my own metalwork designs with the electrically-painted metal niobium. When I run the electricity through the bristles of a nylon brush, I can distribute the electricity where and in whatever pattern that inspires me. Since the amount of current corresponds with the color on the niobium, I can control the color range I want to work in. In essence, I am combining metal fabrication with painting (in metal).”

The show runs from July 4 through July 27. The Coast Highway Art Collective is located at 284 Main St., Point Arena, the little red building with the big yellow sun, located next to the Redwood Coast Credit Union. Regular hours are Thursday through Saturday, 11 am to 4 pm. and Sundays by appointment. Visit the website at www.coast-highway-artists.com for information about the collective’s artists, upcoming events and how to join. To find out more about becoming a member of the Collective or to schedule a Sunday visit, contact Ling-Yen Jones at 707-884-9153 or via the website above.