"Canvas, Paper, Sand and Object"
Three artist show featuring
Leslie Moody Cresswell, Anne Vernon and Jane Raymond

Opening Reception: Friday, September 5 at 5:00 p.m.
Exhibit remains through September 28, 2014
Burnett Gallery
Gualala Arts Center

Three Bay Area artists - Leslie Moody Cresswell, acknowledged glass and mixed media artist, Anne Vernon, painter, hypnotherapist and hypnotic past life portrait artist, and Jane Raymond, plein-air oil painter and portrait artist - have joined together to present a show of some 80 two- and three-dimensional artworks. The show includes past and present works in glass, pastel, charcoal, oil, watercolor, encaustic, and mixed media. The theme of the show is "Work in our Lifetime," done with the mark of the hand in paper, sand, wax and pigment, all organic media of our beloved earth.

Leslie Moody Cresswell has been a working artist for all of her adult life. As a printmaker and graphic artist in her early days, the transmission of light through glass led her into stained and leaded glass techniques, which in turn directed her towards the medium of hot glass, better known as the art of glassblowing.

A continuous learning process over the past twenty-plus years, the art and craft of glassblowing has been Leslie's outlet of expression. A seasoned artist of many of the western states' juried outdoor fine art shows - Scottsdale, Salt Lake City, Sausalito, Beverly Hills and La Quinta to name a few - she has also exhibited her glass art in Japan and won awards in numerous juried art exhibitions.

She considers her glass vessels more as forms, most with surface designs of silver-imbued glass, through which light and shadow interact. Working with specialized glass colors formulated by her late husband, Fred "Sonny" Cresswell, Jr., also an accomplished glass artist in his own right, Leslie is able to create her one of a kind vessels literally from sand. With knowledge of silversmith benchwork techniques she sometimes combines the two disciplines into jewelry adorned pieces.

Mixed media and fiber techniques have also found their way into her artwork, contributing to an ever evolving creative expression. Leslie lives and creates much of her art work in an old converted Wells Fargo Barn on the Seaview Ridge above Highway 1 on the Sonoma, California coast, and is the proprietor of Seaview Art Glass.

Anne Vernon began a journey four years ago after two decades in the field of advertising. The catalyst was a crisis within her family, and she found her creativity blatantly manifested, front and center, and it would not be subdued. She began to draw the human figure, to paint, to silkscreen, to explore encaustic, and to study how our bodies are the temples for our souls.

During this time she became a clinical hypnotherapist, and now studies spirituality with her art via collaborative past life regression portraits with her clients. Anne believes her work is "hand to soul," and uses hypnotherapy to achieve a compassionate connection between her subjects and the soul mystery of life on this earth. Her work is in several private collections. She creates in watercolor, pastels, charcoal, conté, oils, silkscreen and encaustic.

Anne attended Mills College and the University of Nevada, Reno, receiving a degree in Art & English. She received her Masters in Illustration from Syracuse University in 1999. While raising her family, Anne became an internationally awarded illustrator, art director and designer, establishing and running her award winning studio, VeVa Communications.

Jane Raymond has been involved in artistic pursuits all her life, even when her academic focus was in philosophy and biology, asking the questions why and how. She has a Master's Degree in Biology from the University of Oregon, and a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley. She has drawn and painted most of her life, and taken many classes and workshops to develop her art. She has also been a ceramicist, and was an early member of the Berkeley Potters Guild, studied and taught dressage, remodeled homes and managed property.

In 2001, she returned to oil painting, working regularly with Pam Glover's plein-air group. More recently, she has worked with Randy Sexton's figurative group, and DaGroup's plein-air group led by Jerry Turner. Her drawings and paintings are typically begun on location, energized by the challenges and opportunities of being present in the moment.

Her figurative work seeks to capture personality in gesture and form, and likeness in portrait. They are often done quickly in charcoal, graphite or pastel. Her landscapes are mostly in oil paint, and usually require further work in the studio. Responding to color and form, she uses light and shadow, line, texture and patterns of color to respond to the subject and local conditions.

Jane has shown her work in the Bay Area and locally. Regardless of the subject, she is always looking to simplify. She seeks to find essence and beauty in her subject, and works both realistically and more abstractly.

The Gualala Arts Center, located at 46501 Old State Highway in Gualala, CA,
is open weekdays 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and weekends from noon to 4:00 p.m.
Please call (707) 884-1138 for more information, or email info@gualalaarts.org.

Serving the coastal communities of northern Sonoma & southern Mendocino Counties.