Page 18 - the NOISE October 2014

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AN AUTUMN OF Z
frOM LefT: Georgia Michalicek’s Epic Rain Falls; Baroque Lattice Bowl BY SARAH
by Mack Davis; Sunday Dinner Bouquet by Catherine Sickafosse GIANELLI the CooP UnCooP’D & FRee RAnGin’ — all artists from the Z House bookin’ it ‘cross town this month.
The Z House Gallery artists are in the home stretch of a very active past few months with the final month of their exhibition in the lobby of nAU’s High Country Conference
Center. The exhibit is something of a homecoming show, as many of the Z House artists are either NAU alums or have a history with the university, and will showcase a selection of the coop artists’ arts & craft creations in a wide range of medi- ums stretching from watercolors to wearables.
An especially busy Z House artist featured at the HCCC (and in two other shows this month) is landscape photographer Georgia Michalicek, whose work captures the natural won- ders of the Southwest with refreshingly minimal digital ma- nipulation, allowing the light and beauty already inherent in the scene to shine.
Ms. Michalicek describes herself as one of those people who was born to be a photographer. “It’s a skill that came to me naturally because of my love for the beauty of nature and the joy that traveling and being outdoors brings to me,” she says.
Ms. Michalicek lived and worked in Flagstaff for well over a decade before relocating to Sedona. Her camera has been critical in all of her professions — from owning a graphic arts & advertising business to publishing a monthly newspaper — but it has only been in the past few years that she began to show her photographs as fine art, and very quickly began to garner local and statewide recognition for her photographs, especially those of sacred landscapes and the Four Elements.
As a photographer who focuses her camera mostly on land- scapes, Ms. Michalicek finds bountiful inspiration in Northern Arizona where she feels she has the best of nature — and her muse — in her own backyard.
For the HCCC exhibit, Ms. Michalicek is showcasing four photographs taken in her “backyard at large” at Grand Can- yon, and in Page, Sedona, and Havasu Canyon. Epic Rain Falls captures six misty waterfalls cascading over the canyon edge into the Colorado River just below Glen Canyon Dam.
“I was on my way back from a photo shoot in Zion National Park during heavy downpours in September 2013, and as I drove onto the bridge that goes over Glen Canyon Dam, I noticed a huge chocolate colored waterfall pouring over the edge into the river,” says the artist. “I had all my camera rain gear at the ready, quickly found a place to park, and made my way onto the bridge, knowing that as the rain let up, the flow would subside. As a landscape photographer, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I was in the right place at exactly the right time.”
The photograph entitled Cathedral Pools was taken during a time when Ms. Michalicek would hike down to Cathedral Rock on Oak Creek with her camera every afternoon at sunset. Being one of Sedona’s most frequently photographed sights, Ms. Michalicek was determined to take a photograph of the iconic rock formation that was unlike the countless others she had seen before.
“The colors on the rocks were always aglow as the sun would set,” she remembers. “But, on this day, there were pools of water right under my feet on the slick rock that juts out into the creek. As I took a breath in between shots and waited for the sun to sink a little lower, I noticed the reflection of Cathedral Rock in the pools and began to focus my lens on them. I love the way the reflection of the sky turned the creek blue, and the red rocks were framed perfectly by their reflec- tion in the pools.”
When talking about her art, Ms. Michalicek refers to her artist statement, which she says sums up her work best. “It is with my camera that I share what’s in my heart with the world — the beauty and peace inherent in nature,” it reads.
“Nothing is more inspiring to me than a sunset that sings; nothing more peaceful than the sound of a stream cascading over rocks that are rounded and smoothed by the flow. My imagination is fired up by the shadows I see reflected on the walls of a canyon, and life feels balanced when clouds shift and shape themselves against a cobalt blue sky.”
Through October 12, Ms. Michalicek’s paintings (in con- junction with work by Flagstaff painters, Sandy Thybony & Janeece Henes) can be found at their joint Art of nature ex- hibit at Brandy’s restaurant. Ms. Michalicek is also one of 70 juried artists selected to be featured in the night Visions V exhibit running through October 29 at Coconino Center for the Arts, where she will be showing the appropriately themed Mars, Spica and the Libra Full Moon Eclipse which she took near Sedona’s Cathedral Rock as the Earth’s shadow crossed over the moon. To view more of Ms. Michalicek’s work, visit RawElementsPhotography.com
Also presenting at the HCCC Z House Gallery exhibition is fused glass artist Mack Davis of Cobre Glass Designs, who will be showing his one of a kind “wave plate,” a shallow, taupe dish instilled with white wavelike patterns and irides- cent blue and gold accents.
Fusing glass is a 24-hour process that involves heating pieces of glass in a kiln to upwards of 1400 degrees, letting it cool, and then re-heating it again so the glass drapes, or slumps, over a mold to attain the desired shape.
Mr. Davis makes both functional and decorative glass, in- cluding a lattice, floral and petal series. Recently, the artist has branched out in a new direction and is experimenting with mixing glass and metal in framed art pieces crafted out of embellished copper and fused dichroic glass, all of which are created out of 70% recycled materials. His framed art piece G-day can be found at the Artists’ Coalition of flag- staff Gifts & Gallery; and another, called StarFire, at Flagstaff’s Olive Oil Traders.
“I strive to make sure my glass is unique and to continue to improve on the pieces I have made in the past,” says Mr. Davis. “Not to duplicate them, but to improve my creativity. I do what I do because it brings me pleasure to create. My
glass is unique in that each piece is different in some form. It never ceases to amaze me what can be done with glass in a kiln. I find it a very fascinating media and my interest in it increases every day. I find it rewarding when I can create a piece of glass art while being challenged to make it as perfect as I possibly can.”
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, watercolorist Cathe- rine Sickafoose has been making art since her mother gave her a set of oil paints when she was 10 years old. Having lived most of her adult life in Arizona, raising a family and her ca- reer as a Registered Nurse took precedence until a newfound love for watercolor brought her back to the studio.
Since then, Ms. Sickafoose has become known for her trans- parent watercolors, a technique that utilizes the white of the paper rather than white paint with glazed transparent water- colors to create her soft, yet vibrant representations of land- scapes and florals. Working in her home studio, she paints from either still life compositions or her own photographs.
“By observing the details in everyday surroundings, I find a wealth of ideas,” she says. “From the smallest of sweet peas on my garden trellis, and the rhythm of color in the Northland wayside, to the soaring San Francisco Peaks.”
For the HCCC exhibit Ms. Sickafoose will be showing an as- sortment of four landscapes and still lifes that provide a well- rounded sense of the artist’s subject matter and style. Scattered Aspen Gold was inspired by a photo she took of dew moistened aspen leaves on the forest floor while hiking Flagstaff’s Hart Prairie Trail; October Snow depicts the same area from a much broader perspective after an early snowfall. Sunday Dinner Bouquet is an example of her still life work, the model for which she composed using a ceramic vase from fellow Z House artist Dina Barnese’s “Garden Setting” series and wildflowers from the Northland wayside. Finally, Ms. Sickafoose is showing her sunflower composition, With Sunshiny Faces, which was chosen for a juried show of Watercolor West, an International Transpar- ent Watercolor Society in Brea, California.
Other artists representing Z House Gallery in the HCCC ex- hibit and rounding out the variety of mediums on display are Dwaina Brown and her belts and bracelets that incorporate natural stones and beads; Beth Hunter’s hand turned pens; landscape photography by Dudley Bacon; intricate, decorative tatted lacework by Dena Servis; Z House Gallery founder Dina Barnese’s pottery; handmade jewelry by Shayla Servis and Carole Southwick; and wearable fabric art by Cheri Zamora.
A selection of work by Z House Gallery artists are showcased at NAU’s High Country Conference Center through October 27 at 201 W. Butler Avenue in Flagstaff. The center is open 9AM- 5PM Monday-Friday. Z House Gallery & Boutique is located at 2320 E. Route 66 in Flagstaff and open Thursday-Saturday 11AM-7PM and Sunday from 12-4PM. zhousegallery.com
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