Wearable Art and Fine Crafts

A Gallery Five online collection of handmade fine crafts showcases ceramics, wood, glass, metal, fiber, sculptures, wall art, and functional art by prominent and promising craftsmen throughout the United States.

February 14th is Valentines Day – a worldwide celebration of love and romance, marked by giving red roses and hearts or giving unique gifts and by sending valentines.

Gallery Five has a collection of unique gifts and art-to-wear jewelry handcrafted by prominent and promising artisans.

glass hearts by Lisa Aronzon

metal clocks by Hays-Cash

heart rattles by Caroline Koons

Caroline Koons fanciful hearts contain small grains of porcelain that make whimsical sounds when handled. Hang your bisque finished rattle on the wall, or display it on a table. Each is decorated with motifs that include fern leaves, delightful animals, and butterflies

Heart rattles are embellished with Caroline’s signature colors on the front and the back. Her ceramic art is very contemporary hand built porcelain with vibrant geometric patterns freely painted. It is functional and whimsical art.

Caroline personally executes every part of every piece she creates. She says she thrives on the physical involvement with clay; its movement and immediacy is like a dance for her soul. She uses many methods and techniques that she has learned and developed over 30 years of working with clay. Using porcelain clay, with its capacity for fine detail and lush color, she fabricates from thrown, sculpted, cast, and slab built forms.

Each piece is carefully planned, constructed, manipulated, and further treated with sprayed, and extruded textures until she is satisfied with its balance and intricacies. After careful drying, each piece is bisque fired. Then begins the glazing process of building up layers of stains and glazes by spraying and brushing. The glaze firing to 2200 degrees may reveal her finished piece but she adds several more firings with additional layers of colors and frequently uses gold leaf or 22k gold accents to complete the visual richness she desires.

Ed and Kate, ceramic artists, each started working with clay at the age of fifteen, taking ceramic classes at the Indianapolis Art Center. They realized then that it was something they would always do. They received their Fine Arts Degrees from Ball State University.

Visit the Gallery Five collection of Ed and Kate’s ceramic vases, bowls and clocks.

Classic Tea by Judith Weber

As a studio potter, Judith Weber has focused on creating art for the table. Specializing in custom-designed accessories which exemplify elegance, purity of form, and a striking, ever-changing palette of color, her work has been featured in Tableware Today, House and Garden, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, Oprah and New York Magazines. 

Motivated by the relationship of Form to Function, her signature piece, the “Classic Tea” embodies the successful fusion of silhouette and serviceability. It continues to grace the shelves of high-end specialty and museum stores throughout the country including the Museum of Art and Design in New York and SFMOMA in California.

See a variety of colors of  Judith Weber’s ceramic teapots at Gallery Five.

one-of-a-kind raku fired ceramic 13"L, 8"H, 3 1/2"W

Sheena received her B.F.A. in ceramic sculpture in 1969 and spent the next 33 years making art jewelry. She moved to New Mexico in 1981. In 2003 she got back into working with clay, started experimenting with making horses and they seemed to take on a life of their own. Soon, and after much hard work, they evolved into what you see today and have become very popular.  See more ceramic horses at Gallery Five and more to come in the fall 2009.

Most of Sheena Cameron’s pieces are raku. Some are fired in a Japanese style wood burning kiln and some are stoneware. Because of the nature of these one-of-a-kind pieces, the prices vary widely. She uses genuine gemstones and other unique additions. All of the legs are masonry nails. Many of the horses open and close and have a lot of detail work.

Each horse comes with its own miniature book. On one side is a horse picture and several paragraphs about the general symbolism. Handwritten on the other side is the name of that particular horse, a list of all the components and gemstones, their symbolism, and the symbolism of the piece as a whole. And of course each owner will be bringing her or his own personal symbolism to the piece.

Many women across America enjoy growing and admiring flowers. More and more garden clubs have sprouted up recently, and many of them are held in a different venue each week. As a new member, you will most likely be called upon to host at some point in the near future. Hosting your first garden party can be a nerve-racking experience, but it doesn’t have to be.

Proper preparation makes all the difference; if you plan every detail well in advance, you can rest assured knowing the party will be a hit. Bear in mind that first impressions really do count; your table presentation matters just as much as your green thumb. A chic, colorful ceramic tea set should leave an indelible mark. Once tea and hors d’oeuvres have been served, get ready to boast about your blooms. With one successful party in the bag, you’ll have a proven template for future soirees.

11.5" ceramic vase

Laura Jean McLaughlin, ceramic artist, grew up in Pittsburgh, PA in a family of 11 children. She always wanted to be an artist but was encouraged to go to school to be a Medical Technologist. After taking her first clay class the last semester in school she discovered a new passion. Marc Leuthold, a ceramic artist fresh out of grad school, took Laura under his wing and helped her get into graduate school at WVU for clay with a full scholarship. She studied at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, ME, Penland School of Crafts, NC, West Virginia University College of Creative Arts and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Now Laura is a ceramic artist who sells her work to over 80 galleries, collectors and designers, throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Colored Porcelain

Susy Siegele and Mike Haley have been working together since 1975, making distinctive colored porcelain pieces. Their technique involves layering different colors of porcelain together into loaves, which when sliced like bread, reveal the carefully constructed patterns in the clay. Each of the slices from a loaf is shaped into a piece of pottery such as a teapot or a bowl. “Clay is very healing to work with,” says Siegele.

Delicate layers of color, revealing images form nature, dancing figures or simple shapes are some of the purely distinctive elements of Siegele and Haley’s contemporary handcrafted pottery.

The colors they use come from naturally occurring oxides, but depend on their firing technique for its richness. The gas-and-wood-burning kiln they fire in takes about 24 hours to reach 2380 degrees F., the temperature at which porcelain becomes mature. The kiln is then allowed to cool for two days before being opened.

In addition to being featured in various craft exhibitions across the country, Susy and Mike made a piece for President and Mrs. Clinton before they moved to Pennsylvania Avenue. And when Jerry Carr, the former captain of Apollo 12, needed gifts for all of the Russian cosmonauts who have orbited the Earth, he went directly to Siegele and Haley.