December

November

November display featuring reds.

Artists of the month

Vera Van Schaick

and Ina Stess

New member Carol Adams creates

ceramic mugs, vessels, and hanging planters

New member Jo Benwell offers her handmade brooms-

many sizes for many needs.

October Oranges

October arrives bringing us the Fall spectrum of colors. Orange is most prominent with pumpkins gracing front yards and store displays. However, Mother Nature doesn't work with just one color. The vineyards turn color, purple-brown to red ,orange to yellow, and soft beige depending on the variety of grape, and our landscape becomes a beautiful patchwork quilt of color.

The co-op is echoing those colors in its display. come by and see how well we've done.

Our Artists of the Month are echoing theses colors, too.

Angel Fiorito-Leddy has displayed sandals and slippers in purples,blues, buff and brown as well as a leather vest made cozy with the fur inside.

Libby Kirk, one of our newest members,

has a display of Holiday Ornaments
and serving pieces done in glass. They sparkle
nicely in the sunlight streaming through
our window.

Come visit us and start shopping for the upcoming Holidays.

September 2011

September marks the change of seasons

and a change in the quality of light.

It is time to leave the clear primary colors of summer

and explore the more muted palette of secondary and tertiary hues.

Check out the display by the Artists of the Month

Carol Sklar and Judy Fisher.

Judy's handwoven coat

is in the soft colors of coral, green, and beige.

Carol's necklace and earrings echo those colors.

Other items in the display play off those colors, too,

and act as grace notes for the whole.

August

August display features

new yarn arrival.

Great colors, fibers, and textures for fall.

We have yarn in the new Pantone colors:

"Bamboo, Emberglow,

Honeysuckle, Phlox,

Cedar, Deep Teal,

Coffee Liqueur, Nougat,

Orchid Hush, & Quarry"

Edie Nelson's display features her own new designs.

Her new leaf pattern neck warmer and hat will keep you cozy as the weather cools.

Martha Cant's

Starbuck Station Wool

is from her own sheep.

It is hand spun and hand dyed

with natural plant dyes.

Her scarves are hand woven with fine detail.

July at the Co-op

The Co-op has accentuated the colors of July -- Red, White and Blue with a sprinkling of Stars!

Come a check out the summer wares and sparkling additions we now have in stock. Light weight silk scarves and cozy shawls for the evening, Embellished denim jackets for the cooler days and Windwalker sandals for the beach excursions in your future.

As always , we are to go to place for gifts and one of a kind objets d'art.

Carol Covey is one of our honored Artists this Month. She creates beautiful watercolors and her favorite subjects are flowers. She also produces two lines of cards. One line features her watercolor originals and the other line is a selection of collage creations.

Randy Snyder , one of our potters, is our other
Artist of the Month. Our customers and visitors are amazed by the beautiful and colorful finishes Randy produces in his line of Raku pots and wall plaques. Come see for yourself and select one for yourself or a friend. His work will compliment almost any decor.

June

Bright colors in the Co-op displays welcome the arrival of warm and sunny June. Splashes of bright pinks, corals, and turquoise--with a slight leavening of yellow--grace the display tables.

The Artists of the Month are Darlene Barr. whose picture quilts raise quilting to a fine art form.

Quilted Images by Darlene Barr

She is joined on the podium by Annie Murphy Springer
whose watercolors of scenes around Sonoma always enchant as Annie sees the world through a palette emphasizing all shades of her favorite color--purple.
Come by to see Annie's newestpaintings and Darlene's exquisit quilted hangings.

Watercolors and cards by Annie Murphy Springer

May at the Co-op

Our May displays highlighted BLUE. The thought was to emphasize the color of the Pacific Ocean when it is, in fact, peaceful and to reflect the beautiful clear blue skies overhead.

May, the month, is usually glorious. Instead, May proved to be contrary this year and gave us cold and rainy weather reminiscent of Winter. This, in turn, made the artists staffing the Gallery blue. Blue with the cold weather and blue because of the lack of many customers.

Our Artists of the Month were Ina Stess who has just introduced her line of embellished jeans jackets in childrens' sizes and Vera Van Schaick, one of our most illustrious potters, who featured her Fish Dishes, which were also blue, and other serving pieces inscribed with a fish--or two.

Now that the weather has turned truly spectacular, you have no excuse to not come by and see what s new at the Co-op.

April at the Co-Op

Spring has arrived! The Co-op is celebrating -not only Spring, but their 15th year of being a brick and mortar business. To honor the occasion, The Co-op had a 15% off sale on most of the items in the store during the 15th, 16th, and 17th of this month. It's hard to know if being in conjunction with tax day hurt or helped our sales, but it seemed very successful for those who purchased during that time.

Since April is the month of Easter this year, the colors highlighted in our displays this month are those of spring and rebirth: clear yellows, pinks and greens with touches of heavenly blue.

Our Artists of the Month are Libby Kirk and Linda Cannefax.
Libby displayed many of her pieces-all with the same lovely green hue. Linda used the space to showcase her hand dyed and handwoven articles highlighting many of the other spring colors.

The Grand Finale for April will be the Members Potluck Celebration on the 30th. Wish you could all join us.

March in the Co-op-The Colors of Spring

If you visited the Artisans' Co-op during our rainy , cold and blustery March, you know that inside the cozy premises was the promise that spring would really come to Bodega.
Artists of the Month Judy Fisher and Carol Covey displayed woven pieces and watercolor paintings that picked up the colors of spring- the blues, lavenders and greens of new growth with punches of of rust and purple as accents. The every changing artists' tableau that is prominently displayed at the front of the store was arranged in shades of green with accents of salmon and rust. Throughout the shop, pieces in these colors were brought to the front of displays, giving a look of unity to the space.
Our display space is revised monthly. come see how artists work with color.

The Wonders of Watercolors

Co-op member Annie Murphy Springer made headlines in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat recently.

Columnist Chris Smith wrote that "Retired chief Springer sets canvas afire,"referring to Annie's previous position as Bodega Fire Chief and segueing to her most recent project, WOW.
WOW, an acronym for the Wonders of Watercolor, features Annie as an instructor in the techniques of watercolor on PBS. Currently, two minute snippets are being shown on KRCB and other PBS stations while fund raising goes on for the money and sponsorship necessary to produce half-hour instructional programs.

Annie's current mantra: "I aspire to inspire before I expire!"

photo by Les Kammens, 2010

A New Look for February

Ah February! The shortest month of the year has more than its share of special days to celebrate. Valentine's Day comes first with it theme of love and its accent on the color red. This is followed soon after by Presidents' Day which adds the patriotic colors of white and blue to the predominant red. Our shop comes alive with its new color scheme!
On entering, you will see a display featuring several of our artists' work celebrating the color red. Then, look to your left and you will see the Artists of the Month, Randy Snyder and Martha Cant, have arranged a counterpoint to all that red with a display featuring blues and gold and underlined by black.
Then explore the rest of a tiny jewel box of a store. The celebratory colors of red, white and blue will catch your eye throughout.

The Changing Space

The 500 square feet that make up the interior of the Artisans' Co-op gets rearranged on a monthly basis. The holiday colors that predominated through the month of December, segued into more muted and tertiary colors in January.
January's artists of the month , Edie Nelson and Angel Fiorito-Leddy, set the tone with a display featuring muted purple and green footwear by Angel and sweaters in calming blue/green tones by Edie. The colors were picked up by displays throughout the shop. First seen upon entering is a display in the neutral colors of beige, brown and mushroom with accents of soft greens and blues. The windows have glass work in blues, greens and an occasional purple which play well with the color theme.
The artists who design the shop change on a monthly basis, depending on their availability, and the color palate changes at the whim of the designers.
Re-evaluating the displays on a monthly schedule allows all the pieces in the shop to take center stage at some time during the year.