Celebrate the end of summer through the joyful creations of the featured artists in the Sedona Arts Center’s August Exhibit, Serendipitous Adventures, which opens with a wine reception from 5 to 8pm on First Friday, August 6th and runs through September 1st. Open daily from 10am to 5pm.
The playful mix of colors, media, and styles shown in the exhibit will engage your senses and remind you of the joyful, lazy days of childhood summers. Featured artists are: Gale Craig (Mixed-media), Sue Hunter (Pastels), V. Norton (Calligraphy & Ceramics), and Norma Cox Miller (Mixed-Media).
Norma Cox Miller working
The exhibit is lovingly dedicated to Norma Cox Miller who died expectedly on July 22. Her spirit, her talent, her passion for art, and her love of life will always be part of the Sedona Arts Community. She will be missed! The Friday night reception will be a celebration of her life and her art as we showcase her newest and final works together with the works of the other featured artists. Please, join us to bid her farewell in the way that she would have wanted.
Norma Cox Miller grew up on a small farm in Kentucky. Her memories of the sunlight and shadows, the small stream near her home and the changing colors of the leaves, season by season, influenced her paintings throughout her life. She did not have the opportunity to formally study art until she entered Morehead State University where she learned the basics, which was only the beginning. An avid life-long art student, with an insatiable appetite for learning and improving her skill, she was always seeking more and studied with many well-known artists such as Edward Betts, Charles Reid, Gerald Brommer and Virginia.
When she was no longer as challenged by landscape painting, she turned to abstraction. At first she used landscape elements in her work, and slowly began to paint completely non-objective abstractions, reverting occasionally to semi-abstraction. She preferred stretched canvas or watercolor paper using acrylic paint and various collage and texturing materials to add variety and interest to her pieces. She began showing in juried exhibitions in 1970 and has received numerous awards for her work in acrylic and mixed-media.
“NEPTUNE'S DANCE” by Gail Craig
Gale Craig is both a painter and designer of one-of-a-kind jewelry. Gale paints primarily in oils, acrylics and encaustics, a 2,000 year old process which uses heat to fuse layer upon layer of pigmented beeswax and damar resin. The wax delivers color in a way no other medium can, producing magnificent translucent effects.
The first thing that strikes you when you look at Gale’s vibrant, colorful abstract paintings is that she paints from the heart. Her remarkable use of color reflects her passion for the mystical and healing arts. However, what is truly unique about Gale’s style is that you can feel the essence of spiritual energy in everything she paints.
She states, “I see in the Universe a mystical world of flowing energies. My visions are inspired by the colors and movement of the energies I see within and around an object. It is the beauty and vibrancy of this universal energy that I try to capture in my paintings.”
Sue Hunter was born in Arkansas but has lived in Arizona since 1960 and thinks of Arizona as home. The lovely desert colors, wide open spaces, and diverse landscapes of the southwest provide her with endless subject matter for her paintings. She works in pastel, oils, watercolor and acrylics. Her subjects include landscapes, still life, figures and animals. She is known for her paintings of roosters.
Color is an important aspect of Sue’s art which is reflected in her impressionistic style. “I try to put into my paintings the emotions I feel using color, light and shadow effects to create design.”
Sue graduated from Western International University and has studied art at Scottsdale Artists School, Scottsdale Community College, with local art instructors and has attended numerous workshops locally and in Europe. She is a consistent award winner in juried exhibits and her work is included in many private and public collections.
V. Norton (Victoria) is a dual artist – ceramicist and calligrapher. She has been a resident of Sedona for 25 years, and works in a studio overlooking the beautiful red rocks. Her inspiration comes from the exquisite landscapes, animals, and people around her.
Sue has traveled extensively in North and South America, Europe, and Africa, which has influenced her amazing masks and has impacted the artistic path which she is currently following. She takes the realistic and interprets it in abstract forms and designs, using the clay as her canvas. This occurs both with her sculptural and figurative pieces.
Her calligraphy has been another 30-year adventure. Sue was a teacher at the Arts Center for fourteen years, dating back to the time when the studio was downstairs in the Art barn. From there, she became an adjunct faculty member at NAU for five years. Now her focus is on original commissions: evolving a series of calligraphy cards, and most recently, getting back into creating one of a kind, hand bound books.
The Sedona Arts Center is located at the corner of 15 Art Barn Rd. and State Rte 89A in Uptown Sedona – on the right just before entering Oak Creek Canyon. For more information about the Poets Corner or the Sedona Arts Center please call 928.282.3865. The evening event is free of charge and open to all who would like to attend.
