Celebrating 17 Seasons

New artists and old favorites back for art show

Susan Shore might be better known for her music than her art, but her catalog of wearable creations just keeps growing. What started with earrings she made for herself expanded last year to include felted wool vests, and this year, she’ll debut a new collection of upcycled necklaces Dec. 1-3 at the Holiday Art Sale.

“I don’t take apart jewelry that is beautiful by itself, but if it’s damaged, it can be remade,” she explains. “I’m really enjoying the process!”

Having grown up in her parents’ clothing store, Shore says, may explain the fascination she and her sister — a poet — both have for color. When she walked into a bead shop in Iowa City in 1993, it was the glass beads — particularly the Czech peacock beads — that caught her attention. A friend suggested she make earrings not just for herself but to sell at her gigs, and an obsession took root, fed by her involvement with the Holiday Art Show. The event started 17 years ago at Don House’s studio in Elkins, grew to a three-day show and sale at the GoodFolk house on Block Avenue and has now settled into a space at Dave McKee’s Studio 545 on Center Street in Fayetteville.

“The first couple of shows at Don’s studio were very intimate, very lowkey,” Shore says. “But even as we grew over time, it was still funky and delightful and fresh. A core group stuck around, and artists came and went. And now we’ve added artists to fit the beautiful space we’ve had for three years. It’s filled with light and windows, and we really decorate and do it up and make it special.”

One of this year’s unique offerings will be paintings by William Mayes Flanagan, who died earlier this year. A prolific artist and one of the pillars of the Fayetteville Underground, he will be represented by his wife, Barbara Jaquish, for his last year at the Holiday Art Sale.

“Flanagan was a storyteller, and his paintings suggest the stories within old houses, barns and landmarks, all beneath dramatic night skies,” Jaquish wrote for the event’s Facebook page. “His skies were known for a distinctive blue and for those moons rising behind barns and over hills, swathed in clouds or reflected in streams.”

Also scheduled to show their artworks are Kathy Collier, macrophotography; Gerald Delavan, mobiles; William Correll, watercolors and acrylics; Juli Odum, jewelry; Marietta Camillieri, painted silk scarves and essential oil lotions and sprays; Gailen Hudson, ceramics; Alice Mayo McKee, jewelry, leather and fabric creations; Victoria McKinney, Native Americaninspired award-winning ceramics and paintings; John Collier, carved wooden bowls and spoons; Faye Alter, cloth purses and bowties; Robin Devine, encaustic art; and Michelle Berg-Vogel, hand-bound journals.

“We’re such an eclectic group of people, but everybody has their overlapping group of friends,” Shore says. “So there’s lots of Christmas shopping going on in the middle of a big reunion.”