Love the Art Where You Live! #LocalArtLoves

From now through the end of February, share your local art loves!

Take a photo of art you’ve purchased from a local artist, made, or see around your neighborhood.
Share it on social media (and follow along!), using the #localartloves hashtag.
You’ll also be able to see what people shared from different places when I round it up here on Travelcraft Journal.

For inspiration, check out what artists and art lovers submitted last year.

Your 2018 Local Art Loves

P.S. Post title is a bit of a nod to Kristin Tovar’s fabulous site, Why I Love Where I Live. Based in Tucson, WILWIL encourages everyone to find things to love wherever they are and get involved in their communities.

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019

House of Glass

For the past eighty years, the St. Clair-Rice family has been crafting art glass using techniques passed down through generations.

I remember seeing this St. Clair Glass on the kitchen counters and shelves and window sills of my dad’s side of the family since I was a kid. It comes from the same place they do: Madison County, Indiana.

Of course, the people and the glass have made their way across the country, moving for better jobs or better weather or bigger cities. Our family’s business used to be farming, but, even the relatives that stayed in the region left the farms years ago.

Every so often when I was growing up, my family would make kind of a pilgrimage from our home in Arizona to visit our Indiana family. Sometimes we’d visit the St. Clair glass factory (The House of Glass) in Elwood.

The showroom had shelves and tables stuffed full of lamps and vases, and so many paperweights — palm-sized sculptures shaped like birds, bells, baskets, apples, and angels with a landscape of colorful glass inside their clear exteriors. Each one was made by hand in the on-site workshop.

My parents would buy gifts to bring back for the friend who collected apple things or the one who was dog-sitting while we were away.

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A few seconds of glass artist Joe Rice at work in his Madison County, Indiana workshop. More about The House of Glass on the blog today. @visitandersonmadisonco • • • #joerice #artglass #madisoncountyindiana #joericeglass #stclairglass #midwest #glassartist #elwoodindiana #H2GIndiana #visitindiana #indiana #handmadeindiana #indyartist #heartlandiana

A post shared by stephanieliebold (@stephanieliebold) on Jan 11, 2019 at 2:47pm PST

You could see new pieces in progress, molten glass glowing from the heat of the furnace as the artist turned it and added color and shaped it into something you could recognize. It was like magic.

And it still was when we visited Madison County a few years ago. The store shelves were more sparse, but through the back door in the sweltering workshop, artist-owner Joe Rice was still firing the glass by hand.

Even then, he was concerned that he hadn’t been able to find an apprentice. Like my great-grandparents’ farm, there wasn’t anyone willing and able to take on the work long term.

As he used a long metal pole to heat up the liquid that would become a teapot-shaped ring holder, Joe Rice (who sometimes signs his work “Joe St. Clair,” using his mother’s maiden name) explained how it wasn’t just that he didn’t have a successor, there were few glass makers out there who could match both their production numbers and commitment to flawless glasswork.

And now there are even fewer.

Joe Rice announced last year he’d be closing up shop at the end of 2018, limiting his work to only select projects.

I still hope that one day soon someone will have the passion to learn his trade and fire up the furnace again.

December 10, 2018

November 2018 Photos: Vintage

1980s Cassette Player

I saw the tape deck buttons on this vintage stereo, and it gave me one of those deja vu-y moments where you’re transported back in time for just a fraction of a second, like remembering a flash of a dream. They looked just like the buttons on the stereo my parents had when I was a kid, so I had to capture it.

It’s funny how objects from childhood leave such a strong imprint on your memory. I think it’s because kids tend to look at things more closely with fewer preconceived notions.

1580s Cartography

Speaking of capturing things that are strangely familiar, I’d seen reprints of this map of Italy long before knowing it came from the Gallery of Maps (Galleria delle carte geografiche) in the Vatican.

Seeing it in Italy felt a bit surreal, and I had to take a photo. And so did Phillip. Apparently, at the same moment. So he became part of my picture.

November 17, 2018November 24, 2018

Genoa, the Italian Riviera, and a Palm Tree

I was skeptical about the palm tree on the Genoa travel poster and whether it could actually grow in a city that far north.

What I hadn’t realized is that Genoa is on the shores of Mediterranean — specifically, the Italian Riviera. This coastal region in Liguria also includes towns like Portofino and the Cinque Terre, and it has a climate warm enough to support palm trees, agaves, and sun-seeking tourists.

In fact, the Italian Riviera was already a tourist destination in 1884, when Claude Monet visited and painted scenes like the Palm Trees at Bordighera.

Now if the word “riviera” initially made you picture a river (same here), you weren’t completely wrong. The Italian word rivièra can actually refer to the shores of a river, lake, or, in this case, a sea.

Because there’s an Italian Riviera, English speakers called the Mediterranean coast on France’s side of the border the “French Riviera,” borrowing the Italian word again. Apparently, there’s also a (much) lesser-known English Riviera, which seems like a tourism-bureau invention.

And, yes, in Italy, you can just call the Italian Riviera the “Riviera.”

Photos via:

Art Auction House Günther
AudreyH. CCL. (Waterfront in Riva Ligure)
trialsanderrors. CCL. (1920s poster: La Riviera Italienne)
Regan Vercruysse. CCL. (Monet’s Palm Trees at Bordighera at the Met)
Our Italy trip (map in the Vatican)
Martina Pathogens. CCL. (Beach in Alassio)
Regan Vercruysse. CCL. (Detail of Palm Trees at Bordighera)

I’ll be linking up with Thursday Tree Love at Happiness and Food.

October 18, 2018May 23, 2023

George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Phoenix

During Phoenix Art Detour, my friend Anne and I wandered into the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.

The building had been a high school for African American students from 1926 to 1953, which I didn’t even know about until we stumbled across it. I guess I had assumed that, since the Phoenix population didn’t really start booming until the ’60s, maybe we had just skipped the whole segregation thing. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

However, Arizona did desegregate its schools a year before Brown v. Board of Education mandated it nationally. The Carver High School closed, and the students were integrated into other high schools.

In 1986, four Carver alumnae formed Phoenix Monarchs Alumni Association, an organization to preserve the building and turn it into a museum and cultural center. They were eventually able to purchase it, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center is now open with a mission to honor African and African American heritage, arts, and culture.

The Phoenix Monarchs Alumni Association continues to raise funds to upgrade the space and offer additional programs and exhibits.

In front of the museum is a statue of its namesake, scientist George Washington Carver, holding one of the peanut plants he was famous for studying.

We explored the first floor and saw artwork like paintings, sculptures, and a quilt made by students who had gone to school there.

There was a room with vintage typewriters and sewing machines.

Another one had what looked like African artifacts and traditional craft, like masks, drums, and beaded gourd instruments, as well as contemporary paintings, and a violin.

Outside of Art Detour week, I think a volunteer guide is usually there to provide context and answer questions, because a lot of the items weren’t labeled. The museum had a work-in-progress feel, as funds are still being raised to improve the building and exhibition space. It will be exciting to see it transform!

More Info on the Carver Museum

The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center is located at 415 E. Grant Street in the Phoenix Warehouse District.
Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 11am to 5pm.
Donations accepted.
History of Carver school and museum (archived).