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Gualala Arts
Promoting public interest and participation in the arts since 1961.
Archive of past events: 2004 through 2014
The Dolphin Gallery will present an exhibit featuring Frances Alman, oil painter and
Tom Haines, woodturner,
from January 1 through February 2, 2011, with the opening reception on Saturday, January 8 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Two locals with the devotion, desire, deep interest, intense love and affection for what they do.
About Frances Alman
I get excited and thrilled when I see something I want to paint, and I wonder if I can capture it, the magic of the moment. I am amazed when I take a blank canvas, do a simple sketch, and the canvas becomes alive with the creation of shape, light, and color. I paint in a representational style the landscapes, and I really enjoy painting children.
I received an honorable mention for a portrait of my granddaughter at the
Judged By Your Peers
art show in 2009, in Gualala, CA.
The May Show
at the Gualala Art Center, May 2010, was the first juried contest I have entered, and I am very happy to have been accepted. I was honored with a judge's award at
Art in the Redwoods 2010.
About Tom Haines
Wood has had a special life-long impact on me. I grew up surrounded by furniture and other makings from my father's shop. I was pounding nails by age five, built my first boat by age 16, built two racing sailboats by age 28 and built all of my living room furniture to put in my first purchased home. The functionality of wood fascinated me. It is stronger than steel on a weight basis, works easily and smells good.
In celebration of what nature has offered me, I make the most of creating beautiful works of art, in my case through the turning of objects on my lathe. I try to enhance the beauty of this wonderful material by creating shapes that are complementary to the magical qualities of the wood. I love to bury myself in wood shavings. Sometimes the wood is so wet that I should wear raingear while turning it. Once I got sick from the smell of Juniper. It was both wonderful and terrible. Imagine the joy of taking this ugly hunk of fire-wood and discovering an artistic beauty hiding inside. My most important tool is my knowledge of what to do and my joy in doing it.
The Dolphin Gallery is located at
39225 Highway One in downtown Gualala, CA |
I took art for four years at Saint Mary's Academy High School, in Inglewood, CA, where I developed an appreciation for the Old Masters. After high school I had a few lessons in oil painting, but life took me in a direction of work raising a family. Eventually I went back to school earning a degree in nursing. My husband and I retired in 2006 and moved to The Sea Ranch. My interest in art rekindled after meeting local artist, Connie Matz. I started lessons with Connie in the fall of 2007, and I have been painting since then. I have taken several workshops from different artists, and I am thankful for all I am learning.
Wood . . .
Nature is a better engineer than any of us. Those tiny wood fibers are manufactured as if by magic from water, CO2 and sunlight. They are assembled with magic nature glue and presented to us in over 100,000 species forms we call trees. I cannot do what nature does, but I can take joy in enjoying the product. There are so many colors, textures and smells that it makes me want to run to my shop every chance I get. I cannot stop collecting those beautiful and ugly logs even beyond my capacity to turn them.