Artisan Women of Worcester
By Haiwen Lu
August 2005 - “We all are established craft people on our
own,” says Sarah Brueck Stallings of her nine newest friends. “This
is just a way to bring us out together on a different medium.”
It seems that Stallings has finally found her perfect artsy niche. While
she has always loved art, she could never seem to find a group that fit
her just right. “I didn’t feel like there were any that represent
me,” she explains. This slight problem was nothing a few phone calls
couldn’t fix, however.
After assembling some of her female acquaintances and additional women
whom she knew from other art organizations, Stallings founded the Artisan
Women of Worcester a few months ago. The goal of the ten-member group,
essentially, is to host shows in the Worcester area, oftentimes complete
with live craft demonstrations. “It’s a very ‘art in
action’ type of thing,” she explains.
All ten Artisan Women hail from the Central Massachusetts area. At the
events, each woman has her own table for her skilled craft, with prices
ranging from single digits into the hundreds of dollars.
So what, exactly, is a skilled craft? “That’s part of our problem right
now,” laughs Stallings about the ambiguity attached to the group’s style
of art, right before explaining the root of the Artisan Women. “A skilled
craft is something that you’ve been doing for years that has taken some
kind of educational process for you to learn how to do.”
Basically, each woman in the group prides herself on bringing to the table
a craft that is truly unique and inspired. Stallings herself is a jeweler,
but she does much more involved work than simply picking up beads and
stringing them. “I do things like weaving and felting beads from raw wool,”
she explains. Clearly, this is where the skill comes in, with woven glass
seed beads serving as Stallings' signature medium. The skilled crafts
of the other Artisan Women include hand-thrown and hand-fired stoneware
pottery pieces, stained glass items, handmade books, hand-knitted clothing,
hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn, original paintings, and much, much more.
As for the months ahead? A show at Tower Hill Botanic Garden is currently
in the works for October. Meanwhile, the Artisan Women will be participating
in the Salisbury Sampler, hosted by Arts N’ Things, on September
17. There, approximately 75 vendors will set up and show off their artistic
crafts at Worcester’s beautiful Institute Park.
In the end, it’s really all about a love and passion for their art.
“The group itself will not be a profit organization,” says
Stallings. “In the future, we want to work with teenage girls, have
four shows a year, and get into seminar teaching. We want to give a little
back to the community.”
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