Wow now

The Southern Highland Craft Guild‘s 23 new members (selected by jury from 2010 to the present) show their work in It’s the Wow Factor!, an exhibition on display through Sunday. Sept. 8. Crafts include fiber, clay, mixed media, wood and glass, and the accompanying artist statements each discuss a moment of serendipity or inspiration in the creative process.

One of the crafters, Pam Etheredge, began creating pine needle baskets as a young girl. She was taught by her grandmother to weave baskets from both pine needles and sweetgrass, and then went on to innovate a technique of using waxed linen in place of sweetgrass.

Janice McDonald makes “elegant abstract art collages with papers collected from my daily life and wanderings,” as she explains on her website. She did a collage series comprised of junk mail in which some pieces were based on what she received in a single day in her mailbox.

Asheville-based ceramist Reiko Miyagi began her career in Japan, but after she relocated to the U.S. she discovered jewelry making and began working in that medium as well. “Regardless of my media I like to maintains my Japanese appreciation of the subtle beauty, harmonious colors and forms in the natural world,” she says on her Etsy site.

The exhibit also includes work by fiber artists Beth Andrews, Joan Berner, David Byer, Barb Butler, Karen Donde, Peggy Epton, Donata Jones, Ann Vorus Parkhurst and Patte Vanden Berg; clay artists Pamela Brewer, Susanne Clusener, Alex Matisse, Frye Glass and Kelsey Schissel; mixed media artist Sam Johnson; woodworkers Ronnie McMahan, Jeff Neil, Mike Shults and David Wright; and glass artist Warner Whitfield.

View the display at The Folk Art Center, located at Milepost 382 of the Blue Ridge Parkway.