Mica Gallery Opens April 1st

Mica - A Cooperative Gallery of Fine Art and Contemporary Craft - opens for the 2022 season on April 1st. Two artists are new to the gallery this year, Nathan Favors and Jean McLaughlin. Returning member artists will be featured throughout the year in monthly spotlights.
 
Favors, a woodturner of functional and sculptural objects, moved to the area 5 years ago from a small community near Philadelphia. Prior to woodturning, Favors made scientific machines and ran a landscaping and tree removal business. In 1998, after attending a woodturning convention, he knew he had found his calling. Favors is self-taught and a keen observer: “I love to study a raw piece of wood and then expose the exquisite patterns hidden inside.”. After 25 years at the lathe, Favors says, “This is by far the best career move I have ever made.”

McLaughlin returned to printmaking after retiring from a career in arts management. She served as director of Penland School of Craft for 20 years and a program director at the NC Arts Council for the sixteen years prior to Penland.  She notes, “I was engaged with artists every day of my career in the nonprofit world. One important role I played was in developing programs to help their work evolve. Now, after 45 years, I have set up my own studio.” McLaughlin works with a variety of printmaking techniques from woodcuts to lithographs to painterly and stencil-based monoprints. Her subject matter, she says, “is drawn from an observation of the world around me, a love of textiles and abstraction, and experimentation with process.”

Featured artists in April, JJ Brown and Simona Rosasco own and operate Fyreglas Studio where they make decorative and functional kilnformed works in glass. Brown is a retired fire chief from Miami and Rosasco an art educator and former healthcare professional from Pensacola. Their kilnformed art is created from sheets of glass that they cut, pattern and layer into plates, bowls, and panels. “ We are fortunate to have such a tremendous palette of colorful glass with which to create our art,” Brown comments, “as our influences include nature and imagination.”

Mica is located at 37 Mitchell Ave, Bakersville. Mica is open daily, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 12–5 p.m. For more information call 828.688.6422 or visit micagallerync.com. Follow the gallery on Facebook at Mica Gallery NC, or on Instagram at micagallerync.