Chagrin Falls Eclectic Talent!

Meet Annette Brag from Just Soap...

I have always like to make crafts and enjoy making soaps as a hobby. I have been making soaps for about a year now. 

This is my first Avant-Garde show and I am looking forward to it! I like learning new things - it challenges me and I enjoy the unlimited blending of colors, scents and shapes when it comes to making soap. 

For some reason I have always wanted to learn to make soap. I have made my own laundry detergent for years and thought it would be fun to make my own hand soap as well.

I'm a Libra - apparently it's a requirement to be artistic and creative for your entire life! lol. 

You can view more of my work at - https://www.facebook.com/annettebragg2016/

Meet Cindy Bloyd from Percy Homestead...

We didn’t foresee our love for honeybees and beekeeping. A few years ago, our son recommended we get some bees. After some long thought and a garden that was suffering from lack of pollination, we decided to give it a try. This opened a world of fascination, learning and challenge! We also have learned that there is a wonderful fellowship of beekeepers that meet regularly and seriously strive to help each other be successful. In addition, we have discovered an amazing excitement and appreciation in the public for honeybees and the products they produce. We love our bees, and love seeing people smile just talking about them and how much they love honey!

Our apiary at Percy Homestead continues to grow as we endeavor to raise healthy and productive colonies that can explore the fruitful landscape around us in Geauga County, Ohio. Honeybees are nothing short of amazing! We love to talk about them and spend time with them. Is it weird that we have two lawn chairs in the bee yard where we sit and sip some honey wine (mead) and just watch our bees work, while we talk about bees? If so, we are weird!

We have been in the business for seven years, but this is actually our first year participating in Avant-Garde Art & Craft Shows. 

So often, a comment from a customer sends me on a journey of creating the product they are looking for. Our son had a hive and we were fascinated and decided to start our own 2 colony apiary.  We now have 25 hives and are looking to expand again this year.

Meet Lynne Provance from Provances Pieces...

Lynne Provance, from Bristolville, Ohio, has been an international stained-glass artist since 2005. She has working studios in both Ohio (USA) and Prince Edward Island (Canada) [PEI] and employs exclusively the foiling method (Tiffany style). Window paneled stained glass art became a favorite art medium in which to express

one of her artistic abilities. 

She is fascinated by how the light is reflected through the different colors, textures, and opacities of the glass. Light is her canvas. She enjoys both designing and constructing original art pieces & she finds “painting” with the colored glass interesting and challenging.

She provides collaborations in both designing and constructing specialized orders, repair/restoration work, stained glass art classes and "hands on" workshops, offers her patterns for purchase, and showcases her art for sale in select art shows, galleries & festivals in the USA and PEI. 

Her work can be viewed on her Facebook Page: Lynne Badger Provance.

Meet Gayle Hammer from Whimsical Wire Gifts...

I have always been creative myself and have loved to purchase colorful artsy products. I just recently decided this past September to become an entrepreneur out of my own need. 

As a high school physics teacher, I was always putting my glasses down somewhere, or placing them on top of my head, and the kids in my class were always helping to find them for me. I hunted online for something colorful, handmade and fun to use as an eyeglass strap but found nothing out there. 

After recently retiring, I decided to be creative and design my own whimsical, one-of-a-kind, colorful aluminum wire eyeglass chains so that I never misplace my reading glasses or sunglasses again! 

Based on suggestions of customers at my first Avant-Garde show in December, I have also created lanyard chains, necklaces, and earrings to match the colors and designs of many of the eyeglass chains that you see at my booth and on my Etsy site(etsy.com/shop/WhimsicalWireGifts). 

I really look forward to watching my business grow and to expand my products based on the needs of my customers. 

I hope you find a design that represents your personality and enjoy wearing your purchase as much as I loved making it for you.

Meet Marianne Carroll from M|C Pottery Studio...

I am a ceramic artist in Chagrin Falls inspired by Nature and its beauty. I've been in the business for 5 years. This is my first time participating in the Avant-Garde Art & Craft Shows. 

I create art to connect to a deeper purpose, I connect with creativity as a joyful experience and appreciate the form and function of nature in ceramic art. I graduated from CCAD with a degree in fine art oil painting, but always wanted to explore ceramics.

As a child,  I would always turn to art as an important process in my life. I love the act of playing with clay. I write down a lot of ideas, set goals for production and just go for it.

I recently built a ceramic studio on my property in Chagrin Falls to have a better space to create. I look forward to launching a website where I can focus on shipping my work all over the county.

The message behind my work is that beauty is everywhere!

Meet Jen Ertle from Honeybee Hobby...

My name is Jen and I am a nurse by trade; I currently work part time as a nurse educator and I also have two little ones at home! My husband recognized that I needed a little get away/a hobby so he got me a Cricut a little over a year ago and I have been creating ever since! 

I have been working on my items for a little over a year. I started out making ornaments and now I don’t make those at all! I have transitioned to wooden gift tags (which I love creating and making!), wooden wine charms for all four seasons, and now small felt flower pots to go with little memory jars and journals- the perfect gift for anyone!

This will be my first Avant-Garde show! When I feel stressed, I work on this hobby. It helps me calm my mind and focus on something. It also gives me a quick getaway from the busy hustle and bustle of family life.

I got into this because I needed a hobby/something to do :)

I worked through many different phases of what I wanted to create! I actually found the gift tags by accident when trying to create ornaments and decided it would be cool to create these gift tags. The best part about them is that you can write on the back- no need for searching endlessly for a card anymore and they are perfect for any occasion.

I tend to have ideas here and there; I look up inspiration and images and work to create things I would use and what I think others can use. I also love that the things I make are different from what most people make. 

In five years, I hope I'm continuing to create crafts and enjoy this hobby. I would love to continue sharing my craft with others!

I love using my crafting/creating to work through stressful situations. I feel that mental health is incredibly important yet often stigmatized in the world today. That is one of the reasons I created my gift baskets- a great little gift idea which includes a handmade journal with fun stickers to help people keep track of whatever they want (gratitude, vacations, baby’s milestones, new home ideas, etc.) while having a little flower pot to brighten their day, and the tiny memory jars can be used to write down memories and pull them back out during stressful times. I like to think of it as a mood booster pack! Nothing beats paper and pen and a little fun color :) 

2025 Chagrin Falls Spring Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show

Saturday, April 12, 2025

10:00am-4:00pm

Sun Valley

10000 Edwards Lane

Chagrin Falls, OH 44023

For more information, contact Becki Silverstein, Event Coordinator at Becki@ag-shows.com

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It's Show Week!

Meet Maddie Burland from Noodle Works...

I am currently a sophomore at Bowling Green State University studying art education. I grew up in Ohio, just outside of Cleveland, with my mom, dad, younger brother, younger sister, and our dogs, Olive, Bob, and Kaiser. My favorite art medium is ceramics, but I also enjoy drawing and photography. Some of my hobbies are reading, writing, and more recently, knitting.

I’ve always loved making art and doing art projects, so I’d say I’ve been an artist pretty much forever, but I got really into ceramics and photography in high school, and I really only started drawing a lot this past summer. I’ve also only just started attending art shows, though I’ve participated in school art shows before. This will be my 2nd Avant-Garde Craft Show. I decided to start applying to and selling art at these shows because I already make a ton of art on my own and for my classes, and since I am a poor college student, I thought it might be nice to make some extra money and get some exposure as a new artist. 

I wouldn’t say that I discovered a talent for art, I’ve just always known that I like art and that I’m good at it. I took art classes all throughout high school and decided to pursue a career in art education because of how much art and creating mean to me. That being said, I also wouldn’t say that any one thing inspires me to create because the things I create are inspired by many things. If anything, I would say that I create because I simply can’t not make art. Even when I find myself in a bit of a rut I always have some ideas floating around, and can always find something to draw or make. 

I think haphazard is a good word to describe my creative process. I’m never quite sure when I’ll have ideas for drawings, or when I’ll have the time and energy to actually draw them since I’m usually pretty busy with classes. When I do have time and ideas, the process for my drawings usually goes through the steps of having the idea, drawing sketches or a sketch with notes and possible adjustments, drawing the final copy on larger paper in pencil, and then adding color to the final copy, usually with markers. When I do ceramics, the process is even more involved, because many ceramics pieces require multiple sketches, since ceramics is a 3D medium, and I don’t make many coffee mugs. 

In 5 years, I hope to be an art teacher, in whatever school and district that will take me. But in terms of selling my art, the plan is pretty much to keep doing what I’ve started doing this past year, drawing and making art as much as I can, and applying to and attending shows whenever I can. I wouldn’t say there’s any real message in my work, like “stop pollution” or that sort of thing. The things I create are simply a reflection of me and how I see the world, and my attempt to capture what I see in some physical form

Meet Karyl Lee from One Row to Hoe...

I am a retired former vegetarian chef from Charleston, SC who lives in Oberlin, OH. I moved here in 2008, and since have fallen for the local art scene and opportunities for visual representation. I work in water media and with beads and ceramics, and have illustrated a children's book. I have been a working artist for more than 50 years, and a beaded jewelry maker for a decade and this will be my first Avant-Garde Show!

I discovered my talent when I was encouraged as a child by my father to explore color and media and have never stopped. Then, living in Oberlin where there is a great bead supply store, I saw a lot of nifty stuff and wanted to make my own. I love colors, textures, and shapes, and enjoy making unusual things happen in different media. Usually, I sit with a tiny pen or pencil sketch and consider what I want the ultimate illustration to look like, or else I pick up a ceramic piece and just apply color! sometimes I find a focal bead that makes me want to string things with it that will showcase just that one piece.

As for the future, I think I might be retired for good as a business but who knows, maybe the second book I am working on illustrating might lead to other related work. My main message is that art should be accessible and enjoyable in a multitude of ways. Everyone can find something creative to express themselves with or through and I hope my multi-medium approach stimulates that.

Meet Lynn Pelka of Lynn Patricia Designs…

Creating my handbags and accessories brings me much joy.  I love working with the fabrics and textures making a classy looking handbag that may be just right for you. We, as women, look for a handbag that is specific to our needs whether it has pockets, zipper closer a certain kind of strap/handle. I create my handbags with a full front pocket to hold all your important items at your fingertips with soft webbing handled for a comfortable fit. I also offer handmade zipper pouches, mini wallets, and lip balm totes as well as special character handbags for the little girl in your life.

Even though I’ve been sewing since childhood, my business began when I launched an Etsy store 2011 listing, at that time, my very colorful handbags, tea bag wallets, and water bottle totes. With experience over the years, my design has settled down to a more classic handbag style in neutral colors.  Things have blossomed and I am now established both at indoor and outdoor shows. It is always a pleasure meeting and chatting with those who stop at my booth.

The future looks bright with the hopes to one day retire from my day job as an office manager at a dental practice and participate in as many shows as possible. I’ve found the Avant-Garde shows to be expertly done with vendors who produce beautiful and interesting items making for an enjoyable shopping experience. So hope you enjoy your day at the show and be sure to stop by and introduce yourself as one who has read this blog.

                                              

2019 West Geauga Spring Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show

Date: Sunday, March 17, 2019

 Time: 8:00am-3:00pm

West Geauga High School

13401 Chillicothe Road

Chesterland, OH 44026

For more information, contact Becki Silverstein, Event Coordinator at Becki@ag-shows.com

Visit us on:

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